Lyon the Lion

  

I, II. Overlooking Lyon, At the basilica.

III, IV. French Thanksgiving 1 and 2.

I might like Lyon even better than Paris, which is saying a lot a lot a lot. The public bike system is through the roof amazing. For €1.50 I get an unlimited bike pass for the week. There are terminals all over the city. You check out a bike, you go, you put the bike a way. All day long, all night long. Public biking systems have flopped in a lot of US cities because people are destructive assholes. Not here.

Lyon was once a Roman city. It has two rivers, the Rhone and the Soane, both beautiful. It has an ancient basilica on a hill (with a view of the city I cannot begin to describe just now), and the ruins of a Roman ampitheatre, and an astrological clock that is by far the most impressive man-made thing I've ever seen in person (if I ever see a spaceship I will get back to you). The clock runs until the year 2019. (I guess we all blow up after that). It gives you the time, the date, Lyon's relation to the stars in any season, and important holidays.

After escaping the wreckage of my attempts at French farm life, Lyon is sunny, a safety net of urbanity. I'm staying with my dear old friend, Vittoria. We rode the bus together in Kindergarten, she was one of my first friends in life, and now she is living here, teaching English. Highlights: chesnut ice cream and blueberry sorbet, dancing to MJ at a boat bar. We got a whole crowd of shy French kids to play a reverse version of the human knot that we made up on the spot. It was one of those incredible moments: the bar was quiet except for me and Vittoria acting out (not drunk, just happy). Everyone was glancing at us shyly from their tables, and by the end of the night the whole bar was on their feet. Francois, Vittoria's cousin, who was visiting from the south, looked at my delighted, astonished face, and said, "You're thinking something like this would never happen in the US. But this is not France, it's the situation, it's the moment and the people and the circumstance." Anything can happen, anywhere. And anybody can be family, and any place can be home.

 

V. Dressed as "Vitamin AB" at a "combat the swine flu!" costume party.

VI. Ready for some honest to goodness French Champagne!