On Wednesday, I arrived in Lyon, France to begin my newest adventure: studying abroad! I flew a total of 10 hours but honestly it went by super fast. It wasn’t until my last flight, which lasted 1.5 hours, that I became bored and just wanted to land already. I only slept for 2 hours during my whole trip, and it was on my flight from New Jersey to Munich. I was only a little bit tired on the last leg of my trip, but once I landed I was filled with adrenaline and wasn’t tired until I laid in bed at night.

Once I flew into Germany, I met two girls from my study abroad program in the airport. It was nice to finally meet some of the people I’d be talking to for the past few months as we prepared for our trip! As we walked to our gate, they said the bathrooms in Munich’s airport were life changing and I had to check them out. And indeed, they were incredible. There weren’t any gaps in between the stalls and the stalls were quite spacious. The doors went from the floor to the ceiling and were a shiny turquoise. After experiencing Munich’s wonderful bathrooms, we went to board our plane. I would have been confused on how to go through the gate if I didn’t have them because we just had to scan our ticket at a monitor and we didn’t have to talk to any of the workers. About an hour and a half later, we landed in Lyon!

Landing in Lyon

Once we landed, we were greeted by our program director and other students in our program. We then hopped on a bus and headed to our new homes. I was the only person on the bus from my apartment complex however there was a yearlong student who greeted me once I arrived. Without her, I wouldn’t have had a great first day. Talking with her helped ease my nerves because I asked her about her experiences last semester and she only had amazing things to say about our program. We’re also really similar so I feel like she’s going to be a great friend! She helped me move into my apartment, get a new SIM card, and shop for groceries. I would’ve had to figure out the metro and tram all by myself if she hadn’t helped! After our errands, we got sushi across from our apartment. I have only started eating sushi in the past year, so I’m not super familiar with sushi terminology, so even when I asked Halle what something was in English it didn’t help me!

This first day was very overwhelming but since I kept moving and accomplished things like getting my SIM card and food, my nerves calmed down and I felt more confident going into my first day of orientation on Thursday.

First Day of Orientation

My first day of orientation went really well. I met all of the students in my program, there’s about 35 of us. First, we had croissants and pain au chocolat provided by our university. Then, we headed up to the classroom to learn about what to expect from our program. Fun fact: in my university, they don’t have any heat and they keep the windows open even when it’s 25 degrees Fahrenheit outside! This means you have to keep your gloves and coat on indoors and never get a break from the cold weather. Despite being cold all of the time, I really like my university so far. The architecture is beautiful, and we are with regular students who live in France. On Friday, I saw a lot of them getting off of the metro with their suitcases since classes start at the same time for them as they do for me! This made me excited because, believe it or not, I forgot I was attending a real university.

After orientation, some of my classmates and I got lunch at a boulangerie before touring Vieux Lyon with our program. We could choose between an English and French tour, so I opted for the French tour to challenge myself and see how much I know. I probably understood about 1/4 of the tour, I think part of it was because I was extremely jet lagged and didn’t get much sleep the night before. Our tour guide did speak fast, however, and some of the vocab may have been above my level. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the tour because I saw so much of Vieux Lyon! I honestly didn’t know much about Lyon before coming here, I hadn’t even heard of the city before my advisor suggested I look into this program. After the tour I had a nutella crêpe for dinner – yum. Our waitress was so much fun, she spoke mostly French but also a little bit of English. She kept saying how she loved our English accents. I wish I could hear what an English accent speaking French sounds like from a native speaker’s perspective!

Second Day of Orientation

During my second day of orientation, we mainly talked about covid protocols and safety. Afterwards, I had my first class: “Getting to Know Lyon Behind The Walls”. Normally, this class will meet at a different point in the city each time, but for the first day we had a regular class room and learned about the arrondissements of Lyon. I feel like I learned a lot! For example, in a zip code like 69005, the 69 stands for the département of France the region is located. So Lyon is the 69th département. In France, there are 101 départements. The last three digits represent the arrondissement of the département. An arrondissement is like a district. In Lyon, there are 9 arrondissements. So in the zipcode of 69005, it states that the location of whatever address that is stated is in the 5th arrondissements of the 69th département. I thought this was so cool! I didn’t realize there was any logic to how zip codes were formed. I also enjoyed this class because I understood about 90% of what the professor was saying (a big improvement from the day before). And she was speaking very fast! I’m excited for my first real session of this class to learn more about Lyon.

After class, some of my new friends and I wondered around Vieux Lyon (seems to be my new favorite place) and got pizza for lunch. After lunch, I was in the market for a new scarf to help me stay warm in Lyon. Even though its 25-30 degrees and I’m from Upstate New York, I am never normally outside for these long periods of time so my body isn’t used to this! It also doesn’t help that I now live in Arizona most of the year. I bought this super warm scarf on sale for 14.40 euro – its sale season in France so a lot of the stores are having major sales which is great for me – and bad fore my bank account. Finally, I headed home for the day around the sunset, and at Place Bellecour there was a ferris wheel set up for a short period of time so my friend Gray and I decided to ride it. It was a little expensive, at 9 euros a ride, but honestly the views were so worth it. We were able to see Lyon in all directions and since it was golden hour the lighting was perfect. Definitely an impulse but I would do it again!

Final Thoughts

Though my few days in Lyon were overwhelming at first, I feel a lot better now that I’ve made some friends and am familiar with how to get around. I’m excited to start my French classes so I can gain confidence in speaking with locals and not shy away from conversations. I hope to make a weekly entry to keep you guys updated!