After our delay at the border we met my friend Ximena, who I met 9 years ago at a science camp, for a very late lunch on the lake in Lausanne, which also happens to be where our former housemate Nick lived for a while. So it was another chance to see an old friend in a new place.
We also managed to end up on the wrong side of a small mountain the city straddles before finding Ximena, which had one payoff: we trotted past what appeared to be a civic pillow fight.
And on our walk with Ximena, we discovered a bicycle-cum-planter which George plans to recreate in our garden in Cambridge.
Guest post by George:
Saturday at the border we met a welcoming committee of two stiff-backed gentlemen in peaked caps, one with a trim French moustache, the other with a clipped accent and both blessed with a keen sense of curiosity. Their searching glances were the preliminaries to what promised to be an exhaustive inquiry. Our hand luggage, jackets and wallets were turned out, inspected and patted down with finger-tip precision. Still entertaining the possibility that our tousled appearance might be caused by something stronger than Chimay, Trim-tache and Clipped-accent told us to ‘ouvrelevoiture,’ only to be greeted by the spectacle in the photo a left. Faced with the choice of unpacking Lucas’s flat or sending us on our way… they sold us a road-tax sticker and welcomed us to Switzerland.
Guest post by George: I last spent time in Lyon back in the late summer of 2002 when, being jobless, my circumstances confined me to an austerity diet of a sandwich or two a day and water from the public fountains. This time however I was determined to test the place’s reputation as the country’s gastronomic capital. So, after finally squeezing the van into a spot Friday night, Lucas and I found a typical hole-in-the-corner restaurant: think scarlet walls, retro decor and a bead curtain dividing the kitchen from the tiny dining room. Lucas enjoyed duck salad followed by chicken stew while I gobbled up asparagus soup and French black pudding. Still parched from the drive we went on to a Belgian beer bar where two locals – William (a rock drummer) and Ludo (an artist) – bought us a round and, fueled by civic pride and Chimay, expressed their love of Lyon, the Lyonais, and, most of all, the Lyonaises. The night ended in another bar where one member of the party was hoping that the Lyonaises, or at least one of them, would return his affections. Unfortunately, having drunk far too much Chimay, I cannot say if his hopes met with success. I can say however, that William and Ludo were great hosts and a lot of fun. At my current rate of progress my next dining experience in Lyon will be in a Michelin-starred joint and instead of Chimays we’ll drink champagnes–on me.
After leaving the snowy mountains of Puigcerda Friday morning, we reached Montpellier in time for lunch on the main square. Then we went for a brief promenade and found ourselves in the middle of a life-sized Tetris game. Jean-claude, the red piece in the photo, later explained what they were doing:
“I’m giving you some context so you can tell your friends while you’re pointing out our face on the screen : we have been working for 3 years to sit an exam in order to join the greatest engineer french schools (Centrale, Polytechnique and so on). That was our last day here, training and we’re heading at two weeks of intensive work to make sure we’re ready and that will be it… We are some kind of geeks and that was the costume that came first to our head, obviously. It’s made of cardboard, tapestry and long hours of commitment… !”
Journalist covering global development by way of science and technology.
