Lyon apartment

All right, we're done unpacking now, so it's high time for me to give you a tour of our new digs. This place is easily three times as big as our tiny studio in Paris was, perhaps even larger. Definitely larger if you're counting cubic meters rather than square meters! And since we are not paying the premium for being able to walk out of our living room straight into the Louvre anymore, our rent is actually lower here despite the added space. So far my motto for Lyon as compared to Paris is "Lyon: twice the rivers (Rhône + Saône), half the rent."

The door to our building is located right between two restaurants: Le Boeuf d'Argent (The Silver Steer) and the oddly named Happy Friends Family



I am fascinated by the door to our building. It's equipped with some kind of ancient hydraulic jack that automatically (but veeeery, veeeery slowly) opens it at the push of a button, and it is prominently labeled "DO NOT PUSH" on the outside and "DO NOT PULL" on the inside. Aaron's theory is that the jack is not really necessary (due to the weight of the door, or whatever), but at the time it was put in it was probably at the cutting edge of cool front door technology.





The front door also has a note to curious tourists that our building does not contain any traboules, so they should not try to come inside looking for any. (Apparently, discovering these semi-hidden passageways that cut through many buildings in Lyon is a popular tourist pastime in Lyon. We haven't gone looking for them yet.) There is, however, an interior courtyard such as most old apartment buildings in France seem to have.



Come on in!



Bathroom complete with shelves, a normal-sized sink, and even a bathtub!



Living room



Aaron's new work area (in the living room); behind the wall you see here is the bedroom, and up above is a little reading/napping/guest loft



Bedroom -- it has no windows to the outside, just a little window that opens up to the living room



Reading loft



View of living room from loft



Kitchen -- hurrah for the large table and decent-sized refrigerator!





One of the best things about this apartment is that it is full of the owners' interesting artifacts and decorations that they have presumably gathered on their travels over the years. A few of my favorites are below.

Collection of coral and shells in the corner of the living room



Nifty decorative eggs and small dried gourds carved with Chinese art and calligraphy



The interesting chess board on which Aaron and I played a game last night (the first chess game for both of us in a long, long time!)



And here is my favorite random surprise while we were unpacking yesterday -- look what we found in one of the closets!



(Note to readers who don't know why this is exciting: my mom's name is Elvi; it's a Finnish name. Apparently it's also the name of a British clothing company that is now in the midst of clearance sales prior to going out of business. Hurry to place your order at www.elvi.co.uk -- stocks are limited! One penny postage on orders of £150 or more!)