In February I wrote this draft:
"I cannot stop myself from comparing this city with the places I already know. When I first moved to CDMX I felt swallowed up, I couldn't stand the amount of people, and I thought that everywhere smelt of maize and fried meat (it definitely doesn't). But by december I didn't really want to leave, I had adjusted to the massiveness of living in Mexico City and it was starting to suit me. I almost felt like I was becoming a part of it.
Lyon, at least for me right now, feels empty and eery. The streets are always sparse. Things seemed to be closed all the time. This is France's third largest city and I ask myself - where are the people?
I don't feel a sense of community here. Maybe it is a bit romantic and idealistic to expect so much from a place in just a month but the atmosphere is obviously not the same. Don't get me wrong - Lyon is beautiful, but it feels like it centralises around a hub of wealthiness whilst on the outskirts lie certain aspects it wants to hide.
It is true that cities transform in summer and likewise I expect Lyon to, but"
The past week I have felt myself warming to Lyon more. This may be a side effect of having to vacate it imminently but until now I have internally rallied my vague dislike for this city, its emtpiness, its soulessness. I constantly and subconsciously compared it to CDMX; the seeming predictability of everything, the way everything ran on time, the lack of noise, the lack of integration between Erasmus and domestic students. But the past week has been entirely unpredictable and probably the most (not to be insensitive in this serious time) exciting bit of my brief time in France. Crowded around phone screens waiting for Macron's various speeches, running to the bars at 23h30 before the midnight ban, drinking (and having a subsequent migraine) at the amphitheatre as people say their goodbyes.
Even though I am due to leave in a few days I feel a certain sadness saying goodbye to it. I never got to know it properly here and having just hit the 2 month mark I feel like I was just getting into my stride.
There is an irony in the fact that this lockdown will bring people closer together. Little did I know that when I described the streets as "sparse" they would become even sparser. The last few nights I have hung out with my colocs, having been too shy to cohabite properly for the last few months here. Yesterday they joked about singing out the window comme Italie, but France will find its own way of drawing itself back together, finding a community in this crisis.
"I cannot stop myself from comparing this city with the places I already know. When I first moved to CDMX I felt swallowed up, I couldn't stand the amount of people, and I thought that everywhere smelt of maize and fried meat (it definitely doesn't). But by december I didn't really want to leave, I had adjusted to the massiveness of living in Mexico City and it was starting to suit me. I almost felt like I was becoming a part of it.
Lyon, at least for me right now, feels empty and eery. The streets are always sparse. Things seemed to be closed all the time. This is France's third largest city and I ask myself - where are the people?
I don't feel a sense of community here. Maybe it is a bit romantic and idealistic to expect so much from a place in just a month but the atmosphere is obviously not the same. Don't get me wrong - Lyon is beautiful, but it feels like it centralises around a hub of wealthiness whilst on the outskirts lie certain aspects it wants to hide.
It is true that cities transform in summer and likewise I expect Lyon to, but"
The past week I have felt myself warming to Lyon more. This may be a side effect of having to vacate it imminently but until now I have internally rallied my vague dislike for this city, its emtpiness, its soulessness. I constantly and subconsciously compared it to CDMX; the seeming predictability of everything, the way everything ran on time, the lack of noise, the lack of integration between Erasmus and domestic students. But the past week has been entirely unpredictable and probably the most (not to be insensitive in this serious time) exciting bit of my brief time in France. Crowded around phone screens waiting for Macron's various speeches, running to the bars at 23h30 before the midnight ban, drinking (and having a subsequent migraine) at the amphitheatre as people say their goodbyes.
Even though I am due to leave in a few days I feel a certain sadness saying goodbye to it. I never got to know it properly here and having just hit the 2 month mark I feel like I was just getting into my stride.
There is an irony in the fact that this lockdown will bring people closer together. Little did I know that when I described the streets as "sparse" they would become even sparser. The last few nights I have hung out with my colocs, having been too shy to cohabite properly for the last few months here. Yesterday they joked about singing out the window comme Italie, but France will find its own way of drawing itself back together, finding a community in this crisis.
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