Giants, and Puppets, and Clowns! Oh, My!

France scares me sometimes. I love France, but there are a whole lot of bizarre things here. This weekend in Lyon, all of my worst fears seemed to be following me around, but despite all that, I had a great trip. Here's what you missed:

Scary, tall, white people on stilts that gave you menacing looks as you walked by. There were a whole bunch of them, and they were kind of like mimes. Didn't talk. Just stared at you and acted creepy.

Scary, white puppets. I don't know what in the world prompted a person to make these, but whoever did was seriously demented. Like, a thousand times more demented than Tim Burton. I spent an hour in a museum staring at marionette puppets with their beady little eyes staring me right back. It didn't comfort me that they were in glass boxes, either. It was kind of like walking through one of those fun houses where you jump a little at every twist and turn.

Scary clowns. To be more elaborate, a troupe of clowns that seemed to be stalking me for the day. I saw them at several places throughout Lyon, and I started getting suspicious. They were happy. Too happy. They also looked quite confused and often just stood around staring at the buildings around them for several minutes at a time. I think they were plotting. I mean, come on, what else do clowns do?

So that was pretty much all my creepy moments in Lyon. However, it was enough for me to worry about nightmares the next day. But, all in all, I had a really wonderful time in Lyon. I went with a Rotary family who was very nice, and we stayed at their daughter's apartment. There was lots of good food and sight-seeing, and it was nice to be in a bigger city for a while. 

The one really noticeable change during my weekend in Lyon was the weather. It was freezing and rainy, and for the first time, it felt like late fall. I was bundled up in my not-so-warm clothes with chills running down my back all weekend long. However, when I came back to Privas at the end of the weekend, the weather was back to being sunny and in the 80s, and considering it's only an hour and a half car ride to Lyon, it feels like there shouldn't be that much of a difference. There seems to be this sunny protective bubble around Privas because the weather is almost always perfect here. It's actually kind of funny - my family always boasts about Ardèche being the best region in France. They tell me all about the great things that are here; the history and the sights, the food and the weather. It's common knowledge to all the Ardéchois that every other region in France pales in comparison to home. And I must add that I'm starting to agree with them.