Friday
It was time to depart for my last minute vacation! I knew that this would be my last chance to travel in France this time around, so I packed my little backpack and headed out for the 8:30 bus to Meyzieu. The timing was perfect and I arrived in Lyon with about an hour until my train would arrive. You know that I had to stop in for some Starbucks breakfast!
I sat outside to eat and had the strangest string of interactions. Three different men came up to me to ask for a cigarette (I wasn’t even smoking). I decided to act like I didn’t speak French so I could avoid a conversation and just told them “English, English.” It worked pretty well. A fourth man approached me saying something about music and gestured for me to follow him to the tram stop a few yards away. I once again feigned incomprehension. I knew he wanted to get me away from my things and would pickpocket me if I got up. I remained seated and told him I couldn’t help and that I just spoke English. He walked away with a huff. A few minutes later, there was a huge commotion as a man entered the tram and two girls tried to pickpocket him. He shouted at them and slapped their hands away before getting on the tram. The noise startled me and I must have looked shocked because the older man sitting on the other side of the bench laughed in my direction. He introduced himself and offered me a cigarette. When I declined he launched into his life story, telling me that he came to France from Turkey, was 56, and was in Lyon to validate his visa. He told me that the city was far too expensive just to have one person working in the family, which he thought was shameful. He asked if I was married, I said no and that I worked to support myself as an English teacher. He was shocked that I didn’t have a spouse. We chatted for a few minutes more before I excused myself to go check the train times. We said goodbye and parted ways.
Once inside the station, I discovered that my train was delayed about 15 minutes. I stood by the signs and did my best to watch my wallet and phone. There were a lot more people begging for money than usual and I wondered if the new lockdown orders were spurring them to come out for the last time. Finally, we were allowed on our platform to await the train.
I arrived at the Colmar station about 3.5 hours later. The sky was a beautiful blue and the sun was out, but the air had a bite to it that necessitated another coat. I instantly fell in love with the red brick of the city. You never get to see brick in France!
My AirBnb was actually right down the street from the station. It was so close that you could hear the announcements for train arrivals. However, the bed was the most comfortable bed that I’ve ever slept on in France. It was amazing. I drank some coffee and stretched my legs before heading out to explore the town a bit. I had just three hours left before curfew would go into effect.
I wandered a few blocks over and discovered that I was actually really close to the historic center of town. There was a massive park that was located across from the préfecture. Lots of people were spread out on blankets, others were walking dogs, still more were just huddled up around benches with their friends.
I wandered my way into the historic center of town.
The town was surprisingly busy. Many of the bars were serving people outside, so there were massive crowds of maskless people wandering about. I made sure to double mask throughout the weekend. I was also surprised by how intensely the town had decorated for Easter. There were tons of candy and chocolate shops that had their windows DECKED OUT for the occasion. However, the canals were also decorated from above with little Easter scenes.
I had been making my way home when I realized that I needed to grab some snacks for the night. I turned around and headed back downtown in search of rations.
Sadly, I was unable to locate snacks for the night. I ordered in a pizza, which was also not up to snuff. That night I watched Promising Young Woman online, which was amazing. I got to chat with my family and enjoyed a relaxing evening by myself. I did a lot of research about the town that I prepared to utilize the next day. Now I would know which buildings I was looking at and some of the history behind them. In my research, I discovered that there is a tourist trail in town and that the little gold plates were part of the trail. They were decorated with the Statue of Liberty because the man who designed her was born in Colmar. There’s a museum dedicated to him and his work! More on that tomorrow.
Mary-Est-En-France 