lion lyon lion

hello!
it is 8:11 here in lyon, france. i've been up since about 5:50. why you ask? well our hotel room doesn't have air conditioning and that's not so conducive to sleep in the summertime. brady's not having any problems. i went out for a nice run and then went to the bakery and fruit stand, so im munchin on some bread. mmmmMM. today's france's national holiday. me and brady were originally planning on heading to lucerne today, but how cool would it be to be in france for their national holiday?! plus, lyon is absolutely gorgeous. it is very under-the-radar. we got here, and everyone was so friendly. i'm not sure if it's easier for me to see the friendliness in people because i have brady here or if it's because they're nicer. yeah, so we got out the train station in lyon and then took the metro, then we went looking for a hotel. every street was a mini masterpiece. so gorgeous. we happened upon this bar that had electro djs and they drew us a map and everything for how to get to a hotel. the hotel they had in mind doesn't exist anymore, but the thought was nice and we went back last night to see the djs! it was so fun.

hyeres was AMAZING. i could live there. everyone loved me and brady and after walking around the first night, everyone recognized us the second! we went to this bar to watch the world cup game and i was rooting for spain and the whole bar was too, except brady. and then spain won, so the guy gave brady his drink free as a sympathy gift! at the suggestion of the front desk people at our hotel (run by the family...either the wife or the husband is at the front desk, the cat prances around, and the little boy hangs out there too), we went to the neighboring island called portoquelles (something like that). it was AMAZING. we packed a picnic lunch and went to the beach and it was so relaxing. hahah except when we were in the water and a seagull attacked our food and brady ran out the water to chase it away and the people next to us were just watching and taking pictures. the little birdie ate our bread and got salad dressing all over the towel. it was funny. we walked around the little town and heard some more of the jazz musicians (there was a jazz festival there). it was greeeaaaat. oooh but when we got back to the hotel we had to explain that the key broke (we left out the detail that it was when we were trying to use it to open the wine bottle....we can't afford a wine opener. haha) it wasn't a big deal and they were really nice. oooh and also in hyeres, brady saw a record shop so we went in and the owner lived in the shop and they were having a birthday party for his friend and they were already drunk so they gave us 2 free records! and we just chilled and talked to them for a while and listened to music and tried their moonshine and we took pictures with their american flag. haha that was great. alright well instead of writing about my adventures im gonna go initiate another!
a bientot!
chelsea