A strange evening in Lyon

I had not expected anything interesting to happen in the hours since the last post, but in fact plenty did.

We decided to meet Jenafer, Marty, and Nano for dinner. Since they don't know the city very well, we decided to meet them at their hotel, which as you will recall is right near the Part Dieu train station. We took the bus to get there. On the way, we were controlled; that is, transit agents inspected every passenger's tickets or passes. There were about eight agents on this control detail, all of whom were tough-looking men of above-average size. Two people on our bus did not have anything entitling them to travel, so they were taken off. If that happens to you, you can pay a large fine on the spot or an even larger fine later. Anyway, the two people pulled off were a tiny white girl and a skinny black man, so it was especially comical seeing them surrounded by the big agents.

I didn't take any pictures because you never, ever photograph French law enforcement officials at work. The law does not permit distribution of such images, mostly because of a justified fear of personal reprisals against officers doing their jobs.

Anyway, we got to the hotel. We decided not to go very far and ended up at the shopping mall on the other side of the train station from the hotel. We ate at Bistro Romain, which is the French equivalent of The Olive Garden. Now keep in mind that it's in France (where food tends to be better than in America) and that the cuisine is Italian (which French people do well), so it's better than The Olive Garden, but still, it's not the type of restaurant we frequent. But it does serve at all hours and is pretty accommodating of the young and old. So we had a good meal.

I didn't take any pictures because French law (la loi Potemkin, to be precise) prohibits publicizing that there are malls and chain restaurants in France.

We left before dessert because it was getting late for Eli and we wanted to pick up some groceries. We stopped at an independent supermarket on the Presqu'île. (I might talk about geography later.) There Ally ran into her friend Zoë. Zoë and Ally taught English at the Université de Lyon II--Paul Lumière during the 1999-2000 school year. They had lost track of each other since. Zoë lives in Lyon now; she's originally from the north of England. It was just such a coincidence to run into her. If we'd been a few minutes earlier or later, we would not have. We are going to try to meet up with her later this week.

I didn't take any pictures because Ally and Zoë wouldn't let me.