Fireplace and Firewood

My Russian friend has a fireplace and last week when a bunch of our classmates got together we used his fireplace for the first time. Since we didn't have any firewood nearby we took to burning IKEA cardboard boxes he had lying around his house. Surprisingly they lasted long enough to burn for about two hours or so. Really nice warm heat, and no smoke (must be clean chimney).

I stopped by the large Carrefour supermarket near my school this evening to see if they had firewood, or bois de chauffage (I didn't know what the word was in French so I had no luck finding it at another shopping center last Saturday). And they did! 10kg bag for 4,50 EUR. I'm going to take it over (not all at once! no need to break my back) the next time we have a party there. I don't mind donating the wood. Anything that generates heat. My paltry electric oil heater works well, but when you turn it off at night ... cold feet!

Busy Saturday Evening -- Concert and Soccer Game

Saturday evening, I heard Emmanuel Ax play the Brahms Piano Concerto in D-minor in Lyon's Auditorium de Lyon concert hall. An odd rice-bowl shaped concert hall, I sat right in the middle of the 1st level balcony, which overlooks the stage and is right in the middle of the hall. Not the best acoustics (at some times the solo piano was drowned out by the sound of the orchestra), nor any chance to see Ax's fingerwork, but it was good to see my first classical concert in a while. (Actually, come to think of it, my last classical concert was to a (get this) Ax performance in Amsterdam's Concertgebouw concert hall (last-minute returns, and a seat in the middle; also Queen Beatrix was there ... I think).

After the match I dashed over to the Metro B line and hustled up to Gerland for the second half of the match between OL and Nice. OL's been having trouble against its recent competition: two defeats and two losses, after having built up a 16? 20? point lead over the second-place team. OL sits way on top, and the teams in second to sixth place are separated by maybe five points.

On this night, restless supporters hoped for an easy victory over cellar-dweller Nice, but even an equalizer by recently acquired striker Milan Baros was not enough to give them the victory. So desperate are the crowd for a victory that some of the ultra-fans got to sticking this poster on the railings at the stadium: show them that we, the "12th player" support them by holding up your OL scarves and cheering them.

Big game on the 31st between them and arch-rival Olympique Marseille in the quarterfinals of the Coupe de France, a national championship. Now if they lose this one ...

Blogger now officially integrated into google

Blogger has been a part of the google stable of companies for some time now but they've finally forced me to integrate my account with their system, meaning I had to match up my g-mail account with my blogger log-in.

While technically, it's supposed to simplify my life by allowing me to make one stop and check mail and update a blog, I kind of liked keeping mail and blog separate.

Carrefour, 3 for 2 (Part Two!)

I've been waiting for this promotion, which I mentioned in an earlier posting, where Carrefour gives you "3 for 2" (trois pour deux), that is, 3 items for the price of 2.

In the past I've bought tomato sauce and toilet paper during such a promotion, but today's catch was brie cheese (200g, 0,94 EUR ($1.30 US) -- total 1,88 EUR ($2.60 US) for three! chunks), and my favorite olive-lemon soap (1,00 EUR for two, so total: 2,00 EUR for three packs).

There are many other deals being advertised but I limited myself to these two. After all, how much toilet paper can one person use in a half a year? (LOL)

Pork, Thai-style, Chili Peppers and Basil Leaves

This really doesn't have much to do with Lyon, but during one of my shopping trips to Chinatown, I picked up a jar of Thai sauce made with chili peppers, garlic and basil. I used the leftover pork from the other night's Jaegerschnitzel and fried it with fresh white mushrooms and onions.

I ate half of it last night as a side dish to the soup I had already made and served with pasta. Then I ate the other half, today, with grated emmental cheese as an open-faced sandwich.

Spicy thai pork with Swiss cheese on toasted brown bread! I suppose California Pizza Kitchen has already been there, done that ... (sob sob)

Snow!

Fortunately, we haven't suffered from the strong winds that our neighbors to the North have, but we are having our first true cold spell of the winter now. I was in Paris and it was freezing, but this morning when I woke up -- snow-covered roofs! Love it!

I remember this is the sort of thing that happened when I was living in Japan. I 'd go to bed, then wake up the next morning, with buildings and roads covered in several inches of snow.

NO idea about how the roads are. Will get an early start today. And besides I'm leaving the driving up to designated driver "TCL" (the bus company).

Hope the snow piles up!

Recycling Glass

Lyon is somewhere halfway between Japan and the US when it comes to recycling -- there's an awareness that something has to be done, but when it actually comes to doing it ...

Trash is picked up twice a week and there are separate containers for recyclables -- cans, PET bottles, papers. Oddly enough, unlike Japan there are not separate containers for these recyclables, so that means cans are thrown in along with newspapers and empty water bottles. Which means that eventually somebody will have to sort through the recyclables somewhere down the line. Or is that the point? To ensure employment for these sorters? What a far cry from the multi-tiered trash cans in Germany which implore you to separate your recyclables among glass, metal, paper and burnables. Even Japan does the same.

When I went to throw away my oyster-shell filled trash, somebody had already beaten me to the dumpsters and filled up all useable space with their Christmas tree. Ouch! Next time I'll have to dump my garbage on the same day they come to pick up the trash. Fortunately I found a nook and cranny for my garbage bag and fit it inside the dumpster.

But glass bottles are a different matter. I'd noticed that the recycling bins in my apartment complex said "no glass bottles" and upon further reading, I read that the Grand Lyon asks people not to put bottles in which the other recyclables because they shatter and make the process of sorting difficult, if not dangerous. So where are we supposed to take them?

Turns out that there are what they call silos à verre, which are literally "glass receptacles," at points spread out the community. Unfortunately, nobody told me where they were so I had to stop by the local town hall and ask them where these silos were. They didn't know offhand and had to track down a photocopied list of the locations. You would figure, if they really want people to use the silos, then they would publicize the locations better so that people could find them with ease!

Turns out that there's a silo about a 100m from my apartment building, which was not too far for me to take the yogurt and wine bottles which had been piling up in my kitchen. You plop the bottles in the crack (see photo) and voila! you're fulfilled your duty to recycle.

Carrefour Shopping Bag: "Our Gesture for the Environment"

In response to the question, so how big are the shopping bags there, well, of course there are plastic bags that are no different from the plastic shopping bags you find in Japan or the U.S. But some stores here, in order to reduce shopping bag waste, have encouraged customers to buy reusable shopping bags, exchangeable for new ones during their entire lifetime.

For sixty Euro cents (80 cents US) you buy a sturdy cloth? paper? synthetic? bag which holds quite a lot and you present it at the checkout each time you check out. Then you fill it up yourself on your way out. (No bag boys, sorry.)

You'll find people carrying these attractive bags not only in the supermarkets. They're enough of a size such that people will even use them to carry other bulky items or even for laundry. Now that's getting good mileage out of these bags!

And each time they wear out (the handle breaks or a hole forms) you can exchange it or a new one, free of charge. Excellent system.

---

Note:
I have laid a pen on the bag to give you an idea of the size of the bag. It really does hold a lot.

Oysters, Finally.

After walking past the crates of oysters for the past few months, I finally relented and decided that I would try my hand at shucking oysters even though I have only eaten them out of a package or bottle up to now. Not that I didn't know where they came from: I'd seen restaurant workers shuck oysters outside Paris and Lyon restaurants many times before. But up until yesterday I had thought it too difficult to do myself.

At Carrefour, I got up the nerve to ask the guy working in the seafood section, what one needed when shucking oysters. Like did you need a special knife or some sort of blunt instrument. To which he replied, no, you just need a couteau à huitres, a oyster knife, which they sell in the knife section just over there.

I hesitated a bit before deciding to go for it: I mean, twenty-four oysters cost only 6 EUR, but the knife costs 5,60 EUR?

But I plopped down the money and set to cutting open the oysters after I got back from the supermarket. Naturally I butchered the first few ones (one can search how to shuck oysters on the Internet, but believe me you really can't get the hang of it until you actually start shucking them yourself, firsthand!), but the last two or three I got through very nicely, sliding the knife into the shell and prying open the shell glued tightly shut by the oyster membranes. It's not easy work, and I'll appreciate even more now the work of the guys out in the cold (yes, they work the oyster bar even in the dead of winter!)

As for how I cooked them: made a simple broth from hon-dashi, and cooked them lighly like a fondue. After what happened to ( ) this summer, no matter how fresh the oysters might have seemed, no worth taking chances with raw oysters ...! (Well, one day I might try it, with wine and vinegar nearby to help digest it!)

Who you say is Segolene?

I'm not sure myself, but Segolene Royal is the Socialist party's candidate for the presidency this spring. Like Hillary Clinton, she remains an enigma -- no one is really sure what her policies are -- but is still one of the favorites to run in the upcoming election.

I took a photo of this photo on a party window as I was taking my friend over to the Alliance Francaise to sign up for classes. The campaigns haven't started yet, but already people are staking out their positions. Segolene or Sarkozy ... or even Chirac, who might run for a (hard to believe!) third term.

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LINKS

Wikipedia profile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9gol%C3%A8ne_Royal

Olympique Lyonnais makes it into the final of the Coupe de la Ligue, 1-0

OL defeated Le Mans yesterday in the Coupe de la Ligue, which is a tournament among the teams in the first division, the Ligue 1. It's a smaller tournament and doesn't involve teams from all over the nation, as the much more prestigious "Coupe de France" cup, where semi-professional teams sometimes score upsets over the larger and much stronger professional teams.

Nevertheless, OL booked its place in the final, in the Stade de France in Paris (I was there! it's a huge stadium, where they played the final of the 1998 World Cup) sometime in late March, on an early score by (this is an odd one) one of their defenders, Eric Abidal.

Overall, the excellent teamwork and the relentless attack by OL kept Le Mans on edge all night and they had only a few chances to score, compared to the number of opportunities that OL was able to make (but not convert).

For me, it was also a treat to see Le Mans, as there was a Japanese player, Daisuke Matsui, who's been playing with them as a first-stringer for two and a half years now. Watching his speed and his consistency on the left side made me wonder why the Japanese national team coach Zico left him out of the team for the World Cup final, but it just so happens that often the players who "deserve" to be picked sometimes don't get chosen because of personality differences or just bad luck.

It was nice to see my first game of the year for OL. It was freezing up there in the nosebleed seats but I'm gonna stick it out for the rest of the season. Allez OL! (= "OL, ganbare!")

===

Although it looks like a fairly full stadium there was only about 28,000 present there and there were gaping holes in the lower rows and in the visitors seats on the south side of the stadium.

The white flags that you see in the second picture were compliments of the club and have the OL logo on them. At the beginning of the game, to see these maybe 10,000 people waving white OL flags ....!

Jaegerschnitzel: well, not quite, but a reasonable facsimile?

Yesterday my Russian colleague and I had dinner together and we used a Knorr mix packet that I brought back from my Christmas market weekend in Germany. The package said "Jaegerschnitzel" (a kind of cutlet served with gravy), but I figured that it would taste just as good with pre-cut pork (cut neatly into cubes, 500g (slightly more than one pound), 2,99 EUR ($4) and fresh mushrooms (500g / 1,50 EUR (about $2)).

The package mix is so convenient: you season and brown the pork. Chop the onions and mushrooms and sautee them. Add the mix, simmer, then finally add back the cooked pork (or whatever meat you decide -- if you happen to have thin pork or veal cutlets on hand, all the better!). It was a nice meal and (oddly enough) my friend had German-style brot dark bread on hand and it matched perfectly!

Then the odd realization: you can find French restaurants in Germany, but in this part of France, you can't find a Germany restaurant easily (if such places exist). And yet there must be ethnically German French citizens, or French citizens who spent some time in Germany and love the food, or whatever ... but if you want to eat such food, you have no choice but to make it yourself?

Here's a recipe, although I can't vouch for how it tastes.
http://recipesbycindy.homestead.com/Jagerschnitzel.html

easy jet comes to lyon!

easyjet already flies to london luton, but it seems that they will be starting flights to rome and madrid in the middle of february. Their inaugural flights are still quite expensive -- anywhere from 25 EUR to 60 EUR -- but if you look a few days beyond that, like on the 19th or 20th of February, one-way fares drop to 12 EUR! Of couse once you add in taxes and stuff the one-way fare comes out to about 30 or 40 EUR one way, but still that's pretty cheap!

Right now, Lyon is losing business to Marseille, Nice, and Geneva, which have become hubs for low-cost carriers like Ryanair and easyjet. But there's word that they will soon open up a new minimal service terminal catering to the low-cost airlines sometime this year ...

Since I have a friend from the Alliance Francaise studying in Madrid now and since I haven't been back to Rome and the Vatican since Dad's run-in with the calculator (!) I think it would be nice to jet off for the weekend, take in the scenery ... better than shutting myself in and studying all weekend. No, just kidding! But it's a shame to be here in Europe, and not being able to go places, travel.

Check out the fares and flights at the site below (this is not a paid endorsement ...)

http://www.easyjet.com/en/book/index.asp

Bus backlog near Place des Terreaux

An odd thing happened today (I'm not sure if you can see the photo here).

Someone left their van double-parked at the corner of Place des Terreaux, causing one of the TCL buses to get stuck in the middle of the intersection, unable to turn into the bus lane. People were honking like crazy (irony: honking doesn't change anything), and traffic stalled for about five minutes. Buses (the long white vehicles in the snapshot) were lined up, and imagine, too, the cars (filled with irate drivers) stuck behind the buses.

I just had to laugh. As polite as most of the French are, some among them have no common sense and can leave their camion (delivery van) in the middle of a lane stalling traffic. Not just today, but sometimes on the way to school as well, our bus driver honks at cars left in the middle of the street so that the driver can jump out to get cigarettes or whatever at a local corner store. But why get angry? It doesn't change anything. Better to laugh.

Soldes Day 1 / Big Discounts, as Promised

I started out just before 10 AM to hit the OL "braderie" tent bargain sale up near Stade Gerland, where the OL play their games. Even before 10 AM maybe 50 people were lined up outside hoping to get their hands on the bargains inside. Oddly enough, I had stumbled upon this bargain sale during the summer sales, not realizing that this was OL's version of the soldes, or bargains sales, during which they mark down merchandise from previous years: outdated (but wearable) T-shirts, sweatshirts and pants, notebooks and binders, towels, and the like. I picked up notebooks (0,50 EUR) and binders (0,50 EUR), and also a DVD (3,00 EUR) of their 2004-2005 season, so that I can see what they were like two seasons ago (during which they also won the French League 1 Championship). The photos here are of the tent and the long lines of customers (only two people at the register!)

After that, I went back to Part Dieu shopping center, where stores plastered their windows with Soldes -- up to 50% off! Even Gap, even the large department store Galeries Lafayette, was in on the act, with tons of merchandise marked down. Given the mild weather that we've been having so far, sales of winter clothing have been dismal (apparently), leading to severe markdowns even from the first days of the sales.

In some ways, I would expect the winter soldes bargain sale season to be even bigger than the summer one, given the fact it comes right after Christmas, when retailers load up their inventory for the gift-giving season. They have to unload the stocks before the new season, and if everyone is selling 30-50% on the first day of sales, they have no choice but to follow.

What good luck for customers!

I held off on any large-scale purchases, but around dinnertime I went to the shoe store in my district, where shoes were on sale for about 50% off their suggested retail (whether that was the original price they had retailed for, I can't be sure). But there were some beautiful shoes, city shoes, for 25 EUR ($32.50). I picked up a pair of black dress shoes to use for recruiting season (to go with my suits). There were a couple of other casual street shoes but I held off until I see what I can find at other stores downtown.

Everyone seems genuinely happy to be carrying bags of stuff back from their shopping trips. Printemps bags scream "Soldes, Soldes, Soldes!)

Lucky break after punishing finance class: couscous lunch!

I'm halfway through the first class in my second term: finance. It's really interesting, as it builds on the work we did in the last semester involving both accounting and introductory finance (concepts of working capital, cash flows, company valuation, and so on.) But the pace is mercurial and we're pushing, pushing ahead, even though, maybe half of the class is lost or falling behind. I'm one of the laggards myself but I'm reading the manual closely to prep myself for each class.

What a relief then to have a lunch of comfort food, of couscous and merguez sausages, which I came to love this summer. When I arrived at the cafeteria, close to 1 PM, they were running out of vegetables to serve on the couscous and were on the last of their merguez sausages! How lucky, then, to have had two sausages and a plateful of vegetables and couscous (it's a rice like dish made from durum, the material used to make spaghetti).

Fortunately, I don't have afternoon classes this semester, so I was able to take my time during lunch, then have a coffee from the vending machine (30 centimes for an espresso made from coffee beans, supposedly) and read the financial newspapers that arrive at EM Lyon each morning.

I left early to take a nap at home and will start studying again in a few minutes.

Truthfully, I"m planning to get to sleep early, for tomorrow's bargain sales. Soldes, the winter bargain sales, are arriving tomorrow. Starting at 8AM some of the larger department stores will open for business. The OL (Olympique Lyonnais) store is also discounting overstocked merchandise, and I hope to find a nice T-shirt or scarf there for half of the usual price.

Will post the results in next blog entry! 30% off? 50% off? Shoppers' delight. (Oh, yes, no classes tomorrow, coincidentally. Sales do run until mid-February, but who knows what will be left then?)

Sunday Market: Guess What They Had?

Today was Sunday, market day, and as usual I swept in at 1 o'clock, as vendors started packing up to go back. Desperate to sell, they were offering plates of bell peppers, tomatoes, and green beans for 1 EUR a piece. Much more than I can use, but maybe four to five times less than what I would pay at the super market. That big a difference, really.

But as with the chestnuts, oysters, and mushrooms, the merchandise changes with each passing week, and this week, they were offering ... lichees? They must be something the French associate with winter, but there they were, bucketloads of them (and truth be told, I saw them at Carrefour yesterday, too).

Before you get your hopes up, they are NOT made in France, but imported from (get this) Madagascar. Shipped here all the way from off the southeastern coast of Africa. What a journey!

Protest, not Camp-Out, at Place Bellecour / Not Your Average Brand of French Activism

While the salaried workers go on strike, a different bunch of people are protesting the plight of the sans-abri, or homeless, by staging a sit-in (or is it camp-in?) at Place Bellecour, on the end opposite the giant ferris wheel and skating rink.

Calling themselves the "Children of Don Quixote," the group has set up tents manned by volunteers despite the 40 degrees Farenheit (5 degrees Celsius) weather outside. Food and blankets are brought in by volunteers, and evidently to defend the tents against hooligans or gangs people stand guard outside in shifts.

I can't say that the movement itself is supported by a lot of French, but it's certainly a visible protest, meant to stick in people's eyes to remind them of the problem of the homeless. In Paris, they've holed up near the picturesque St. Martin's canal. They've got people's attention for the moment, but how long can they keep this up?

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LINK

(in French)

http://www.lesenfantsdedonquichotte.com/

Skating Rink and Giant Ferris Wheel!? in Place Bellecour

Right in the center of Lyon is Place Bellecour, and for a limited time, the Ville de Lyon (City of Lyon) is sponsoring an ice skating rink for its citizens. For 4 EUR you can skate (although I'm not sure if the price of the skates is included in this). My Russian colleague, who played ice hockey back in Moscow, looked really excited about the rink and joked, "hey, how come none of these French guys know how to skate?"

Not far from this outdoor rink is a giant-sized ferris wheel. And by that, I mean, not just your ordinary EK Fernandez ferris wheel, I mean, seven or eight stories high -- that's clear above many of the buildings in that area. From the top (yes, you know, I just love heights, yeah, right), could see over the Rhone river all the buildings lit up at night, could see the top of the Opera house, could see the Fourviere cathedral all lit up on the nearby cliff, could see the entirety of Place Bellecour (something one never gets to see).

It was a nice view, although, I'd have to say nothing will ever compare to the London Eye ferris wheel looking out over London from its clear plastic domes.

Homemade Soup for these Wintry Days / Jan 2007

A colleague suggested that I try making vegetable soup using materials that I had in my pantry, and so I tried putting something together using my reserve of potatoes, onions and garlic, and a couple purchases of carrots and bacon.

I can't call it a minestrone or any other sort of fancy name, so I will just go ahead and call it "vegetable soup," although in actuality it has bacon inside it. It was surprisingly easy to make (3L of it), and after two bowls I was so full I decided to save the last half for tomorrow night's dinner. It's filling and of course nutritious. All the vegetables you could ask for, in one bowl.

I know that celery and cabbage can also be added, as well as kidney beans or other kinds of beans, but since I had none of these on hand I made do with what I had.

Good luck should you try making it yourself. Be sure not to overseason the soup with soup stock or bouillon cubes -- you can always add salt or additional bouillon cubes later on if the soup is not salty enough for your tastes.

++++++++++++++++++++
VEGETABLE SOUP

Bacon 200g (1/2 lb), diced or cut into small strips
One large onion or 2 small onions, diced or cut into small pieces
Garlic -- one large clove, pressed

Soup stock
Carrots -- 3 medium-sized, diced or cut into small pieces
Potatoes -- 3 medium-sized, diced or cut into small pieces
Canned tomatoes -- 1 can (400g or 425 ml), diced tomatoes (NOT pureed)

1. Stir fry bacon together with onion and garlic until browned
2. In a separate pot, prepare soup stock (beef bones, chicken broth, etc.). Since I don't have the luxury of time, I used bouillon cubes, 3 cubes for 1L.
3. Boil carrots and potatoes in soup stock.
4. Add bacon and onion/garlic.
5. Add canned tomatoes. Simmer and season to taste.

Makes about 3L, or about 4 cafe au lait cup-sized servings of VERY chunky soup.

And the other highlight of the day: IKEA!

It was quite a roller coaster day today as I made my way from downtown Lyon to the outskirts of Greater Lyon, near Lyon-Bron airport, in an area called Porte des Alpes. Here, they have a large centre commercial with a humongous Auchan hypermarche (it puts the Ecully Carrefour to shame), various electronic stores and sporting goods outlets, ... and then IKEA.

I initially went to IKEA planning to buy a light bulb for the torchiere that I have in my house, but I ended up (and this is their marketing genius) with a brand new directors chair (like the one A. has in his work room), a bottle of Blossa Glogg (I know it sounds strange, it's basically Swedish mulled (spiced) wine, a shower squeegee (Dad, don't worry, I got one for you), and two IKEA carry-all bags (which I use for putting my dirty laundry and to carry my laundry to the laundrymat).

Since I sit in the chair for hours at a time, I decided to spend the money on a good chair so that my back wouldn't get tired. There was a regular kind of chair for 20 EUR (the kind that you find in offices, the one with a small back and no armrests), but I went all-out and bought one with a comfortable seat, armrests and all. (Putting it together was a challenge, but Ikea makes their goods so easy to put together.)

Carrying it home on the bus and the metro was another story, but that's the great thing about having bus lines running right in front of your apartment. I was able to backtrack catching the bus from the shopping center to a metro station, taking a metro back to the city center, then take a bus that dropped me and the 20-lb. chair set right in front of my apartment. And yes, Dad, I did bend my knees.

_____

LINKS:

1. Chair: IKEA, Moses, 39,95 EUR

http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?topcategoryId=15600&catalogId=10103&storeId=4&productId=17041&langId=-2&categoryId=15879&chosenPartNumber=20059711

(The Moses one isn't listed, but just to give you an idea, I've posted a link to this chair. The one I bought was 10 EUR less).

2. BLOSSA Vinglögg mulled wine
http://www.blossa.se/eng/main.asp

Vaccinations in France

Today, the 2nd, it's back to business as usual in France (where as in Japan, usually businesses started getting started on about the 4th or so), and I took advantage of the New Year's break to get some vaccination work done at the public health center near Guillotiere station, where I used to get off to go to the Alliance Francaise for language study.

There, I went in and had my information put into the computer, manually (suprising that all these different branches of the health department and the housing department don't communicate with each other), then I went to wait in another room for the doctor to call me.

Actually the woman who welcomed me into her room for the vaccination might have been the doctor, but the person who actually administered the vaccination was a Vietnamese guy who spoke French with an accent I could barely understand. He told me to lift up my shirt sleeve so he could inject the vaccines, that much I understood.

In a few minutes it was all over and I'll have to come back in a month to have it done. It didn't hurt so much then but now, more than 12 hours later, it feels like the sort of muscle pain you get from throwing a baseball too many times in one day. Tightness and stiffness. But nothing that I can't put up with.

Explanation of Photo: Red card is an immunization card (not a real card, just a photocopy. Inside, under the category tetanus/diptheria/polio they stick the seal from the immunization shot to the card, and the doctor signs it.

Fauteil+Tribune (One Seat + One Stand) Promotion: Classical Concert and Soccer Match for only 20 EUR!

Just a couple weeks ago, OL (Olympique Lyonnais) announced on its home page that it would be offering, in conjunction with the Lyon Philharmonic, tickets to one classical concert and one soccer game for the unbelievable price of ... 20 EUR! ($26 US). Not the price for one, but for both!

Apparently this is the third year that they've had this promotion, in order to increase interest on both ends, to get people who go to concerts but not to matches to make it out to Stade Gerland to root for the OL in the wintry cold, and vice versa.

But what a value: the seats are in the first balcony (and not the second balcony) and the artist is none other than Emmanuel Ax, whom I saw with Dad play in Amsterdam some years ago. (Perhaps it was the year 2000? We had one night in Amsterdam, that time, and hoping for a last-minute return, went to the Concertgebouw, and got in, what super luck!)

Likewise, the seats for the OL games are in the left lower stands, which means that it is closer to the pitch. Since I'm always watching in the upper north end zone, it'll be a nice change of scenery and will be for me a different view of the game.