I’m on break again! Happens all the time here, it seems. I was graced with a visit from my dear friend Leeah, whom I have now known for six years. This is a bit of a tradition for me and Leeah; we keep ending up in Europe at the same time. The first time we crossed paths, I went up to Ireland and slept on the floor of her university housing in between trips to the countryside. Later that semester, we met up at the halfway point, Paris, and split a bed in an Airbnb.
This time, I got to host! She slept on my couch and I took her around to all the best spots in the city.
It was her idea to visit Annecy, a sleepy little lake town up in the Alps on the French side of the border. We wandered the canals and saw several strange modern sculptures of trees.
Leeah also wanted to visit the dreaded city Geneva. For me, Geneva is a city of stress and expense — but she had never been, and wanted to see for herself. So she travelled up there herself with a little cheat sheet of French phrases I wrote out for her.
We visited Lyon’s museum of deportation and resistance. During WW2, Lyon was an anti-Nazi stronghold in an otherwise Nazi-possessed Vichy France. It was the seat of the Resistance, and also a site for mass deportation to the camps by Klaus Barbie, known as the Butcher of Lyon for his crimes. He was tried and sentenced to life in prison after an international manhunt that found him in Bolivia in 1983. It’s an insane story, and the museum featured videos of the testimonies his living victims gave at his trial, which was held in Lyon.
Leeah and I noticed something really interesting while we were there. The day before, I showed her around the city’s main square, Bellecour. This is a hub of protest and demonstration, especially right now. She took a picture of the statue of Louis XIV. She was interested in the graffiti on the side, “ACAB,” meaning “all cops are bastards.” Now, as we perused the archival photographs from the Resistance era, we saw that same statue.
People have been defacing this same statue almost as long as it has stood, often for political reasons! Pretty cool, right? History is a reflection of the present.
After Leeah left, I took a trip to Barcelona at her behest. “You gotta see Spain, it’s so beautiful.” It was very nice to see the Mediterranean again, and I got to see a flamenco dance and try paella. So that brings my total of countries visited up to, I think, 14. I could be miscounting.
I’m flying home in less than a month!
Bises,
Allison
P.S.: The protesters knocked the power out in my building while I was doing laundry, and I must admit my revolutionary spirit was somewhat dampened by my equally damp clothes.
Flan in France 