Brad Nguyen Photography

Sunsets from Moody

Theme #139: Sea Side

During the winter of ’05 my brother and I heard reports of hundreds of giant Humboldt squid washing upon the shores of California. We decided to investigate the tidepools of Laguna Beach. We never found the squids.

Weekly Theme Contest

I participate in a Flickr group called Weekly Theme Contest. Each week, there is a theme and the members compete for votes. I’ve never gotten more than one or two votes, but it’s fun to participate anyways. Here are all of my entries along with the theme category listed below.

Dance

Children

Time

Artificial Lights

Purple

Cemetery

Silhouette

Parc de la Tête d’Or

Last week Nicole and I went on a date to Parc de la Tête d’Or (Golden Head Park). The lake held a beautiful azure glow that was difficult to catch on film. This park is one of my favorite things about Lyon.

Nicole Capturing the Pond

Roots and Branches

Snowing Near Lyon

This year has been disappointing in the sense that it hasn’t snowed very much in Lyon. It has been a very mild winter with a lot of rain. I don’t think there has been a single day where I have seen snow stick to the ground in the city center. However, there was one week where it snowed in two different suburbs where I work: Mions and La Tour de Savagny.

Mions at 1:59PM

Mions at 3:17PM

La Tour de Savagny from Afar

La Tour de Savagny from Up Close

O Christmas Tree

Nicole and I found a Christmas Tree branch. We decided to take it home and decorate it into a real Christmas Tree! It’s planted in a jar of bulgar and lentils.

Fête de Lumières 2008

This is the 2008 Lyon Festival of Lights. Though I think that the 2005 version was a little bit more impressive, this year’s festival was still great. I got to see a lot more of it this year. I went out on all four nights instead of just one. Unfortunately, I only had my point-and-shoot the first night when my mini-tripod broke. I really enjoyed the integration of music and other sounds the better integrate guests into the scene.

Please leave a comment and say which photo you like the best. Thanks!

1. On the 8th of December, the people of Lyon leave little candles on their windowsill

2. Latex Gloves Coming Out of a Box

3. Butterflies in a Phone Booth

4. Flying Fish

5. Lights for Sale

6. Silhouettes of Primates

7. A Haunted House Show

8. Outside Hôtel de Ville

9. Lotus Projections

10. A Light Armada

11. Gravestone Light Sabers

12. Beings of Light in a Field

13. Mermaid Through a Port Hole

14. Deep Sea Creatures

15. Hard Rock Skeletons

16. Making Music from Sixty Feet

17. Hôtel Dieu

18. Bellecour Square

19. Fourviere Basilica and St. John Cathedral

20. Riding the Metro for Free!

21. Inside Hôtel de Ville

22. A Carousel of Light

St Martin en Haut

A few weeks ago, one of my coworkers invited me to go on a hike near Lyon. I was very pleased since I generally love hiking. I had no idea how well-organized it would be. It turns out that many small French villages host scenic hikes every year. This one in particularly was orgaznied by the local bicycling club. Basically, they have set up four different routes: 7km, 14km, 21km, and 28km. If you want, you can also pay for a meal ticket. For the 14km hike, the price was 5€ and included 3 meals.

Although there were some elevation gains throughout the hike, most of it was a pleasant stroll through the woods or countryside.

About about an hour, we reached our first pit stop where we were served bread, sausages, sweets, and juice.

Then it was off to some more hiking through the woods.

We eventually stumbled upon some chestnut trees. Nicole and I gathered a little baggy full of them and later had roasted chestnuts for dinner.

Before long, we reached our second pit stop, based out of someone’s garage.

We spent the last our meandering through the countryside.

Though a pleasant stroll, at times it felt like we were in a great marathon, trying to avoid the huge pack behind us.

After about five hours of hiking and resting, we eventually made it back for some satisfying French Onion Soup.

C’est gagné, we did it!

Having lived out of our suitcases for exactly one month, we finally moved into our apartment on Friday, October 10th. Along the way we had stayed with the Aurelie, Christian, and Anna in Nanterre; Isabelle and Alain in Caen; Sara, Seb, and Maya in the Point du Jour neighborhood of Lyon; Céline and Julien on Presqu’ile; and finally Annie and Pierre in Bron.

It’s been a huge relief to finally have a place to put everything. I think our apartment is really nice, but Nicole thinks it looks like an 80′s hotel room. We have wood floors, a seperate bedroom, a washing machine, an oven, a fridge, and a dishwasher. The rent is about 580€ a month which is pretty fair considering how nice it is.

Nicole and I both started working on October 1st. She teaches elementary school kids, while I work with elementary school teachers who need to work on their English skills. My job has been a bit boring, but it’s probably the easiest one in the entire assistants program.

Hopefully, once I get all settled in, I can find a second source of income. 780€ is great when your expenses are only food and rent, but it’s nothing when you want to travel and have credit card bills to pay. The Toussaint holidays are coming up, and I’m itching to travel, but I don’t want to dig myself further into debt until I get my first paycheck.

My brother’s coming to visit on Wednesday.

Everyone else is also invited.

Annie and Pierre

After spending a couple of nights at Celine and Julien’s, we then moved in with one of my French coworkers, Annie. We spent about a week in her daughter’s room.

We stayed with Annie and Pierre until we could finally move into our apartment on October 10.

Having Vietnamese crepes for dinner