We Arrive in Lyon

This blog will be the musings of one American who has the opportunity to spend a year living in Lyon, France pretty much just for the hell of it.  While I am certainly no expert on Lyon now, I hope to be somewhat more so after a full year of living here – but obviously that will take some time – something like a year.

Some introduction:  I am Doug Price, a senior citizen, who through last semester was an Adjunct Professor of Mathematics at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, VA.  I hope to return to teaching at the end of my year in Lyon.  My wife is Lorraine, an interior designer, who actually got us started on this adventure.  We have two sons, David and Evan, who have lived in California for many years. 

Evan and his California family decided that they would like to come back to the East coast, where Evan grew up.  Evan, with sweetheart Gina and her two teenage children, Tyler and Amber, were visiting us in February, 2019, and discussing where they might want to live in Virginia.  The discussion was about Northern Virginia, where Evan has many friends, but there was a lot uncertainty about where to live, given that neither Evan nor Gina knew at the time where they might be working. 

Lorraine who doesn’t filter much between her brain and her mouth, suggested that they all come and live in our house in Williamsburg for a year and we will go and live in France.  They loved the idea, and by the time I returned from my singing gig at Williamsburg Presbyterian Church Lorraine just had to convince me that it was the right thing to do.  I’m really a pushover, so here we are in Lyon.

We arrived late in the day, August 2, 2019.  Lorraine had arranged a pickup at the airport in Lyon because we had a year’s worth of luggage and feared that an Uber or Lyft car might be too small to take us and ours in.  Our two-bedroom (upstairs), one-bath (downstairs) apartment, which Lorraine had spent weeks researching and renting, was lovely, just as the online pictures portrayed.  It is in a 19^th century building, on the fourth floor (which is, of course, the fifth floor in American). It has an elevator which we found is condemned from floor 0 (ground) to floor one, so you always walk up at least that far.  More about the elevator later.

It is now August 11, and we have spent most of this time just getting oriented to our new country/city/ neighborhood.  We have arranged French telephone plans – which do not allow calls to the US – bought various essentials for living here at the local Monoprix, which is just around the corner, and found a few good cafés/bars for “un pitcher de vin”.  I’ve cooked dinner mostly and we have yet to go out to a restaurant for more than lunch.  Since Lyon is the gastronomic capital of France, that will change quickly.

We have mostly stayed in our neighborhood, the Croix Rousse, which is where the Canuts, the silk weavers, lived and worked from the 16^th to the 18^th century.  It is fabulous!  Absolutely everyone we have encountered has been extremely friendly, helpful, and appreciative of our frequently feeble attempts to speak their language.  The locals have on several occasions stopped to ask if we need assistance just because we probably looked perplexed. 

There will be more next time about the morning croissants, which are to die for, and the daily markets, which are fabulous, and unbelievable to an American.