Misho and I landed in Lyon's airport at around ten pm on the 8th of April. Dublin's extreme passport control had made me nervous, so I'd insisted that Boy help me book my onward ticket from Zurich to Grand Junction before I landed. Just so I'd be able to prove to the French officials that I would not (regretfully) be lingering in their country long.
They didn't even stamp my Canadian passport.
They flipped it open, looked at Dublin stamp, and handed it back to me.
Finished.
"What the hell?" I was flabbergasted. "They didn't give me an exit stamp in Belfast and they didn't give me an entrance stamp in Lyon. So when I fly out of Switzerland in May, they won't be able to tell where I've been. Which will probably not make the Swiss very happy. Freaking Ireland. Freaking France."
On the other hand... if I hadn't booked a flight home, this oversight would mean I could stay in France for EIGHT months. Because I'm legally permitted to be in Ireland for six months without a visa and in the Schengen area for three months without a visa. So I could just tell passport control that I spent six months in Ireland and three months in France and they would have no way to prove me wrong.
Damn. The one time this happens to me, I have my flight booked for the US and can't take advantage of it. Poop.
Misho and I reclaimed our backpacks from the carousel and walked over to the train station.
For future travelers to Lyon... It is bloody expensive to get from the airport to the city center. Fifteen euros for a no-longer-young adult over the age of twenty-six. Misho is twenty-five, so only had to pay thirteen euros.
I felt jealous. And also old. I felt old and jealous.
We arrived at Lyon's main train station and began walking to Laurie's. A host with whom I was very excited to stay, primarily because on her Couchsurfing profile, she had written that her mission was to "laugh as much as possible (but be careful, my laugh is loud and not discrete at all)."
My kind of lady.
We arrived at Laurie's beautiful flat, hungry, tired and sweaty.
"Are you hungry? I can make pasta," Laurie offered.
"That sounds amazing. We haven't been able to eat since this morning."
So Laurie made us pasta and brought out a bottle of wine and some cheese.
I love France. I love it, I love it, I love it.
We chatted as we gratefully demolished the pot of pasta. At one point, I was talking about the weather in Colorado, and I become so expressive that I knocked over my glass of wine.
Which spread over Laurie's white table, soaked through some of Laurie's notes and began to drip, drip, drip onto Laurie's white chair.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, I screamed inside my head.
"OH NO!" I screamed outside my head. "I'm so sorry," I rushed to the kitchen for a sponge to wipe up the spreading disaster.
"Don't worry," Laurie said calmly. "The only problem is wasted wine."
How could I do that? My first night in France, I send wine sailing across the table. And when this woman was so kind to wait up for us, make us dinner... I'm never talking about Colorado weather again. That's definitely the moral of this story.
Laurie went to work the next day, but left Misho and me the keys to her apartment so we could come and go as we pleased.
Which I always appreciate so much. Not just for the freedom of movement, but for the level of trust it signifies.
Misho and I spent the morning relaxing at Laurie's and then headed out into the city.
I'd visited Lyon once before with Boy, Estelle and Yann, but it was only for one rushed afternoon. Having three days to meander through Lyon made it infinitely more beautiful.
Misho and I discovered far too late that, as in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, shops are closed in France on Sundays. I had planned a three course dinner for Laurie (I still felt horrible about spilling the wine), and then discovered that the only tiny, expensive shop still open did not have any of the ingredients I required.
So we settled on couscous. With mint, lemon, red pepper, onions, garlic and cheese.
It's the best we can do, under the circumstances.
So we picnicked with Laurie on the banks of the Rhône that evening. Eating a legendary amount of couscous and drinking wine in a place where, if I got too enthusiastic about Colorado's weather, I would not stain Laurie's white chair.
"Do you think we can head home now?" Misho asked after the sun had set. "I'm feeling kind of cold."
"Yeah, of course. But I don't know how you're cold," we packed up the picnic and began to walk back to Laurie's. "It's so nice out tonight."
Laurie and I were both ill. She was recovering from what she called, "the adult version of Scarlet Fever" and I was suffering from yet another bout of my chronic allergic sinusitis. So Laurie coughed and I sneezed and we both blew our noses as we strolled through Lyon by night.
"Why aren't you sick?" I gave Misho a playful shove.
Once at Laurie's, Misho went straight to bed. As we were all the same room, I brushed my teeth and went to bed as well, just to keep things quiet for my friend.
I wonder why he's so tired. All we did today was walk around a bit. And make an unreasonable amount of couscous.
A few minutes later, Misho began to shiver. His whole body shook. He moaned.
"Are you okay? Misho? What's going on?"
"I'm so cold..." he whimpered. "And my stomach hurts."
"Can I get you some medicine?" Laurie coughed and got out of bed.
Poor woman. I spill wine all over her nice chair and now we're keeping her awake all night. While she's recovering from Adult Scarlet Fever.
Laurie gave Misho some medicine for his stomachache and went back to bed. But my Bulgarian stayed up all night, running to and from the bathroom with varying degrees of desperation.
"What do you think happened?" I asked Misho in the morning. "Do you think it was food poisoning? We ate the same things and I feel fine."
"I think it was the oyster," Misho lamented. "I read the side-effects last night, and it all fits. And sometimes it takes forty-eight hours for the symptoms to show."
"NO! The one oyster you ate in Ireland poisoned you!"
"Did it move?" Laurie asked.
"Move?"
"Yes, did it move when you put the lemon on?"
"No..."
"It has to move. Because if it moves, then it's alive. If it doesn't move, don't eat it."
"I didn't know..." my bedridden friend grieved.
"That fucking oyster," I added. Helpfully.
So Laurie took me to a beautiful bakery and to a park where we practiced yoga together while Misho stayed at home and worked through his devil oyster.
That evening, Misho rallied and we all walked to the home of some other couchsurfer's who had invited us to a raclette party. So we sat around, two Australians, three Americans, a Bulgarian and a Frenchwoman and ate cheese, potatoes and meat.
Except for Misho. Who only ate potatoes.
I am so glad I"m not Misho right now. I would be miserable. And it would show.
This is proof that Misho is a stronger human being than me. Much stronger.
We left Laurie's late the next morning. We were sad to leave our perfect host (seriously, we could not have ended up with a kinder, more considerate human being), but we were thrilled to meet up with our old friends. Francois from my massage school in Chiang Mai, and Teddy, a Bulgarian and highschool friend of Misho's. Francois' father had invited us all to lunch at the oldest restaurant in Lyon.
Which made me nearly giddy with happiness.
Giddy to meet old friends and giddy to enjoy French food. And giddy to stay in one place for six whole days.
Imagine that... Six days. Feels like forever.
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