Lyon
30 Sep — 3 Oct remembered on 10 Oct
Lyon is another city excluded from my memories. It was my first time visiting. And as a little confession, Lyon is also the only city that was not on the route of Peng.
My flight arrived at 22:40, and it was delayed by around 20 minutes. Luckily, I was sprinting again since landed, and I managed to hop on the last train to the hotel. Where I stayed was called Hotel F1. It is a bit like a youth hostel outside the city centre, again, with extremely friendly prices. It only cost €33 per night for two people, for a room with two single beds and shared toilets and showers.
The reason I booked a room for two was that one of my best friends, W, was joining me on this part of the trip, but only from the next day. She lives in Paris. We studied together in college back in Taiwan, and we moved to Europe - Paris and London, the same year, 2008. We have been, kind of, best friends with each other since. Despite not living in the same city, we talk to each other on Whatsapp almost daily. W helped me go through a lot of hard times, including the lonely days and nights when I am at residencies, like these days. I was really looking forward to seeing her.
The checking-in was smooth. The room was standard. There was no clean towel provided, but there was a little basin inside of the room, which made it convenient to wash things or brush teeth. I was accompanied by a lonely fly on my first night. I tried to kill it with the rolled-up paper receipts given by the reception, but failed. I was too tired, so I decided to make peace with its company. I ended up sleeping peacefully with my earplugs on the whole night.
Originally I was going to Venice. Every time I have residency in Europe, I visit some other cities, especially if biennales are on. I visited Venice and Kassel in 2022 when I was in Paris. However, I could not find any affordable accommodation in Venice this year, especially as a solo traveller. I remembered a friend recommended the Lyon Biennale to me before, and I figured, it’s a city I had never been to, and there was a chance to meet my friend, so, here I was.
I forgot to mention that another reason I chose Hotel F1, besides the price, was that it only took 8 minutes to walk to the main venue of Lyon Biennale, Les Grandes Locos, which of course became my obvious first stop the next morning. (Shame that there was no breakfast included like the hotel in Stockholm.)
Again, this is not an art guide, and I am not an art critic, so I am going to skip a lot of comments on the biennale and the artworks. In conclusion, I feel that one shouldn’t compare it with the Venice Biennale or Documenta, since they are on completely different scales. And from my six months in Paris two years ago, I realised that I might not be a huge fan of the art I saw in France. Again, personally (I am really afraid of offending anyone), I found the artworks in France focusing more on the materials, or the visual, or even the atmosphere, rather than the discourse, like Louise Bourgeois versus Forensic Architecture, or Pipilotti Rist (I know she’s not French, but sorry I can’t think of anyone else particular.) versus Omer Fast. (Not sure if it makes sense, since he was actually in the Lyon Biennale this year.) Well, you know what I mean.
However, I do believe that the biennale was the right choice for me at that time. After a long, two-week trip across two continents, five different cities, I was exhausted. I don’t think I had the energy for large amounts of long videos with debates, which are what I usually like. So, it was perfect. And I did encounter a few works that I do like, such as “Ride” by Jérémie Danon & Kiddy Smile, among many others. I was also happy to see Jeremy Deller as a pleasant surprise.
Another anecdote that happened at Les Grandes Locos was that, I had this Mageasy strap for my phone, bought right before I started my trip in Taiwan. I found it convenient, and I believed it would reduce the chance for me to lose my phone. But for some reason that day, I didn’t want to use it. So I left the phone, along with the strap in my tote bag. And it was a rather warm day, so I left my jumper in the same bag, instead of wearing it. At some point, while watching a video in one of the rooms, I started to feel chilly, so I took out the jumper and put it on before heading out. After seeing a number works afterwards, I wanted to check the time, and if W sent me anything about her arrival. I couldn’t find my phone. I panicked, thinking, “Oh shit, it must be in that room. It must have fallen out of the bag when I took out the jumper.” So I rushed back to the room, bumping into people walking out, and it was not there. I came out of the room, looking panicked, and then a kind male staff approached me, asking if I was looking for a phone. Turned out that someone found it, (and yes, it was in that room), and he gave it to the staff. I couldn’t believe how silly I was, and also, how I managed to get my iPhone 13 back, in France! I guess it was my lucky day.
After having the over-priced, €9 falafel balls for lunch (There was nothing around the venue, so all the visitors had to eat at the canteen inside Les Grandes Locos.), I moved on to Grand Hôtel-Dieu, one of venues of the exhibition in the city centre. It took only around 30 minutes for me to be there. (Again, that sounds fast for me.) The artworks in the exhibition might be my least favourite ones, however, there was “Animitas” by Christian Boltanski, which I had seen somewhere in the past.
As I finished the exhibition, W arrived. However, she was way too uncomfortable to walk around seeing artworks due to her period, so we decided to go back to the hotel to rest. We spent the whole late afternoon plus the night inside of the room, only popping out for food and wine twice. The first time we went to a fancy organic shop for some cheese, cold cuts, cookies and a bottle of red. And as the wine finished, the regret of not buying two from the first shop arised. We decided to seek help from a nearby off-licence for some not-so-nice wine with the same price, since the first one had closed. Overall, it was a fun night. When you have friends and wine, why would you need art?
The next morning, when I was just about to go for a shower in the public cubicles, I couldn’t find one of my two Uniqlo thermal T-shirts. Since I left the big luggage at Skövde, for the whole 8 nights, across Stockholm, London and Paris, I had to live with one backpack, sized under 40x30x15cm, according to the rule of SAS. So, basically, I only had two sets of clothes to alternate, and one of them was even needed for sleeping. (Of course I had enough clean underwear). As you can imagine, losing one of them was not good news to me.
The only possibility that W and I could think of, was that I might have lost it when I took a shower the day before. Probably it dropped on the floor without my notice while I was holding a bunch of clothes walking from the shower back to the room. So, I asked the staff if anyone had seen anything like that. At first, the long-haired gentleman didn’t seem to understand my English, but after I repeated slowly with my body language, he seemed to realise what happened. He went to his office, before asking the cleaning lady, however, received negative answers on both occasions. We couldn’t figure out where it went. Why would anyone want a smelly grey Uniqlo thermal T-shirt? However, I gave up. The T-shirt ended up to be the second (hopefully the last) item lost on this journey.
Thinking upon my staying in Sweden for the coming two months, I had a feeling that thermal T-shirts are considered something essential. So, I added the Qniqlo in Lyon on my schedule for the day.
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After the shower, W felt better. So, she decided to start with Les Grandes Locos nearby, when I headed out to MAC, Museum of Contemporary Art of Lyon. I think I might like the works there a little bit better than the ones in Les Grandes Locos, but overall I would give a similar comment.
Afterwards, I stopped by the Uniqlo around the main station, spending €15 for a black thermal T-shirt (which I prefer over the old grey one, yeah!), before heading to IAC — Institut d’art contemporain.
On my way there, I was surprised to find out that the “public” toilets inside shopping malls in France were usually not free. After complaining to W through Whatsapp, saying that I believed using toilets should be a basic human right for everyone, so it should be free, I moved on with my day, of course without compromising my principle of not paying for toilets. I do appreciate that about Taipei. Free, and relatively clean toilets everywhere, at every metro station, department stores, and most of the time, convenient stores like 711.
IAC was the only venue not mentioned by the friend who recommended the biennale to me, so I was not having high expectations. However, it was surprisingly good, and might even be my favourite, not to mention that it had a clean, free toilet that I used right after I arrived.
Afterwards, W and I met up around the city centre. We walked around, and then stopped by a nice, small bar, and then had dinner at a local, rather traditional, restaurant that she found on Google Map with a reasonable rating. She mentioned to me that the food from Lyon was known for using animal organs, which is something I like. We had two of those three-course meals. We both had onion soups as starters, and I had some stomach thingy as my main (sorry I don’t know the name), and we both ended up with crêpe as desserts, while sharing a bottle (those house wine bottles) of red. Apart from being slightly too salty for us, it was reasonably priced, with a considerable amount of food that both of us were struggling to finish.
We arrived on my last day here. There was no direct flight from Lyon to Stockholm, at least not on the day when I travelled. So I had a 14:20 flight to Amsterdam, and another 17:30 flight from Amsterdam to Stockholm. In that case, I had to leave the hotel around 11am to the airport. After saying goodbye to W, I was on my way.
You must think that my Lyon trip would end here, right?
No, it was just about to start.
I arrived at the airport early, taking my time going through the security check. I removed everything I was supposed to, leaving them inside the trays on the belt, and I walked through the X-ray machine. It beeped. And then I was indicated to be checked by a female security staff. She started talking to me in French, but I couldn’t understand, so I said, “Sorry I don’t understand.” She acted slightly impatient, asking me in English, “Can I check your body?” I said, “Yeah.” I was expecting those batons with censors, like those things airport security waves around your body closely, to check if there is something metal on you. But instead, she chose a rather traditional tool, her hands, which was fine. She started to touch me all over. I was okay, until she started to put her hands inside of my bra, through my jumper. I didn’t stop her, but I did mumble, “Is this really necessary?” She was unhappy with my comment, and she started to pull the back of my bra, repeatedly, asking “What’s this? What’s this?” I said, “My bra.” She ignored my answer, continuously repeating the same thing while pulling my bra. Luckily, I was wearing a sports bra, something I would wear publicly without other clothes in a gym anyway, so I lifted up my jumper, and showed everyone my bra, saying, “It’s just my bra.” She seemed to consider that as an act of aggression rather than cooperation, as I would consider it to be. She got upset, started to shout at me in French, complaining that I don’t speak French, and then she asked me to go back to the end of the queue, shouting “Go back, go back” with a gesture, before moving on to another passenger. Another staff behind her winked at me, gestured for me to pass, like “It’s fine, just go.” So I walked past, and she didn’t stop me.
But this is not the end.
Finally, we boarded. For these two flights to Stockholm, the only ones available I found was KLM. I believe it was my first time flying with a non-budget airline within Europe. In that case, I was actually allowed to have a carry-on luggage plus a personal item. However, since my previous flights prevented me from doing so, I only had one backpack with me. Once I found my seat, I was going to put that backpack in the compartment above. Suddenly, a woman behind me stopped me, speaking in French, indicating that I shouldn’t put my backpack there, that I should put it under the seat, so I stopped what I was doing. Quickly, she put her carry-on luggage, a suitcase, in the space where I was going to, and sat down on the seat next to mine. A gentleman sitting in front of us kindly translated for me, saying “She said you should put yours in front of the seat, since that’s your personal item, right?” I said, “No, this is my only luggage, my carry-on.” He said, “Oh, then you definitely had the right to put it above.” The backpack was too big to be under the seat. Luckily there was another space in the overhead compartment in the roll behind us, so I put my backpack there. Once I sat down, I talked to the woman calmly, saying, “That was not nice of you. Leaving my luggage above my overhead compartment was my right. I should be allowed to do so.” She replied in French, implying she doesn’t understand a word I said, that she only understood French.
I gave up, just being happy that I was getting out of there.
However, the trip didn’t end on a bad note. Like mentioned, this was my first non-budget flight in Europe, so I never knew that there could be free food and drinks for a flight within the continent. I almost asked the flight attendant that if those was free, but after observing his interaction with other passengers, I confirmed the good news without the risk of acting silly. I held back my excitement, and elegantly asked for a white wine along with the chicken sandwich they offered. The kind staff told me that he only had one Rosé left if that’s okay, I said yes. So I started sipping the small bottle, feeling blessed. Soon after, the same staff came back, saying that he found a bottle of white, and asked if I wanted it. I said, “Oh, but I already opened this.”, he said, “Don’t worry, have two!” I guess whoever up there saw the injustice that happened to me at the border as well as on the plane earlier.
The best flight ever.
This is how I left Lyon.
