Je suis allé au Lyon aujourd'hui

Lyon was the destination for today, on this cold and windy Saturday. The sun was promising, but I knew enough to bring my warm, Canadian, down vest. It took an hour and fifteen minutes to get to the second biggest city in France, where my host family and I would take our guided tour of Vieux Lyon (Old Lyon).
As we arrived at noon, we parked the car alongside the street adjacent to the river, and ate our picnic lunch in the car. An idea I thought would be terrible, turned out to be very pleasant. I happily at my sandwich, yoghurt, and cookies as Anita placed Bounty bars in front of me. I saved one for later.
We met our tour group - a group of people who work for the same agency as Anita my host mom - in front of a large cathedral, which we would spend 45 minutes in. The tour started at 1:30 PM, and ended at 6:30 PM. It was a walking tour, in French, of historical details about Vieux Lyon. After a good hour or so, my mind was fully finished with translating historical French facts, and I was fully finished with any sort of attention span I might have had in the beginning. I was happy to be seeing Lyon, but not happy at all with the tour. I'm not a fan of tour groups.
It reminded me vididly of the previous week, when Nick - my friend from New Zealand - and I had paid to go on a walking, guided tour of Chambery. It was the same situation, all in French, and filled with historical facts. This is a fine concept, as long as it's interesting, and has certain time restrictions. Nick and I were interested in the promise of getting to see the famous Chateau de Ducs du Savoie, which by the way never ended up happening. What we were shown for THREE HOURS were various sets of dimly lit stairs, dating back from the 11th century until the present. WOW. Yawn. After about 30 sets of stairs that were hidden in corridors, courtyards, people's apartment buildings, and behind big, wooden doors, Nick and I could help ourselves no longer...we ran away. As our tour group went straight, we dodged left, and ran down the street, away from that boring, boring, tour.
The Lyon tour that I participated in today was just the same. Although, I didn't have the chance to run away. I can officially say I have seen every staircase in Lyon, France. Why are the French SO fascinated by staircases? It baffles my mind...I have no answer for this odd obsession.
The tour, as all things in France have been (school, vacations, tours, shopping), was way to long. 3 hours (or more, I didn't finish it!) for the tour of Chambery, 5 hours for the tour of Lyon, 10 hours per day for school - I have but one thing to say: The French don't know when to end things. France is the party guest, that you can't get to leave.