The Final Days

Following my day trip to Pérouges, I knew I didn't have much time left in Lyon. There was only a weekend left, then three days of classes, a day of finals, and a long journey home! On Saturday, I decided to make the most of the day by heading out around 10 a.m. to the Musée d'Art Contemporain or MAC, the contemporary art museum. The museum is located in the north of the city, above the Parc de la Tête d'Or. It's not super accessible: I took a bus to Perrache, the métro up to the park, and finally walked around part of the park. I could have taken another bus, but I wasn't sure of the timing and figured it would take about as long to walk. It was a really nice day, so I enjoyed the tree-lined path and the sun, away from the sounds of the city.

I expected the MAC to be a modern art museum, but it was actually several interactive installations. The museum had been closed for most of the semester while the next exhibits were installed, which is why I saved this museum for so long. The first installation was about the interactions of art and environment, with artists digitally reimagining extinct species or creating futuristic landscapes; a lot of it was very research- and technology-based. My favorite of the artworks was a series of blown-glass lights that were programmed to blink in a pattern based on the movements of bees as you walked between them. The second installation was about art and technology.

After the museum, I walked through Vieux Lyon for the final time. I bought two bags of praline for Mom and got a crème de marron waffle for lunch. Then I went to Gentle Cat, a cat café that one of the year-long students loved (and frequented so often the staff actually gave her a discount). I studied for exams with a virgin mojito, across from a sleeping gray cat.

On Sunday, Vanessa and I went out for a pizza lunch. Monday and Tuesday, it was back to class, where we finished our final unit and did some review. My culture lecture's exam was on Tuesday. It was forty multiple choice questions in an hour, but I finished in about ten minutes, as I'd studied enough to know the majority of the answers right away. I also knew I could get eight questions wrong and still get the grade I wanted; I counted up the questions I wasn't 100% sure about, and there were only eight of those, so I felt confident turning it in. On Wednesday, I gave my final presentation in my literature class and turned in my essay.

Thursday was the major exam day. We were supposed to show up to the exam room at 7:45 a.m. for the 8:00 a.m. exams. The proctors were ready for us at 8:10. The hour and a half-long written comprehension exam was first, and I finished in about forty-five minutes even though I really took my time. The oral comprehension came next. Those exams are always five minutes to read the questions, the first listen to the ten-minute recording, five minutes to write answers, the second listen, and five minutes to finish your answers. The recording was pretty difficult, so I didn't hear most of the answers on the first listen, and I wanted to verify that what I had heard was correct before writing it down. I only wrote down about two or three answers. Then in the final five minutes (or rather six, since they gave us an extra minute), there wasn't really enough time to complete the answers, so I couldn't write all the details or reread my answers. I at least wrote something for every question, while other students didn't get a chance to write anything for some of the questions. I've never had that problem on oral exams before, so it must have been this specific recording; still, it seems like a structural problem with the way the exam is administered, so I hope they change the format/timing in the future. That was definitely my worst exam, though I'm holding out hope that I still passed it. We had a twenty minute break. Then there was the written production exam. You got a choice of two subjects and had to write a 320-word essay. I chose the environmental subject and wrote about 500 words, which I hope I don't get penalized for. It still went well.

A couple weeks before in Travel Writing, we had done a brief translation from La Vie Nue by Joël Vernet. I fell in love with the writing and had the idea of translating the prose-poem novella for my senior honors thesis for the French major. It turned out the book was nearly impossible to find: it wasn't available at libraries or online, and bookstores didn't carry it in stock. If I had ordered it online, it wouldn't have come before I had to leave; ordering it to the US would have cost at least $30, ridiculous for a 54-page book. My Travel Writing professor was able to place an expedited order at Le bal des ardents, a novelty and vintage bookstore. It was supposed to come either the Friday before finals or the Monday of finals week. I still hadn't heard anything by Wednesday, so I went in to ask about it. They told me the order would arrive later that afternoon; I returned after class, and it still hadn't come in. The owner of the store was able to tell me the distributer hadn't filled the order, but they would call Thursday morning about it. I resigned myself to it not coming in time and having to buy it expensively at home. But after the morning exams on Thursday, I got the email that it was in! I went back, and as I walked in, an employee recognized me and said, "We've got your book."

I got a grilled cheese at Maison Deschamps outside of the St. Paul campus and worked on the puzzle outside the USAC office, which I was determined to finish. I thought my oral production exam was at 4:20 p.m., but it was actually at 14:20 or 2:30 p.m.; I had read the schedule wrong. Thankfully, I checked far enough in advance to realize my mistake, so I didn't miss the exam! This was the exam I was most worried about. You randomly drew two subjects, decided which to keep, and had twenty minutes of preparation. I chose the subject about conserving water and wrote as detailed of an outline as I had time for. After twenty minutes, I was called into the exam room. We'd been told there would be a "jury" of professors doing the evaluation, so I had imaged two or three of them sitting behind a table and myself standing in front of them. Instead, it was one professor sitting on one side of the table and me sitting on the other side. She asked how I was doing, and I said I was nervous. She said there was no reason to be and let me put a timer on my phone. We had to talk for seven to ten minutes continually, then answer the professor's questions. I talked clearly and without too much hesitation for eight and half minutes. The professor said I did a really good job and had spoken clearly. She pointed out a couple of recurring grammar mistakes I had committed so I knew how to avoid them in the future. She only asked me about three or four questions, and they were all pretty simple. The four exams and eight quizzes will average out for the final grade, so I definitely passed. Now it's a matter of just how well I did and what the French grades will become when transferred back to Iowa.

I finished the puzzle and chatted with Stefano and Olga for a while before saying goodbye. Bryanna and I went to a bookstore to get a book her sister wanted, then walked to Place Bellecour for the final time. We needed to kill some time before going to Brasserie Georges, where most of our group planned to meet for dinner. We hadn't been able to get a reservation because we'd decided to go out too late, but one of the year-longs said they usually didn't start getting dinner customers until after 6:00 p.m. Bryanna and I went in at 5:30, and I asked for a table for fifteen at 6:00. Then we waited at the bar for the others to arrive. I had the menu Confluence, which included an appetizer, entrée, and dessert. My appetizer was Dubarry cream soup with truffled ham. My entrée was muslin of pike with tarragon, leaf spinach, and shellfish coulis sauce, which was similar to quenelles. For dessert, I had île flottante (floating island) with praline; île flottante is meringue floating in crème anglaise and has been featured twice in Great British Baking Show technicals.

Dinner ended around 8:45 p.m. We said goodbye to those of us who weren't on the group flight the next day. I went home and finished packing some last essentials like my toothbrush. My host mom had already left for the weekend, but we'd said goodbye Wednesday evening. As I went to sleep--for a very, very short time--I couldn't believe it was actually over.