My heart is in France

Lyon continued II

Something I didn't write about in my previous post about Lyon... When I first arrived it already felt strange and foreign and not at all familiar. I guess there has been a change inside me where deep down I realise that France is no longer my home. Before, when I travelled in France... after a while, everything felt really familiar and nothing felt strange anymore.

But yesterday, it DID feel strange. And I admit I felt sad. Maybe it was just the dreary weather. Maybe it was my stress. But part of me wished I'd chosen to go to Lyon instead of Geneva. It's not that I don't like Geneva (afterall what's not to like when it's the third 'best' city in the world to live in) but maybe that (already) I feel like it's just too small for me! There's a lot of things a city doesn't have when it's not big enough and I think that I'll always be a big city girl. Living in the 'burbs or in a small country town would bore me to tears.

Also in Lyon I had the strangely familiar occurence that everyone around me speaks French! If I ask a stranger to help me take a photo or for directions I don't have to guess whether they actually speak French or not.

What else? I could have CRIED at the low price of food compared to Switzerland. Plus the boulangeries are more plentiful and have a wider variety of products. I got a strawberry croissant!

Despite the horrible horrible weather I was actually still charmed by and still in love with Lyon. Perhaps also because it's rather arty and that part of it 'speaks' to me as I'm a creative sort of person. I don't know. It has so much character, and history, and culture, and art, and food and and and... it's not as beautiful as Paris of course (few cities are) but to me it's far more liveable.

I still feel that my heart is in France. Switzerland is a wonderful country but somewhat just too perfect and too pristine for me I think. When I lived in Shanghai I loved witnessing all the funny shenanigans that one normally never sees in a Western country and I can still see stuff like that in France but in Geneva it's extremely rare... Actually, to be honest, I think Geneva reminds me too much of Sydney and Australia. Namely the high price of food and housing, the modern buildings and roads, the longer working hours (compared to France), the way they do things (for example it's tax time now in France and in France it's not automatically deducted from your salary like in Australia and Switzerland).. it's all very similar to Australia. Not that they are bad things (or maybe they are :P ) , but I came to Europe (France) because I wanted a life that was DIFFERENT to the one I formerly had.