An Otter in France

The boulevards of Lyon, France sparkle with a hazy mist as revelers in the street scream toasts above the Rhone River. I, a lowly Otter from California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB), gaze into the water as the clock strikes midnight and the faces in the crowds begin to converge; in fact, kissing breaks out like the plague (in a city of the plague nonetheless) while I consider how back in Monterey, my home, festivities will begin in nine hours.

Of course, France and California have a lot in common: amazing wines and cheeses, liberal politics, beautiful women, a sort of shameless pride in the nationalism of the state... But tonight, all across the world, cultures mirror each other in the drunken excitement of glistening possibilities, blank slates, and embraces of borrowed courage. 

The differences between cultures won’t hit me until the morning light does. I am perplexed by the habitualness and casualness of the smoking. Ironically, the packs here in Europe are mandated to declare “Fumer tue,” (Smoking Kills!) in large print taking up half of the space of the pack. However, I don’t think that strategy is working.

But there are more differences to notice, and the noticing is the fun behind traveling, as John Travolta pointed out in Pulp Fiction. I even had to walk into a McDonald’s just to see for myself the Royal with cheese that Vincent spoke of with such joviality. It’s more exciting on the big screen. 

Of course the traffic is freer of automobiles (except busses), and the cars themselves are much smaller, as well as the streets. All of the land is slightly different from what I am used to.  Flying over France and seeing the layout of the farmlands, I could see that they were not just smaller, and therefore indicative of less corporate ownership, but they weren’t as rectangular. The patterns of the land from above appear like a jigsaw puzzle in their crooked cross sections. The land had not been as tilled as in the United States. Hills were left in place where (back home) they would have been removed due to the ease, or trouble really, of maintenance.

France isn’t all about the little differences though, some are distinctly important. In the center of town close to the opera and the Palace of Arts, is a statue by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, the designer of the Statue of Liberty. It is called Fontaine Bartholdi and it shows a charioteer controlling the reins of two mighty rivers, the Rhone and the Saone, as the waters shoot heavily down the sculpture in the collision. The confluence in Lyon is the subject of the largest urban development project in Europe. The city is therefore historically and financially linked forever with the two rivers.

Like many European towns, Lyon has a plethora of statues and plaques commemorating the dead from World War Two, when Nazis occupied the city. The architecture of the buildings is a cognizant symbol of the war’s impact as well, sometimes leaving the rubble in corners as a reminder. The city’s multitude of bridges, many for pedestrians only, are even reminders as I stare into the Rhone and the Saone, watching the currents hit the debris at the foot of a pier. The debris is common and ancient, like the wood of a Fisherman’s Wharf back home, and I think of all the scenes the wood has watched. It has witnessed soldiers from various monarchies and countries marching through the streets, kings and queens dethroned and brought to power, seen the people dying in the streets—all while the Rhone continues its path through history.

Meanwhile the lowly Otter stares on.