Tschuss et Bonjour! (03/02/26-04/02/26)

We’re leaving Germany!

Weird to say that, but alas, even JPs efforts to secure a visa are basically over. He finally got hold of someone in the local office who said they only grant resident permits inside the country. And to do that, we’d need to provide the children’s birth certificates, translated, and an apostille to verify it, as well as the marriage certificate, and other things. Honestly, this was much harder and more complicated than the visa the consulate in Chicago said to get.

Alas, plan B and/or C…

We packed the car for our first big journey!

Driving to Lyon, France. We thought we’d take the scenic route, skip the toll roads, and see the countrysides. But all that we got for avoiding the toll road was a 2 hour delay on our arrival time, and smellier bathrooms.

Crossing into France was probably the most anti-climactic event.

We crossed a river

That’s it.

Now signs are in a romance language JP can finally grok (mostly).

The stores are all the same, the speeds are still the same, and the euro is still in effect.

Essentially, new country, same patterns.

It was a long day, and we needed to get in early enough to work and do school.

The home we booked for a few days is actually outside of Lyon, in a cute, mountainous, foothills farming region. We stayed at the top of a curvy, goat-path hill, in the town of Courzieu, just west of Lyon by car about 40 minutes. Nothing like arriving while it’s raining, dark, and the car has to make hairpin 170 degree turns, uphill, on unlit roads.

Thankfully we got in, unloaded quickly, and got situated.

Only, the internet was down. The promised high-speed was out, and the owner apologized and offered to reimburse for us purchasing something to use while here.

JP quickly bought an eSim, and we had school and work for a day.

The next morning was absolutely brilliant and sunny and kinda warm. JP got up early enough to take the dogs for an extended walk, and ended up getting off the beaten path, up a high hill, through the forest, to discover a roman aqueduct!

Amazing!

Hidden, it looked like just a hole in the ground, but on closer inspection, you can see the amazing masonry that’s lasted over 2,000 years! Darth was impressed, Inqueue probably was licking a tree

Back to the house, and into town, we grabbed a train to Lyon.

Probably the most unprepared we’ve ever had in a day, we kinda forgot the spare battery, extra water, etc.

But we made it to Lyon.

What a gorgeous, beautiful, fresh, and open city.

The walking was very easy here, with a riverside walkway, we traversed the westside of the city, saw the Thomas Jefferson plaque (who knows, Elyce wanted to take a picture), and then we needed food.

There’s a lot of kosher here, so we got an excellent lunch, and discussing shabbat with the rabbi, he offered us to rent the apartment above the restaurant for shabbat. However we’d have to do something with the dogs, and we weren’t prepared to do that to them.

But it did spark a sense that we should stay in Lyon for shabbat (originally we planned to be in Barcelona). Later that night JP will postpone our Barcelona arrival, and will book a shabbat apartment on the other side of Lyon, near all the synagogues.

The rabbi also recommended getting a phone at a store nearby, so we walked through one of the main pedestrian malls, and it was beautiful to see so many people strolling about, chatting, having fun, eating, running, etc.

JP even stopped a random guy who was riding his own invention, a remote controlled battery operated roller skate!

How neat!

Back on the train, we rushed to make it back for meetings and class work before batteries died.

The following day, before leaving, we loaded the car with snacks the ole fashioned way, tossing clementines down a flight!

We also stopped in town at the bakery to get some sweets for later

Today was kind of open-ended, so we let the children play navigator. We found a dump, a river, a town that made Elyce super nervous about the steep hill we had to climb (yet somehow a tour bus made it through), and then we got into the other towns nearby.

JP wanted to pick up a tool for the car, something called and OBD2. It’s a little doo-hickey (yes, that’s the technical term) that you attach to the car, and can read out any issues, reports, or monitors it may say are wrong. So instead of seeing “Red Engine Light” and reading, “Engine Failure”, JP can now determine that the particulate matter filter is having a dandy day 🙁

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Just a block away from the shop we stopped at is a Ferrari dealership. We tried to get in, but it was lunch time, and it seems some folks in Lyon like to have a siesta of their own.

Or, they saw the minivan, and locked the doors….