He Ain't Lyon

 Oh yeah! I said I was going to catch y'all up on my spring break week in France, and now I am going to actually do that thing! After the jump: Lyon, and the unending stupidity of Pat. First, tho, a video with a song dedicated to uhhh anybody who might be going through some extremely complicated times this year not that I'm thinking of anybody in particular! Hey let's all have breakfast!

This trip got off to a rocky start inasmuch as I failed to depart for it. Here's the thing: as I approached O'Hare, with a flight to Portugal in my pocket (and a connecting flight from there to Lyon) I pulled up the departure information, and was surprised to see Terminal 1 listed. "Usually TAP flies out of Terminal 5," I thought, "but maybe because they're in the Star Alliance this is some United codeshare thing." Either way, I was getting there plenty early, having assumed I would need to clear the Precheck-free Terminal 5 security lines, so I was not displeased to scoot through a different security line. I made it with a whopping pile of time to spare, sat down to grade in an empty gate area, and waited for them to post the gate assignment for my flight. And waited. And waited. And, as the time ticked past the "must be in the gate area by X minutes before the flight" deadline, quietly panicked. Sure enough, I double checked, and one of the three confirmation emails I'd received months earlier indicated this WAS a Terminal 5 flight - even though the flight on the boards still showed no gate assignment, and no indication that it wasn't in Terminal 1. The departure time came. It went. The flight... left, and the board never had an assignment posted.

This wasn't great, as it meant I was in Chicago at 11:30 PM in a moment when most of my friends either have babies, day jobs, or have generally stopped being people who are up past 10 PM thanks to post-pandemic homebodyism. I made my way to the blue line, texting my tale of confusion to Chicago pals, and (to my eternal gratitude) got a few folk who miraculously were up and willing to host me on a couch. OK. Good. As my train took me back into the city, I jumped on a frequent flier page and dug around to see if my points could get me to Lyon the next day, to salvage most of the week. I could! It would be a full day of travel, with too many connections, and too many points, but at this point I was too stupid not to commit to it, and I booked it. A quick night's half-sleep and a few friend visits later and I was back at O'Hare, this time smoothly drifting through a Lufthansa flight to Munich and a connection to Lyon. I arrived at my tiny but perfect AirBnB in the old town, with extremely not-terrible views, and slept the sleep of the idiotic.

Hm seems Bad here

And I have to see THIS from my OTHER window? Jail!

After an 18-mile run the following morning, I settled in for my usual much-loved approach: a thing or two I wanted to see or do each day, with lots of aimless wandering and idle peoplewatching in between. This was a mellow trip, deliberately chosen in the midst of a chaotic semester, and it did just the trick.

Bikes, puppets, AND crepes?? Rude of a place to be so pleasant.

 

Lyon is a charming city - a little sleepy but amiable and welcoming. I've always found Paris terribly friendly, likely because I've been there at sleepier times of the year, but I'm told that Lyon is generally a bit less impatient with visitors - which checks out, as its vibe is more business-travel-oriented than touristic, I think. The food was delicious, though I only had one proper meal out, opting instead to pick up food for home or the parks from the various charcuterie, bucherie, traiteurs, fromagerie and boulangerie. The weather was idyllic, and the Croix Rousse was particularly grand as a neighborhood to wander - the kind of spot with a host of independent shops whose owners are eager to talk to you about their work and their city. (I'm thinking here in particular of a microbrewery whose owner has named her beers after feminist authors in an attempt to raise the French awareness of, for example, Maya Angelou, or the proprietor of a tea shop who told me that it took her several years to convince a tea estate she loved to give her their address to discuss carrying their leaves.)

Sometimes it's Enjoyable to be a place

 

A relaxing trip, then, although I have to say (FORESHADOWING) that the single day I spent in Marseille was enough to convince me that that is my jam. More on that soon, but first, let's run out some final images of Lyon, on account of: It's Nice There!

I'll never entirely understand the whole "let's stick our cathedral up on the top of a hill" mentality (see also: universities in New England) but a good hike and a nice building never hurt nobody.

This was probably easy to make, in my opinion.

One thing Lyon has going for it is a truly fantastic sprawling park that I ran through, and later strolled through (twice) on account of how Lovely it was. Give me a bicycle with a basket on it and set me down here for the rest of my days.

Yeah, so, I did a Beaujolais tour and mostly confirmed that Beaujolais can be Interesting, but is still not my jam. Gorgeous countryside, though, and a wonderful guide for a sunny day of tasting some wines and saying things like "this one has more dirt in it" or "I'm guessing this one was squeezed... later... cos it was... hot, probably? Outside?" I'm an oenophile now guys.

Why look at a city at night? It's not going to be very interesting. You could have been playing video games instead, Pat, you IDIOT.