Les Premières Jours

It’s day 5 here in Lyon, and I’m just starting to get comfortable in my new city. 21 of us brave Penn students have made it here so far, and have managed to get a good sense of the city, the food, and the French people. I’ll address each in turn.

In my last post, I noted that my host family’s house is on the top of one of the main hills of Lyon. When I first got here, that was a wonderful thing, highlighted by the amazing view from my window. However, the challenge is getting to this place. The only way to get into downtown Lyon (except by car) is to descend a massive set of stairs that make “The Exorcist” stairs in DC look miniature in comparison. To get to the University its about a 30-40 minute walk in total, and a metro route is complicated and indirect, so I’m a bit stuck. The highlight of Lyon transportation is the bike system, where you can pick up a velo from anyone of the 350 stations throughout the city and leave it at your final destination; yet, as most of you know, my skills on a bike are quite limited, and with narrow winding streets full of angry drivers, I’m not real anxious to show them off.

But, despite some transportation issues, the city is truly spectacular. Home to not one but two rivers (the Rhone and the Saone), Lyon was the capital of the Roman territory of Gaul back when Ceasar was still cool. A few remnants from that era remain, including a crumbling stone amphitheatre, mainly in my section of the city, dubbed old Lyon. Interspersed throughout the city are many medieval churches, and the center square’s statue of Louis XIV gives some continuity throughout the ages. Otherwise, the streets are narrow (like all of Europe I guess), there are bakeries, cafes, and ice cream shops on every corner (after all, it is the food capital of France), and all the buildings are low to the ground. The city is quite expansive in width, but like Washington, DC and Paris, it has few skyscrapers. Now, in DC and Paris this is done to protect the visual preeminence of such treasures as the Washington Monument and the Eiffel Tour. Lyon’s one building that dramatically stands out against the rest of the low-lying landscape? A Radisson Hotel. Classy.

The highlight so far has definitely been the food. The opening night food was just a small preview of what was to come; each dinner (and weekend lunch) is full of choices (sans eggs, of course) that, while at first may be new to this uncultured American, quickly become excuses to ask for seconds. Throw in the baguettes with every course and the diverse set of cheeses that get passed around at the end, and I’ve been quite well satisfied. Of course, there have been some bumps in the road of this immersion into French food. Take Saturday for example; we had guests over, so of course we had a lavish meal. The main course tripped me up though, as I reached for my serving and kindly inquired what it was that I was taking for myself. “Escargot” my host mother kindly replied. Sure enough, one bite later, my broken French comprehension was confirmed; I had just eaten a snail. After a minute or two the whole group asked me how it was, this first taste of escargot, to which I replied that it was a “new experience.” That’s about as nice as I can put it, because in the end, it’s still snails.

And then there are the French people. Remember that this all started with my disaster with the consulate back home in DC. Well, it turns out that the first day 7 people were missing from our program (and one still is) because of delays and problems with said Consulate. Similarly, we also got an email from our advisor at Penn alerting us people as to when the deadline to register for classes at Penn is, a scary thought considering all the preparation that has gone into this semester. Despite that, over here we have discovered that French people are relatively nice, at least compared to Lyon’s infamous reputation for being a “cold” city. All the host families are working out well so far, and most of the vendors and such have been patient with us as we bumble through simple sentences. The most humbling experience has been hanging around little kids, as they clearly are ahead of us in their language, despite being, oh, 14 years younger. But we are trying, and apparently the first 2 weeks are the hardest, so we’re pressing on. Only a couple times have I tried to say something in French and the people have kind of raised one eyebrow at me and said (in English), “Where are you from??” Tomorrow we start our intensive French class for 8 days, which, hopefully, will help.

So far, so good, that is definitely the prevailing feeling. Still a lot of work to do to settle in at the University (namely, sign up for actual classes), but it’s a good bunch of Penn kids and I think we all have a sense that this could be a pretty fantastic semester, and we all walk back to our respective houses feeling pretty good about what’s ahead.

That is, until we reach those stairs, which only me and one other poor student have to climb everyday. Apparently you get used to them (according to a like 60 year old guy who saw a couple of us struggling), but until then, show me the water.

Je suis ici...finally

Je suis ici…finally

Yes, finally, I have made it to France. It took a lot longer than expected, and included a lot of ridiculousness along the way, but I’m here. I arrived to my hotel in Aix-en-Provence last night and intended to write this then…but promptly fell asleep. So now, here is the full, dramatic saga that is my travel experience.

It started last Friday, the 14th, with a last second showdown with the French Consulate Visa section: would I get the Visa? Phone lines are only open there between 3-5pm, so I drove down to Georgetown and parked my car right outside the Embassy and started calling them at 2:59pm. And calling. And calling each minute. Finally, someone answered the phone at around 3:25, so I (in English thank God) explained my situation about leaving that night, and could he just get me that Visa, and sure enough, he told me that I was not yet “authorized.” At this point we got into an argument that I won’t go into the details of but let’s just say that even though I was on home turf (in English), it did not end well, and he hung up on me. Flight was cancelled, fellow travelers were informed, dreams were dashed.

I did keep calling the Embassy until Tuesday, when I spoke to the Embassy operator, and she promptly told me to “stop calling!” My thought was that I could bother them so much that eventually they would have to give me the Visa…and it worked. Two days later, got the letter in the mail saying my Visa was ready (yes, they actually used Postal Mail), and I went back to the Embassy Friday to have said Visa inserted into the Passport. No physical confrontation with the guy I spoke to on the phone, we were very polite to each other, although he clearly recognized me and my voice. I think he was scared.

Anyway, my new flight was scheduled for 7pm Sunday night, and I was booked from Dulles to Heathrow, and then direct from Heathrow to Lyon. In Lyon I was then to meet up with my host mother, who had offered to drive me from the airport to the train station and take some of my bags while I went off to Southern France for the week. Exciting, right? Well, I made it to the airport, said goodbye to the parents (who were more than happy to see me go after 9 unplanned days together), got to the gate, and then we were delayed an hour and a half due to some battery issue. Fantastic. Flight was fine, first time on a 747 (although they did not let me go to the 2nd deck, disappointing), but we showed up at Heathrow about 20 minutes too late for me to make my connection to Lyon. So much for meeting that host mother.

After such a huge flight was delayed there were obviously hundreds of people needing to be rebooked, and British Airways had an army of people ready to help. Standing in that line though was an experience: in front of me was this big guy from Dallas talking about healthcare and taxes (I did not want to get beaten up in public, and thus refrained from interjecting), I was next to this huge (in numbers) Italian family chattering away about who knows what, and a couple more in front of me were these two families not next to each other yelling to each other in French. Once I reach the front of the line, British Airways comes through, and even though they can’t get me to Lyon in a reasonable hour, they do fly me to Nice, and give me a voucher good for 5 British pounds anywhere in the Airport! Amazing. As to how I spend the new cash money, I do what every other starving, exhausted (I cannot sleep on planes), overwhelmed passenger would do: buy fruit. I figured I should not mess with food on the plane considering the potential egg-induced side affects, and could not recognize any of the other things that were offered to me, so I devoured some fruit.

Anyway, make it to Nice, and now I officially was in France. But, of course, still over a hundred miles from my ultimate destination. But, this part went relatively smoothly. Made it by bus from the airport to the train station, and bought a TGV ticket to Aix-en-Provence from there, all in somewhat stumbling French. Each time I busted out some French, the people looked at me a little oddly, but conceded that they mostly understood what I said, and then finally helped me out. The French are so nice.

TGV was not as exciting as I hoped, it kept stopping in random places along the track, and the conductor would come on saying “the TGV you are on has stopped not near a platform. Please, for your safety, do not attempt to get off.” Great advice. But a pretty amazing trip down the French Riviera, not quite sure why I left Nice. But, we kept on to Aix-en-Provence, where I did get off some 2 and half hours later, and took a Mercedes Benz taxi into town. No major problems after that, as I smoothly made it into my hotel room, bought and enjoyed a bottle of Orangina, and quickly made it to bed.

Through my brief walk around the town and various methods of travels, I’ve immediately noticed a few things about Europeans. First, everyone smokes. The packs of cigarettes say “Smoking Kills” in huge letters, but, no worries, they all just light up everywhere. But, I did think that I officially had “made” it last night when a guy asked me if I had a cigarette. I completely stumbled over my response but to me, that meant nothing. Also, spiked hair is apparently the only way to go for guys here. Doesn’t matter how old you are, if you have hair, some of it (at least) has to be strategically spiked. I’m working on it. Finally, the French do drive on the right side of the road, but the sidewalks and roads all appear very similar here, and I have found out that it is quite easy to get them confused. No real lane markings or any of that nonsense, one flows into the other seamlessly, which makes for a few harried moments.

However, no major problems, and Aix-en-Provence is an awesome introductory city, the picture above is the fountain in the center of town. Somehow I did meet up with Spencer and Brian, and we are all now relaxing in this countryside bed and breakfast we have booked for the next couple days.

Finally, I am in France.

Introduction

Welcome to the one and only blog about my travels/studies through Europe in the Fall of 2009. As you know, I will be studying at the Universite Lumiere in Lyon, France, which is also lovingly and creatively referred to as “Lyon 2” (yes there is a “Lyon 3”). I want to try to keep up with all of you while I’m abroad, and so even though I won’t be in NoVA or West Philly, hopefully this blog will keep the conversation going. I don’t have a clue how often I will update this (depends on how interesting my life is), and I’m pretty sure you can opt out of email updates without me ever knowing, so feel free to ignore this/me.

So for a little more background, after being consistently called a “socialist” this summer while working on Capitol Hill, I figured I had to go to the place where they really do socialism the best: France. I’m off to Lyon, which is apparently quite similar to Philadelphia, and it is even one of Philly’s “sister cities”, although it is also paired with Dubai, Beirut and Gangzhou, China, so I wouldn’t look too far into that. One thing that it does share with Philadelphia is its fantastic food, as it is known as the “food capital of France.” Of course, this presents a strong dilemma for me, seeing as I am allergic to eggs, but hey, that should lead to some real interesting blog posts. I will be staying with a host family, the Rossis, and I’m already Facebook friends with the mother, so I’m pumped.

I’ll be taking classes at the University with all the French kids, en francais, in exciting subjects such as Economics and International Politics. There’s about 20 Penn students in total in this exchange program, which is a pretty small figure considering that we will be directly enrolled in a university with 27,500 people, or about 3 UPenns. The goal is to not stick out like an American, but considering my French accent, or lack thereof, it’s going to be tricky. Is my French ready? Probably not, but that’s why I’m going.

Of course, I’m not only going to Europe for four months just to study, and I want to get my traveling started right out of the box. The plan is to leave the 14^th of August, and embark on 12 days of travel that encompass Paris, Brussels, Venice and Aix-en-Provence with two other Penn study abroad participants, Brian Hwang (Barcelona) and Spencer Glantz (Madrid). However, the French bureaucracy and I are not getting along, and I do not yet have my Visa; we’re working on it. If it is not ready by the time I am supposed to board my flight, I will have to push my departure back and join the other 2 midway through the travels, perhaps missing out on a city or 2 (alright I don’t need you to feel sorry for me). If the Visa does come through, it will probably be a very last minute thing. My next post will be from Europe, when I will be sure to provide whoever sticks around with a full recap of the action, so stay tuned.

In the off chance you want to contact me outside these thrilling episodes of my life, you’ve got a few options. First, email always works worldwide, kitneuman@gmail.com. I’m personally a big fan of Skype, but can’t ever seem to successfully friend anyone, so add me if you want, my username is kitneuman (pretty tricky, I know). If for some reason you really need to contact me immediately, I will have a cell phone with me in Europe that has free incoming calls, even from the States, the number is 011-33-6-27-61-14-24.

Even as I’m out of the country for these 4 months, I want to try to stay in touch with you all while I’m there. I’ll try to keep the posts intriguing and insightful, and welcome any comments that you may have about any aspect of them. My idea is that these posts will help to keep me sane, keep my English solid, and provide some updates on interesting parts of my life along the way. I hope you’ll join me for the ride.