There's a different vibe to Dijon than to Lyon.
Lyon is slow; Dijon is hustle. Lyon is refined; Dijon is a little rough. Lyon feels established; Dijon feels like it has to prove itself. The biggest difference I've found is that Lyon feels more lived-in and less touristed than Dijon. Obviously, I'm in the tourist section and Dijon is much bigger than just these few square miles, so this skews my view a bit. I hear more English and German here, and see more tour guides herding their ducklings along, than in the avenues of Lyon. Maybe it's just the time of year.
Something occurred to me today:
I started traveling to see places, all the places I'd read about: places of war, places of art, places of history. I thought I would absorb the essence of these places by being there. I stood at the place where gas first rolled across the Western Front and saw a small field of spring grass and an idle cow. I stood in the cathedral where the monarchs of France were crowned and saw columns and the pock marks of World War 1 bullets. I thought I would feel a direct connection with history, like a temporal umbilical cord, in these places -- but I never did. It's not that I don't appreciate the significance of these locales, I very much do, it's just that it's like visiting an empty concert hall long after the last song has ended.
Still I travel; why?
I realize that what I travel for now is connection.
I came to this realization today at the Les Halles market. Hundreds of Dijonnais were queuing for their cheeses and meats while I wandered around aimlessly to look at all those wonderful goodies. A man wearing a brown beret looked at me and I offered my polite "Bonjour, monsieur". He smiled, and addressed me in English, talking my hand for a friendly handshake.
"Your name?" he wanted to know.
"Mike" I replied.
He explained that I was in Mike and Pat's place, and that he was Pat.
"Would you like some wine?" he asked with friendly enthusiasm.
It's 11:30 in the morning -- of COURSE I want some wine!
He pours my wife and I a couple of small glasses and asks where I'm from, which state.
"Washington".
He proceeds to name Seattle and Olympia (the capital, he says proudly), then names Oregon and Portland.
We chatted a little and I mentioned that I'd just visited the Rhone valley. He laughs and says, "our Burgundy wines are far better".
I'm not going to argue with a man who's giving me free wine.
Places aren't places, they are the people who inhabit them.
The restaurant owner in Oaxaca; the mathematician in Paris; the woman at the table next to us today who was utterly delighted that we were visiting Dijon -- these real moments with real people are when I -FELT- the place I was visiting. And in that moment, I feel part of something: fractionally, fleetingly, I am a molecule French, or Oaxacan, or British.
That's a lot of return on a simple "Hola!" or "Bonjour!"
-- Mike Beebe