Okay, I’m writing this from a cafe in Lyon. I know, I’m supposed to tell you everything every step of the way, but things were really stressful so I just kept all my thoughts in a little folder for you guys.
Alright, here we go. I flew from Cincinnati to Paris, which was nice. I don’t like the connecting flight life. Though, for all my money saving friends, sometimes it is a lot cheaper (moins cher) to have connecting flights. My boyfriend used STA travel; he had a fright from Cincinnati to New York, then to Paris. Once there we had a train to Lyon. This is where the first travel hiccup starts.
It wasn’t really a problem, more like we expected a problem and it didn’t happen. For those of you flying into Paris there are a two different airports. Charles De Gaulle is the big one that you will most likely fly into. There is a train station there that can take you to Paris or, for me and Johnny, to Lyon (and other cities). I wanted to book the train later in the day incase something happened with out flights, which is good travel advice and you guys should take it. We took it, we booked the train for like 11:40 or something, even though our flights got in before eight in the morning. That way let’s say my flight takes off late and I don’t get in until nine. What if my bag was lost. What if we didn’t know where the train station was–just all the things you could think of going wrong basically, that’s why.
But nothing went wrong. My flight got in early. Johnny’s was on time. It was all fine. We just had a four hour wait. In a boring train station. Train stations seemed exciting when I saw pictures of them on tumblr, but they are actually not. The most exciting thing was that I told a few people the coffee machine was broken. “Excuse-moi, c’est cassé,” to like four people. Oh well.
We get on the train to Lyon, we both sleep a bit. Also, guys, please look at the map and consider where you are staying a public transportation. Our train came into the Part-Dieu train station, even though we live closest to Perrache. So we took a tram to Perrache, and then from there we took a bus (C19) to the airbnb. So in just over 24 hours, we used about every form of transportation possible. It was exhausting. Which is why I am writing this so many days later.
That first day, Saturday, we basically slept, went and ate pizza, and then slept. Sunday we got up early and went into the city. To get to our french classes, we take a bus and then the Metro. Before we went into the city, I had looked everything up, so we just had to find where exactly we went from Perrache to get on the Metro. It was very simple; Lyon has a great metro system. I think we thought we explored a lot that day, but in fact we did not. This city is massive. Especially when you’re staying just outside the city, it feels so massive.
We did start checking things off my list of cool places in Lyon. We went to La Boite de Cafe, currently the cafe with the best espresso, and also a bagel shop called Best Bagels and holy crap they have the best bagels. Okay so maybe this is just my limited knowledge of bagels in the world, but I think it’s a little weird that there are so many America-themed bagel/sandwich shops in Europe when 1) the bagels here are so much better than in the US, and 2) I don’t even think I’ve seen a dedicated bagel/sandwich shop back home. That could just be because I am in the wrong cities, but seriously this place rocks. At the end of this Lyon series I’ll be sure to put together a list of my favorites from the city.
À tout!
Alyssa in France 