Day two on my bicycle for 2023. A late start. It’s like flying. Flying.

We didn’t plan to visit Lyon on our trip to France: technically this was because we had a “no revisiting places one or the other of us has already been” (with an exception for Paris). Lisa had passed through Lyon on the train at one point, so it got ruled out. 

But Lyon was halfway between Skinny Home and Tiny Home, so it made for a logical waypoint between the two. And so we went. And we liked it so much that we went back again on the swing back to Paris.

Both Lisa and I felt immediately comfortable in Lyon: our Uber driver, Jonathan, was an excellent ambassador for the city, and in a 20 minute ride from the train station to our apartment he gave us a short course in the city. 

Our other ambassador was my friend Dan Misener.

In 2012 Dan and his partner Jenna spent a year in Lyon, a posting announced here:

So, why France? Why Lyon?

First off, we’re moving to France to learn French. Right now, my French isn’t great, but it’s halfway passable. I can order food and get directions, but I’m can’t have deep conversations about philosophy and literature. Jenna’s French is much better than mine, but we could both stand to improve. We figure immersion will help, and where better to immerse ourselves?

We chose Lyon for a few reasons. First, because it’s not Paris, and thus, we can afford to live there. It’s the third largest city in France, and feels not too big, and not too small. Plus, it’s la capitale gastronomique française, so chances are we’ll eat well.

Lyon is decently well-connected to other parts of Europe by rail and air, and we’re really hoping it’ll be a good home base for a bit of travel.

As someone with a quiet I-want-to-live-in-Europe-for-a-time obsession, I was an enthusiastic reader of Dan’s blog posts from there onward about Lyon, and so once we got settled I emailed him for advice about where and what in the city; he quickly responded with a well-hyperlinked guide that included a coffee place, thus earning him a place in my Pantheon of most helpful friends.

I resolved to revisit Dan’s writings about Lyon upon my return, but the current stripped-down-to-basics state of Misener.org made gathering them all together a challenge, so for posterity and personal reference I present the posts here:

• .ca -> .fr
• Buying travel medical insurance
• Vendredi XIII
• The joy of setting up a French bank account
• My real-life experience using CanadianForex
• A very fussy morning coffee ritual
• All-you-can-watch movies
• Transatlanticism

There’s a lot unwritten about Dan and Jenna’s year in Lyon; it’s just those 8 posts. But the spirit they set off in continues to resonate:

The past few years of my life have become very comfortable. The same city. The same apartment. The same job. There’s nothing wrong with comfortable, of course, but increasingly, I feel the need to shake things up. To do something that makes me feel uncomfortable. To get outside of the ordinary.

Words to live by.

Lisa took a lot of photos of me in front of green doors. 

Curious flagging tape on the Camp Tamawaby Demonstration Woodlot Trail in Grand River.

“Well, I just really like Kerri Russell…”

“I haven’t seen her in forever… what was she in?

“Felicity!”

—

“I think I’m gonna be back here this afternoon with my regular. Catch you later…”

—

“Well, we do get strike pay!”

Breakfast on the newly-refinished table.

In her post Quackers, Thelma writes about her encounters with a duck, beginning:

Flapping sounds coming from a chimney usually means trouble for both the flapper and the homeowner.

That’s as good an opening sentence as I’ve read in a long while.

We had a household debrief after returning from two weeks in France, and here is our advice to our future selves about travel:

• Don’t check bags. 
• Don’t take neck pillows.
• When taking backpacks, make sure they can somehow connect to roller suitcases.
• Take fewer clothes.
• Don’t take bulky one-fine-dining-experience-only shoes; take flats instead.
• Don’t clothes shop before going, clothes shop once there.
• Take sunscreen (although European sunscreen is very good).
• One shared toothpaste is okay. 
• It’s okay — and feels like lovely magic — to take an Uber to/from airport, no matter the moral purity of figuring out transit.
• Always buy multi date transit tickets in any city: even if it doesn’t make financial sense, the convenience is priceless. 
• Getting local SIM cards in advance is worth the effort, and makes assuming European life on arrival more seamless.
• A 5 hour layover in Toronto or Montreal on return is a long slog; the ideal, to minimize waiting but minimize rushing, would be 90-120 minutes.
• Don’t eat the second meal on the return flight, save that for layover dining.

From the do you read me? newsletter, Why do we speak English in Berlin?:

In 2021, artist, researcher and curator Moshtari Hilal and political geographer Sinthujan Varatharajah held a talk on Instagram Live, where they discussed the prevalence of the English language in Berlin. Whether in cafes or restaurants, museums and art spaces, spoken on the street or in the Bürgeramt, it’s everywhere – also in our own newsletters, reviews and social media! It’s one of the things that gives Berlin its cosmopolitan shine.

But there’s another side to things, and this is what Hilal and Varatharajah bring to light in their talk, given physical form by Wirklichkeit Books in this striking blue reader.

English is international, seemingly universal – but who do we exclude, when we decide to speak and write in English? Who do we disinvite from our spaces? For those people whose languages and voices are consistently marginalised in the West, is the use of English just another barrier between them and full participation in the societies and economies that they are so often propping up with their labour?

An incident I recall from my time working with Plazes: on a trip to Berlin, at a weekly standup meeting with the new CEO, there was a long discussion of technical issues conducted entirely, and seemingly comfortably, in English. When the talk turned to deeper, subtler, more substantial issues — branding, purpose, team — the language switched to German. My impression was that one needs the breadth and depth of their native language to express things that are deeper and broader. As a result of this I was left absent from the deeper and broader conversation, and got some insight into what I imagine life is like for those living life constantly-in-translation. 

From servers, sewers, alienation:

You’d think this “independence” might drive a person toward that problematic pioneer fantasy, but it only underlines to me how self-sufficiency is a LARP. Sure, we might not be billed for sewer, but what would we do if the larger society didn’t have someone we could call to pump the septic tank?

When #vanlife — drive a converted van from Alaska to Patagonia — pivoted, due COVID, to #offgridlife — build a place with solar panels in the wilds of Panama (or Nova Scotia, or Umbria, or Massachusetts) — I ended up immersed in the YouTubed lives of young couples building privies and windmills and greenhouses.

As maya points out in her piece, though, there’s no real going “off grid”: Home Depot, the Internet, hospitals are all part of the “grid,“ regardless of where your electricity comes from.

We are interdependent, whether we like it or not. While #offgridlife might be an enjoyable (and challenging) LARP, it’s hard to see how it fits into a larger ecology (we’d all do better to live in cities, sharing infrastructure, and limiting our need to commute).

I know the urge to self-reliance, the wish to not have to rely on anyone else. It’s why I have my own electric lawnmower, one identical to those both neighbours have, for our 30 minutes a week of mowing. It’s why I am considering solar panels for the roof. It’s why I host my own website, despite the cost and complexity. It’s why I have a car in my driveway, an expensive asset that I use a few hours a week.

But I know a healthy future lies in embracing our interdependence, and that means giving up the isolationist strands of a Whole Earth redux and finding an ecology much more rooted in density and cooperation than a bunkered rural utopia.