Lyon

Lyon, Lyon, Lyon...
It reminds me a bit of San Francisco, a little bit gritty, and beautiful in a very urban way. ---rivers---graffiti --- huge glorious buildings. It's a mix of the typical French - with smaller streets paved with stones, huge old churches, outdoor cafes everywhere, and the newer parts of the city with larger roads, more modern buildings and the first shopping mall I've seen since I've been in France. The weather is perfect. hot days and warm nights. Finally I can wear dresses without freezing.
Thomas - a friend from school who lives and works in Lyon at a newspaper - met me at the train station and promptly took me up the hill in a tram to see a huge church and a spectacular view of the city and the Alps. He was leaving the next day on vacation, and he wanted to make sure that I saw it. We went to a restaurant, Koodeta, with his boss, Pierre, and met the chef who was to do a demonstration of molecular cuisine for me, and they would videotape it to post on their website. It turned out that the demo had to happen the next day, so, exhausted, I headed to the place where I was to stay.
My host, Greg, had dinner ready when I arrived. He's someone who really needs to live in New York. He loves le rock, and parties like a rock star most nights of the week. He lives down the street from an Asian-themed café (Café Indo) where he and his friends hang out. We went there that night and he introduced me to everybody. Many of his friends are also couchsurfers. I think they told me that they have the most CSers of any city in France. It was nice to meet some of his female friends - it's difficult to meet other women here. I have tried, but there seems to be a cultural difference between us. Women generally don't talk to other women outside their group of friends. I am looking forward to a time when I can have better conversations in French. I can only express a small part of what I think and feel, and that weighs on me.

Friday morning, I met up with Thomas and we went back to the restaurant for the demo. The chef du cuisine, Olivier, at 25, is one of the youngest in his position in France. He's been cooking for 10 years. He has great talent. He and the pastry chef each had me participate in putting together a simple dish, one was puréed melon dropped into what I think was a solution of agar agar and water, coating the blob of melon and solidifying it into a small egg-shaped sphere. That with a strip of serrano ham, some fried basil and a skewer made out of a tube of port, was the most unique twist on an appetizer that I've ever seen. The desserts were two: one was simple - strawberries and black summer truffle sliced thin and fanned out on a plate with vanilla bean olive oil. Had the strawberries been the small super-sweet kind I found at the farmer's market, it would have been fantastic. But summer truffles are not the rich, heady truffles that I've had in the past, so I was a little disappointed in the dish. I think it's great to have some desserts on the menu without sugar, but it has to be done right. The second dessert, however, was absolutely delicious. He had diced strawberries and house-cured olives (cured with only water, so they weren't salty) and on top of that placed a small scoop of bubble gum flavored ice cream. Not just any bubble gum though. There is a kind here called Malabar, that everyone knows. Thomas told me that he had it as a child, and that this ice cream tasted just like it. The combination sounds strange, but it was actually really good. The whole experience of the demonstration was a bit frustrating because my French is so limited, I couldn't really say what I thought, nor could I ask the questions I wanted to ask; and with the molecular cooking, they used processes that, when explained, exceeded greatly my French vocabulary. (Thomas would have interpreted, but I felt like that would have been too time consuming.) Overall, I am glad that I went. Chef Olivier asked if I'd come back to eat dinner, and I said yes, for Saturday night.

Greg and his friends were planning a party/BBQ for Friday night, for all the couchsurfers in the area, and I spent Friday with two of them, Van and Lilian, shopping for supplies for the party. I ended up spending the better part of my time in Lyon with them. Van was born in Vietnam, but has lived in France for many years. He's a darling. He is one of those people who brings friends together, always planning events and such. Very sweet and generous. He seems to know everyone and it is clear that everyone loves him. He's traveled a lot. Lilian is more reserved, and a lovely person to spend time with. He strikes me as an artist who hasn't yet embraced his medium. Also well traveled, he has a friend's art hanging around his flat in lieu of a gallery, as he tries to create a market for it. He told me stories of Burma, where he met his artist-friend, and we exchanged colloquialisms and grammar lessons. The language barrier was most frustrating here. If I remembered Spanish, it would have been great, as he speaks it fluently, but alas, my Spanish is worse than my French at this point.

We had a lovely afternoon Friday...long lunch at Van's beautiful flat, drinking wine and listening to music, getting stuff ready. The party was a blast. About 50 people showed up to the spot by the lake they had chosen. We had a sound system and we rotated ipods, the guys barbequed, I put together a salad. There were people from all over. There were 3 guys named Guillaume.
Van had bought tea light candles and once the sun went down they were lit and placed around the site. It was fantastic. One friend, T.T. (pronounced te te) who runs the Café Indo, was hysterically funny. He had drunk quite a bit, and he was walking around, snapping photos at random with the camera at arms length. More than once he came over to where some of us were sitting and collapsed into people's laps, giggling and saying "you're a boy!, you're a girl!" I should have gotten it on video, it was priceless. Afterwards some of us went out to a club on the river - there are lots of boats that serve as nightclubs and cafés - and some others went to one of the Guillaume's houses. That's where I lost Greg. Apparently, he partied at Guillaume's house all night, got up at 11am, and with a group of people, went to the nearest pub to party all day Saturday. After that, he partied somewhere else all of Saturday night. He came back to his apartment at 5:30 Sunday morning with another CSer guy from the BBQ, laughing and carrying on, but I was so tired I didn't get up to say hi. When I got up to go to the farmer's market with Lilian on Sunday morning, the two of them were passed out in Greg's room in pile of clothes, blankets and empty beer bottles. Like I said, Greg parties like a rock star.

In the mean time I had a good time hanging out with Lilian and Van. They both spoke a mix of English and French with me, but I have to admit, I often abandoned French in my desire for good conversation. Both of them speak better English than my French - though I've improved quite a bit - so it was easy for me to be lazy. The three of us had dinner at Koodeta Saturday night. We asked that Olivier send out whatever he wanted us to have, and the food was fantastic. It was tapas-style in long ceramic dishes. We had chevre-basil ravioli, tiny fried fish with lemon, dorado sashimi, seared scallops with parmesan "essence" which was like carbonated parmesan cream or something. It was very good. We also drank some variations on the mojito. The one I had was exactly like a regular mojito, except instead of using sparkling water, they used beer. Again, something that sounds odd, but was tasty. The service was great, and the bartenders flipped bottles around à la Tom Cruise in that movie - what was it? Cocktail? I never saw that movie, but you get the gist... before we could say that we were too full for dessert, they told us it was coming. And although we were all stuffed, we were glad because the desserts were so good. We each were given a platter with three small desserts: Ice cream flavored like a strawberry candy (another French childhood favorite,) a barely-sweet concoction of geléed peaches with ginger foam, and house-made nougat with fresh nectarine. We all agreed that the nougat was divine, and that all three were perfectly matched. If you haven't had nougat in France, you must. It's not like the stuff in American candy bars, not by a long shot. After that, Olivier came out with some tiny glasses of a rum concoction and had some conversation with us. As I suspected, Olivier made sure that we were only charged for only a fraction of what we ate, and then Van paid the bill without letting us contribute. I am awed by the generosity of the people I have met here. [Side note for Matthew: many of the staff members from the Cosmopolitan were there at Koodeta partying that night, but I asked, and none of them had been at the Cosmo when you were there.)
Sunday was beautiful, the farmer's markets, where I heard the only loud French people outside of the bars, had stalls of art- some very good painters - books, and the usual crafts, and row after row of perfect produce, cheeses, and many more things that you can really only find here. We had lunch at the top of a neighborhood called the Croix Russe, a neighborhood of artisans and several Middle Eastern hangouts. Apparently it's being gentrified, and has changed quite a bit in the last few years. I had a sausage that's a Lyonnaise specialty. Need I say that it was fantastic? It was a perfect day.
I am so grateful to have had such good people taking care of me here. The only thing I didn't do was get to the Cosmopolitan , the bar where my friend Matthew used to work. I guess I'll have to go back!

Right now I'm on the train to Marseilles, and somewhere nearby, there is sagebrush burning, or something that smells like burning sage. The windows of our car are open - thankfully, as the weather is warm - and I'm enjoying the smells as well as the sights. My host, Melanie is picking me up at the train station, does life get any better?
the photos: two of the CS BBQ, the whole group by day and night, Lyon from the river and me with Van and Lilian at Koodeta.