We've, once again, boarded a train and are heading further inland of France. This time we've left Lyon and are on our way to Dijon. Andreina asked me what I knew about Dijon and I confessed that I only knew it was the birthplace of its mustard namesake. I choose to stop here for the same reasons I wanted to stop in Lyon: to break up the long train ride from the bottom of France to the top, to see a few French cities outside of the popular Paris, and to perhaps vacation a time in France without going bankrupt as the Parisian prices would have me do!
Lyon was a fabulous city, for all it's mystery. It's apparently the second largest city in France after Paris, a fact I didn't learn until consulting my travel information on the train ride to it. The train ride was very, very nice; for the majority of the time, Andreina and I had a small area to ourselves of four seats, and we both dozed on and off again during the long trip. The first bit we cruised alongside the coast, getting our last views of the big waters before hitting Marseille and turning north. After that, it was glimpses of long farmland stretches, rows of vineyards and cornfields, the watery cliffs giving way to flatlands, then to humps of hills, and finally conceding to majestic mountains. We rode on the TGV train and it picked up speed after Marseille, zooming past the mountains like a ferocious bullet. Occasionally, like a pleasant surprise, I could pick out an old castle among the lush green woods that carpeted the lands, the bricks hiding slyly in the trees. Occasionally, the old castles perched proudly up at the top of the mountainous reigns and for one I was so in awe of its appearance that I shook Andreina awake to make sure she didn't miss the spectacle.
We flew over fields and rivers and finally slid gracefully into the Lyon Part Dieu station.
Sometimes I think Andreina forgets that this, too, is my first time visiting the country, visiting this particular city, stepping off the train onto this particular platform. I've gotten very good at remembering my directions, at backtracking, at inferring which is the way I should go from just a handful of hints and clues in a foreign city; but as we left the train station, she asks me where the metro stop is, which way we should go, what the hotel looks like. I've said over and that I have no idea, that I don't know any more than she does. Se still asks me though and I still have to figure it out.
We got out of the station and made it to the metro stop nearest by, getting to a map of the underground. I'm pretty sure we both looked fairly helpless, starring up and trying to trace out where the metro stop near our hotel was, because a Frenchmen in uniform came up and very nicely helped us out. He provided us with a map of the metro stops and drew large arrows on it to make sure there would be no possible way we could get lost on the short trip to our hotel. In no time at all, we'd made it to our room and threw down our bags, sinking onto the very soft bed.
It was only about 4pm and we'd both slept on the train, but I could tell Andreina was running very low on enthusiasm and I knew we both stank like traveling bums, so when I suggested we just relax for the afternoon and perhaps go out later for an after-dinner treat, she was only too eager to agree with me -- making sure that I knew, of course, that she was more than willing to go out and walk around, buuuuuuut, if I waaaanted to, she was just fine with taking a break from traveling for a night.
It helped that, for the first time since leaving Milan, we had easily accessible wifi from our hotel room. You'll be able to tell from the bursts of Facebook activity on Andreina's profile!
Our room had a hairdryer, which made Andreina almost scream for joy. It also had a TV but the only English channel was the BBC. We left it on the music video station for the most part since more than half the music they played was music from the states. I was mildly repelled when I caught a few episodes of TV shows I recognized (Rome, 30 Rock, Yes Dear) dubbed over to French -- it just didn't sit right with me!
We both washed nearly all our clothes and left them out to dry, then relaxed in our rooms for the rest of the night, taking scouring hot showers, wrapping ourselves up in hotel towels, feeling very luxurious indeed! Andreina had given up on my solid shampoo in Nice to buy regular liquid shampoo and conditioner; she let me use some and it felt like heaven! We also got in contact with home to arrange a Skype session for the early morning our time.
I fell asleep sometime just before midnight, setting an alarm for 1:45am. I woke up just before it went off to find Andreina finally settling in and dozing on her side of the bed. She only got a few minutes of sleep before I woke up her to Skype; afterwards, I laughed and asked her why she waited until just then to go to bed.
After the call home, we both went back to sleep and slept deeply until late in the morning. Getting up, we were both lazy and very slow; the noon bells were ringing by the time we made it outside to start exploring the city.
Lyon has very steep hills, at least on the way from and the way back to our part of the city. I noticed it on the way down and Andreina started groaning about it on the way back up hours later. Our hotel was about 1/2 mile north of the city center, which itself is about 1/2 mile north of the central train station; I headed us in the direction of the train station, which was a good walk through the center of the village to where wee could buy our tickets for the next day.
Lyon changed slowly as we walked south. Near our hotel, it was more suburban, more open air and wider streets with a few small shopping areas. A little further south, the streets suddenly become very narrow and steep, with the shops lining almost all the buildings -- little salons, mini markets, random "Pain" stores (French for bread ^_^). Then, at the edge of the center itself, the narrow streets widen out quickly and it's like we'd been transported to the 16th street mall from the middle of a back alley.
The first place we stopped at was a bread shop to get some breakfast baguettes. Andreina's French slipped a little here. I think she's a little leery of using it in front of so many native speakers. Our next stop was at a Starbucks. It was a very delicious taste of home :)
We walked further and further south, passing cute clothing stores and all the other types of markets you'd expect to find in a city shopping district. We stopped at one place to examine their sunglasses since Andreina is missing her Aviators like crazy. It had nothing and we walked on, stopping at another a short distance later. The shop owner was a lady who came outside to be of assistance, staring on at us while Andreina browsed her sunglasses selection. I was initially very discomforted, having this strange lady watching our backs the entire time like we were petty thieves; however, when Andreina picked out a pair for purchase, the lady very pleasantly asked about our trip plans, complimented us about our "beautiful vacation," and even gave the both of us free little stuffed zebras with magnetic feet! So stare on French lady! If it means free toys for me, I don't mind!
Our walk took us past a red metal lion figure meant to represent Lyon, past a huge sculpture of a bundle of roses, past a few old magnificent churches, and through a very pleasant garden with two enormous statues before we made it to the train station. The French man who helped us s also extremely kind and even advised us on a card I hadn't known of before that would have saved Andreina some 60% off her train fare. I wish I'd known of it before, but it wouldn't have been worth buying now. If she goes back to France for a study abroad program, though, it'll come in handy.
Afterwards, we headed to the other side of the river to visit a cathedral I'd read about, St. Jean's. It's free to enter, something that most large cathedrals have stopped being (I'm looking at you, Westminster Abbey and your bust of Shakespeare!!) and also had a large astronomical clock that was supposed to go off every hour, displaying dancing angel figurines. We got there a little after 2:30pm and Andreina agreed to wait the half hour before the clock struck.
It was extremely peaceful inside the cathedral. You could hear the whispers of other people's hushed conversations over the background music of singing chapel boys, and every so often you'd hear the rude sound of someone taking a picture ("click click"), but there was just a humming energy of peace throughout the stone walls, beaming through the painted glass windows. I don't know much about Catholicism aside from the bloody history we are taught during our World History classes, so it was with a sort of curious wonder that I watched the crowds of people reverently cross themselves, kiss their knuckles, make short prayerful bows to pictures and statues.
Andreina and I sat in the front rows of the pews as we waited. We talked quietly about our friends, about our disappointments, about many things that need to be talked about in a quiet voice and in a protected place.
3pm rolled around and no bells rang from the astronomical clock. We waited a few minutes and I declared the thing broken, so we walked on.
We left the cathedral and turned west to walk up some hundred steps to the top of a hill. Andreina jokingly mentioned that she had noticed we hadn't hiked for a few days and that the hill must be made to make up for that! There was a rose garden that we lazily passed through, enjoying the absolutely beautiful view at the top.
On the other side of the hill was a museum for the ancient Roman ruins that Lyon was founded on, butting up against a hill with the traditional Roman walls sitting so terribly out of place in the midst of a modern French town. It looked like someone had decided to make a cool Roman playground, not that those things had somehow managed to exist from around 15BC. The whole thing was just out of place. Thursdays, however, were when the museum was open free to the public so we wandered through it for a bit. After being in Athens and Rome, it was a pretty lame experience for me, and Andreina said from the start that she thought museums were boring, so we didn't spend too long there before leaving.
We started making our way back towards the general direction of our hotel. We stopped in a few places like scavengers searching for food, but didn't get anything until about the fourth store and even then it was just liquids to quench our thirst. We spotted a supermarket near our hotel and went to drop off the orange juice we'd gotten in our rooms before heading back out to get real dinner. But the supermarket didn't have anything we wanted so we went back to a pizza place we'd originally passed. Its prices seemed a little high, so we went further back to another pizza place even further away, whose prices turned out to be even higher! I suggested a return to the first pizza place. I should probably add that we'd gone up and down a pretty significant hill a few times at this point, first on the way down and back from our walk in the city, and then back to the pizza place. Poor Andreina chugged along behind me and even tried to race me up the hill despite the fact that she was wearing a skirt. She'll make big deal about how she started to win, but I'd like to make it clear that while she started winning, I finished first.
We made it back to the first pizza place but the lady apparently had no idea what I meant when I said we wanted pizza to go and left us standing outside, pizza-less. I was too proud to try and make her understand (I thought I could sense a bit of disdain from her because I was talking in English, and no one who makes me feel disdained is going to get my money!) so we began wandering aimlessly in the area near our hotel, trying to spot a place for food. Andreina started getting very quiet again, which is a sign that she's hungry and tired and not happy, so I attempted some terrible French and asked a random shop owner if there was any pizza nearby, getting only a sharp shake of the head for an answer. We walked on, she got quieter and quieter, but then -- like a miracle! -- a pizzeria sign lit up across the street and our stomachs were saved.
I made Andreina chose the pizza to order since I'd been making pretty much every decision up to that point, on where to go and what to eat and when to head back to the hotel, and she was undeniably upset at having that responsibility. She narrowed the choices down to two pizzas and I made the final decision, then it was time to sit and wait. I felt very foolish, because the price of this pizza was just as much if not more than either of the other two places we'd stopped at, meaning that we'd wasted about an hour of time just walking around, and I felt like Andreina was thinking the same thing and holding it against me. However, when it came time to pay...our pizza cost us about 6€ less than either of us were expecting, making it significantly cheaper than the other places. Ah ha haha!! Triumph!!! And I felt instantly justified in all our walking!
We made it back to our hotel in short order, got in our luxurious showers for the night, and ate our pizza in happiness, watching a few episodes of a dubbed 30 Rock. Andreina went to sleep before me but she told me this morning how she couldn't sleep well at all and had spent some time in the bathroom where she could have the lights on without waking me up. I suspect it has a lot to do with the lovesick symptoms she's been displaying this whole trip over her new interest, Adrian.
This morning, our train was scheduled to depart at 10:22am. I woke up around 8:40 and woke Andreina up at 9. By the time 9:30 rolled around, I started stressing about the time. We made it out of our room and checked out of the hotel by 9:50 and hummed through the metro stops, getting to the one by the train station by 10:15. When I realized what time it was, I told Andreina "We have five minutes to get there," and we both started running like mad women through the metro and up to the train station! Huffing and puffing, we burst into the station and crazily searched the posted schedules only to find that our train had been delayed by ten minutes and they hadn't even decided what platform it would arrive to yet!
We waited quietly until finally the train arrived and we pushed our way through the gathered crowd, getting a pair of seats with large windows.
Andreina's dozing again. Outside, it's heavily cloudy, reminding me of my Venetian days when all the world was gray. I hope it doesn't rain on our single day in Dijon, and that the sun in shining in Strasbourg. My weather forecast tells me it is not, but those things can be wrong! The countryside whirs by again, well-groomed and green farmlands with patches of forest like decorative sprinklings. We make stops at other villages, smaller towns in between Lyon and Dijon; from my spot on the train, these other small villages look like sleepy little hamlets, empty of the vigor that comes with a big city but filled instead with the peaceful tranquility that comes from being surrounded by natural beauty. Our cart is mostly empty now and I wonder if we two are the only ones going to Dijon.
When we left the Cinque Terre and made our way through Nice, I mentioned to Andreina how it felt as if the five little villages were only a hazy dream now that we were in the midst of a big city, that their quiet peacefulness seemed impossible while you were being honked at or dodging buses. I'm hoping that Dijon will prove a short return to the quiet of a smaller city and the further along our train goes, the more hopeful I become! After this, Strasbourg is supposed to be a big city as well, and what else do I need to mention but their names to know how big Paris and London are! We'll see. Maybe Dijon will turn out to be nothing but a single mustard bar ^_^
Location:Train to Dijon, France
I really want to go driving through just open countryside now. That is one thing that I took advantage of while I was living in Idaho. I love driving past open fields and seeing nothing but plants growing with the occasional house or herd of cows thrown in. It just be me and Chama, driving through the open roads and maybe we'll invite John along for the ride. :)
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