The hitchhiking race was only the start of a suite of wunderful fun days. In Lyon, staying with Julien, Elsy and Laurent in Casa Bonitawas a good choice. Not being treated like a guest but rather as a member of the house and already knowing the city eventually allowed me to relax a bit, just doing nothing without feeling like I had to acutally do something.

I found out that Mardy, a girl I met at the hitchhikers' gathering in Macedonia last summer, was in Lyon at the time, so I contacted her in order to meet up. She invited me to come over to her place, a squat in Villeurbanne, for a Sunday lunch. What a big surprise when discoverint that Elsy and Julien where going there as well!
So we passed a beautiful afternoon in their courtyard, enjoying delicious thai curry, before hanging out at river banks of the Rhone, playing some amazingly funny games involving various animal sounds.

It was that very day, I decided that I had to stay until at least Thursday, since Julien was organising a Loup-Garou night on Wednesday. The following days go by calmly, hanging out in town or at home, cooking, eating, chatting. One day, we decided to go on a little hitch-daytrip to eventually visit Chatte, one of the places nobody made it to during the hitchhiking race. It turned out to be a really nice tour around some pleasant areas of the departement Isère.

After 5 days in Lyon, I finally made it to Montpellier on Thursday. I am supposed to meet Marie, the girl I was hitchhiking with during the race, but as she was late, I went to see Miguel, who's just living next to her place. He welcomed me with a bottle of wine and some chocolate. Marie joined us later, followed by another bottle of wine and some cheese. What else could you ask for?!

At Marie's place, again, I felt like being her flatmate rather than like a guest. Just like home. Anyway, the main reason for going to Montpellier was a cardboard boat race taking place at a nearby lake. Yes, exactly. Several teams were building boats made of cardboard, (almost) nothing else. It was great fun, and I'm sorry to say that I don't have any pictures of it.

Andrei, the organizer of that event (as well as of the HH race btw), is pretty active in finding new challenges. Therefore, I had the chance to join another great event the following day - a pancake contest. Well, there could be a worse way to start a sunny Sunday than being fed various kinds of pancakes from all over the world (i.e. Breton, German, Maroccain, Canadien, Algerian). And the day continued in the same perfect manner.... There, at Andrei's and Pauline's place, I met Kaja, a German girl travelling with her bike, and she was about to cycle to the beach. Lucky me, her friend had a spare bike, so off we went, to the beach and INTO the mediterranean!