From Dijon to Lyon, and What Happened There

So I wrote yesterday that I was going to try to sync up my blog life with my actual life, a manipulation of time and space akin to the machinations of a mad scientist... but I forget myself.  Suffice it to say that this posting may be a little long, but bear with me; it will not end up like this.  Away we go...

So, the reason that I had to be in Dijon on Tuesday, October 26, is because, in order to verify my visa de longue séjour and ensure that I would not be summarily deported in a surprise attack by immigration services, I (and all the other assistants) had to submit to a medical examination.  This is to ensure that we are not vectors of swine flu, AIDS, TB, ebola, scabies, etc., etc., and that our presence will not result in any population-threatening pandemics.  Fortunately, I was deemed perfectly healthy, and I made it through the process with only a minimal loss of time and dignity.

France is a fairly bureaucratic state (as I think one or two people have pointed out before) and the process of getting verified took, what with the line of 20-odd assistants scheduled to be seen in one afternoon, about three hours.  I am seemingly-incapable of showing up prepared for these appointments (when I got my visa at the SF consulate, I had to go through the line three separate times, since I kept leaving out vital copies of things) so I had to leave at one point to go get a headshot taken at a local mall, and I covered myself with idiocy at one point when the nurse, in the course of asking rote questions, demanded, "Et vous êtes enciente?" (Are you pregnant?) I thought she said, "Et vous êtes en bonne santé?" (Are you healthy?), and so I responded with an emphatic "Oui!"  ....Oh well.  I tell my students that you have to submit to a certain amount of humiliation when you want to learn a foriegn language, and I suppose the best teachers lead by example.

Really, though, in the hall of fame of surreal official experiences (in which for me, the pride of place is still held by my visit to the Post Office of Jaipur: Kafkaesque in the extreme), it was not that bad.  I got to stand in a miniature elevator while they hoisted me up to take an x-ray of my lungs, which was a sort of a bizarre fun-house experience, and at the end of the appointment I emerged with an officially-stamped visa (stamps are very powerful here) and an image of my lungs, somewhat like this <<.  Apparently, I am in no danger of ending up like a consumptive heroine of the 19th century.

After my afternoon of inspections, I took a train to Lyon, arriving only an hour and a half after I had intended.  Parliment has finally voted on the issue of the age of retirement, and the strikes are gradually dying down, although the government's actions were ultimately unswayed by the activity.

I stayed my first two nights in the city of Lyon, which really is a city--my first in France.  It is really beautiful here, and very accessible.  I think Lyon is a similar size to San Francisco, in that there is plenty of cosmopolitan presence and things to do here, but it is not overwhelmingly huge, and you can walk most places.  Otherwise, you can take the metro, a very modern-looking and new affaire, with automated trains, which prevents them from going on strike.  (I am confident though, that if machines evolve to the point of independent intelligence, that while the machines of other countries may make war against humainity or consign us all to a virtual reality and harvest our life-forces for energy, the machines of France will form syndicates and strike regularly.) ...Anyway, back to my tourtist-ing around Lyon:

Clara, my hostess with whom I had the rare (for me) and pleasant experience of going from new acquaintence to friend in a manner of hours, took me out to see the sights of the city on the first morning I was there.

Lyon is centered around two rivers, the Rhône and the Saône, and two hills, something I appreciate a lot, as it always gives me some reference points to orient myself by.  The two hills are referred to as "the hill that prays" and "the hill that works," because the latter was the traditional site of the Lyon silk industry, while the former was the site of the Cathédrale de Fourvière.  Clara and I went up to it (which is where this picture was taken) and it really was up!  There is a cable car, à la San Francisco, that takes you at an incredibly steep angle up through a tunnel inside the hill, and you emerge at the top to see the arching buttresses--gothic in evocation, but 19-century actual date of construction and in level of fru-fru decoration.  Cracks about the bishop's bird stump aside, though, it was really quite beautiful, both up close and from the foot of the hill, which we walked down afterwards, along a switchbacked track through a woodsy park.  I love the way that parks inside cities can make you feel as if you have been transported to a separte peace, outside the urban sphere--I think it comes from having gotten to know Central Park in NYC.

At the foot of the hill, we emerged from the park in the old part of the city.  This is the space between the two rivers, the "presque-îsle" (almost island) as it's called.  It makes much more sense to me the way that old cities always cluster around natural waterways or in other logical habitats, unlike their younger, post-industrial cousins, which get built on swamps (Huston) or in the middle of deserts (LA).  The quarter we were in was a neighborhood of Italian merchants during the Renaissance, so it was full of narrow streets with tall, balconied buildings and "secret" courtyards and passageways--very Romeo and Juliet.

I would like to add photos of all these things, but after my last upload, the computer I am currently using refuses to add any other files, just to spite me, so I will once again have to wait to update images until the technological stars are in better alignment.  I will just finish by adding that, my second day in Lyon, Clara took me to meet Aurélie, whose parents home just outside the city is my current port of call, at the Place Bellecour, the largest square in western europe, which turned out, at that particular moment, to be occupied by what might be the last hurrah of the strikes.  There were riot police in full outfits, marchers carrying flares, syndicate affiliations, and even communist flags (!!), and people yelling over the PA about the spirit of the worker and the rights of society.  Even in protest, French rhetoric is expressed in ideal and theoretical rather than personal terms--something I find very different from the US.

This post is becoming epic, and although Hugo might approve, I am realizing that it might profit me to go out and enjoy the nice weather while it lasts, since I am once again in the countryside.  I almost achieved my goal of bringing my blog up to the present moment, but sadly, this incongruity in the writing space-time continuum has yet to be corrected.  I suppose the reality is that I will always have more to say...

Until next time, though, I think this is it!