First Day of School in Lyon
(Monday, March 17, 2025)
Lyon welcomed me with sunshine today—an official warm greeting.
When I woke up, I noticed a small note slipped under my door. It was from my host’s 18-year-old daughter, Nina, apologizing for making noise last night and for accidentally eating my yogurt. Thoughtful, sweet, and surprisingly old-fashioned. Ever since I got a phone as a teenager, I don’t think I’ve received a handwritten note slipped under a door. I loved it. I wrote back a polite reply and slid it under her door in return.
At 7:15 AM, I walked into the kitchen to find my host, Valérie, already preparing breakfast. Freshly toasted bread with the creamy beurre demi-sel (French salted butter) I’d been craving, and a perfectly cooked sunny-side-up egg. A lovely way to start the morning—except for one thing. She had also turned on French news on TV, ready to engage me in breakfast conversation… in French. Jet-lagged and barely awake, I did my best—chattering away in passionate but broken French, my natural tendency to overshare completely uncurbed.
I was placed in an afternoon French class, which gave me time to sign up for a cultural activity at noon: a guided tour of la Presqu’île, the historical heart of Lyon.
Our guide, Janine, was the epitome of elegant French womanhood in her 80s—bright eyes framed by perfectly applied mascara, blush precisely matching her lipstick, dressed in a plum-colored suede jacket with fur around her neck and heeled boots. Along for the tour were two other new students: Heide, a German woman, and John, an Australian man. Both seemed about my parents’ age, both on vacation from work. Heide had exactly one week off and chose to spend the entire time at this school. John, a teacher, was on a three-month sabbatical—a perk Australians get every ten years of working. He teaches grammar to elementary school teachers, which might explain why he was particularly good at picking up what Janine was saying and translating it for me whenever I got lost.
The Presqu’île stretches from the foot of Croix-Rousse hill in the north to where the Rhône and Saône rivers meet in the south. It’s the quintessential old French neighborhood—ochre-colored buildings, squares with intricate tilework and fountains, statues of historical figures, and a grand plaza dedicated to an important Louis. Scattered throughout are cafés, restaurants, luxury boutiques, government offices, and cultural institutions. The magnolias were already blooming in pink and white, decorating the lovely streets and making us feel tipsy from the view.
By the time I arrived at my first French class, I was already exhausted from the two-hour walking tour. But the class itself? Surprisingly fun.
Our teacher was a true entertainer. She danced, sang, exaggerated every sentence, and pretended to be a chain-smoking alcoholic to make her stories funnier. (Or maybe she wasn’t pretending.) The students were all lively and unafraid to speak, and their French impressed me. I couldn’t help but wonder why I had been placed in this class. Jet-lagged and slightly overwhelmed, I resorted to mixing a lot of English while attempting to tell my classmates about a disastrous but hilarious trip I once took in a group exercise. Fortunately, they were kind—laughing when I laughed, looking concerned at the right moments. Hopefully, that meant they actually understood me.
Two questions dominated our conversations today:
Tu viens d’où ? (Where are you from?)
Pourquoi apprends-tu le français ? (Why are you learning French?)
We also asked each other how long we’d be studying at the school. The answers were often unclear, even in English, because not everyone spoke English. A young Japanese student spoke pas du tout (not at all), while students from Russia and Ecuador had limited English. But somehow, we understood each other better in our very broken French than in any other language.
After class, our teacher suggested we all celebrate St. Patrick’s Day at Paddy’s Corner, an Irish bar not far from the school. It seemed like a good chance to bond, so I joined. We took the train together like a children’s field trip, our heavy backpacks marking us as a group of foreign students. The bar was packed and loud, filled with traditional Irish music and orange and green balloons.
A few beers in, our broken French somehow became more fluent. Everything—every misunderstanding, every badly conjugated verb, every empty nodding and “ouai”ing along (saying yeah to everything)—became funnier. At one point, I laughed so hard I nearly choked. I also got to know two other American girls better; both have very cool stories.
I left the bar early to have dinner with my host family. Two new Italian students had arrived today, young girls who would also be staying in Valérie’s massive apartment.
Dinner was simple but delicious: creamy red-sauce spaghetti with ground beef, the ever-present baguette, and a fresh watercress salad with a flavorful mustard vinaigrette.
Outside, the night was chilly, the stars twinkling over Lyon. Inside, warm light filled the dining room as we gathered around the table like family, sharing stories from our day over good food.
A perfect first day.