Living Lyon

A few weeks ago I heard the sentence “I was almost run over by a bicyclist. I got distracted, looking at someone crossing the road with a cake”.

French cuisine may be good, but French patisserie is incredible

Some days ago, I was waiting in line in front of the prefecture, waiting patiently for my turn in a long line of other immigrants. A croak made us look up, and we met the gaze of dozens of hungry looking crows looking down upon the fools, waiting for bureaucracy to happen.

And after a tiresome week marked by long distance bus transport (because, you know, train strikes), yesterday we went to a small indoor concert. We danced to the catchy tunes of a bare-footed band of white dudes singing in a Caribbean accent and playing some weird mix of jazz and afro-cuban music, using fiddles, guitars, accordions and clarinets. Next to us, a guy in a fedora was bouncing too, holding his basket of bread on top of his slate with cheese and charcuterie.

Maybe I'll get used to these little things that make me smile now, but I’m loving the new world we are living in. Lyon feels clean, safe, and it’s so darn pretty at any time of the day, but especially at night. Especially tonight, that it's so warm. We've been walking by the river, eating ice cream, listening to all the foreign tourists' languages, and watching a few cute couples awkwardly dancing swing to the tunes of 70's hits. It felt nostalgic, like I was on holiday, walking along the beach on an early Summer night in my early teens.

The Basilica of Fourviere is impossible to miss from anywhere in the city.

Ok, I'm not going to lie, adjusting here can be trying at the beginning.

Apartment renting agents require a bank account. Banks want a permanent residence and a phone number. Phone companies won’t give you a contract without a bank account and a permanent address. It is incredibly hard to update your address and phone number after that. The amount and type of documents needed for any given appointment is quite unpredictable. But after all those little hurdles, it's worth it.

The whole city is walkable.

French is harder than I remember it. I studied 8 years in school, but never using it let those French neurons be overwritten with Spanish during my stay in Madrid. So I’m slowing making my way up that learning cliff again.  It doesn't help that my coworkers are both nice and want to practice English. 

Speaking of, I am learning so much about so many things. In my newly expanded industry, I'm no longer the expert, and climbing back out of the pits of my newly found ignorance demands a lot of my spare time.

Pumpkin cream with bacon emulsion.

Maybe a bit prematurely, given my French language proficiency, but I have been taking a long course in French cooking techniques. Those same ones that defined the gold standard for the western culinary world. And yes, French cuisine is very technical, but what I'm learning can be applied to a lot of other cuisines I have been acquainted with in the world. I look forward to using my friends as Guinea pigs. You know who you are.

This was my favorite one so far: scallops with onion compote in filo dough