Adult Exchange Program
Visit Lyon and stay with a French family! What a wonderful way to learn about the French life style and practice your French daily.
Staying with a family can give you new pleasures and fresh understanding about French life. Even staying at the best penthouse hotel suite or becoming the pet patron of Frances finest concierge won't give you the same entrée into French life.
Plan now to join members of the Saint Louis Lyon Sister Cities for a week or two in the summer of 2009 in our adult exchange program. You'll stay with a hospitable French family in the beautiful ancient city of Lyon on the confluence of two rivers, the Rhone and the Saone.
You'll have the privilege of understanding much more about France than typical tour books attractions. France is more than landmarks, more than its beautiful country side.
You will live as a guest of the people and sample their rich style of enjoying life. Its a chance to polish your French, however knowing the language is not required. Drop the tag tourist and become a serious traveler.
With gas $10 a gallon in France and the Euro costing more in dollars every day, an adult exchange is an affordable way to see France. You have no hotel bills and you can return the hospitality the following summer in Saint Louis on the dollar economy, though this is not required.
Join your Lyon family in its routine. Go shopping with family members at their favorite hardware stores, chocolatiers, brocantes (second hand shops), department stores and bakeries. If you have children or grandchildren your hosts might point out wonderful childrens stores.
Your host may greet local farmers at their open markets by name. At a vegetable or fruit stand your hosts may even teach you a few tricks on testing for the freshest produce.
Go with them to a cheese market stall, a cheese shop or a farmers barnyard. Watching a Frenchman or French woman select cheese and listening to their critiques of it can be on the graduate level of culinary experience. Its certainly fun.
Sample a family cheese favorite, perhaps Comte from an hour away, near Grenoble . Or taste a family treasure of cheese, sausage or wine that they stock up on their annual vacation hundreds of miles away.
As the family prepares meals, watch their techniques as they cut and chop and spin ingredients into superb sauces. Watch how with scant cooking a few items from their local charcuterie become a stylish feast.
All of this is more fun that the television cooking shows because you can pick up a blade and try it yourself. You might return to the US a better cook. At the least, you'll have new ideas on how to garnish with flair. And your hosts might ask about your favorite recipes, too.
Lyon is surrounded by some of the worlds finest vineyards. Your hosts may know a small but fine vintner where they are clients fidèles. You will understand why the French say that Lyons third river is Beaujolais . Be assured that your host familys vintner will take you more seriously that a drop-in tourist.
Your Lyon hosts may take you to a favorite café, a family party or student gathering. While you sample a new, for you, aperitif or a good beer, your hosts and their pals may lay out their opinions of globalization, the Iraq war, African wars, the green movement, oil prices and Frances proposed renewed military participation in NATO.
Dont miss the chance to talk to children and teens in the familys circle who may well challenge your ideas about education. The French love to discuss serious issues in detail and rarely get into personalities unless they are talking about their President Nicholas Sarkosky, his wife, the xenophobic Brigitte Bardot and the American president.
Theyll want to know what you think about issues and especially about the first six months of the US president who will take office January 2009. In a friendly way, they likely will tell you exactly what they think of him, too.
Good conversation is great sport in France . Encounters like those dont often come to those who take tourist buses.
Long, late night dinners with wonderful conversation really make it an experience at getting to know the French, said Maureen Elliott, a Saint Louis-Lyon Sister City board member who with her husband has participated in the exchange.
When your hosts go to work or have other commitments, theres plenty for you to see and do in Lyon , especially with advice from your hosts. The Lyonaise take pride in their citys history.
The Celts came first and later, Julius Caesar used it as a base camp. Its Roman museum deserves at least a half of a day of your visit, maybe two trips. Because every child in Lyon learns about the citys beginnings your hosts can share fascinating information.
Movie buffs can visit a museum underlining Lyons spark to that industry. Lumiere might be just the name of a casino to you, but at the museum youll hear about Auguste and Louis Lumiere of Lyon who created cinematography.
If you love the turn of the last century Paris Metro designs charm your hosts by asking about Hector Guimard, the artist from Lyon who designed the art nouveau, iron, confections.
If you enjoy old cars and train engines, your hosts likely will jump at the chance to show off the regions Musee Henri-Malarte, with its collection of automobile and other motor vehicles. Youll see grand old Noel-Benets, Berliots, and of course many Citroens, and Renaults. Car talk brings people together in any nation.
Lyon is the silk design capitol of the world. Its silk museum explains in fascinating detail the extraction, making, dying and weaving of silk. You can see centuries of French fashions in silk. Like Saint Louis Lyon has a fine art museum and a wonderful symphony orchestra.
If you enjoy bicycling, go to the heart of old town of Lyon and swipe your plastic charge card to rent a bike. The Lyonaise are rightfully proud that their city set up bike rental stations across the citys center, before Paris so famously took up the idea.
Or, your hosts might take you to a challenging road route that has served as part of the Tour de France, or, to gently rolling country lanes through vineyards in Burgundys Cote dOr, some of the worlds most expensive rural real estate.
Since in mid-summer it does not get dark until 10 p.m. there is time for evening excursions. Just north of Lyon , you might visit Bourg-en-Bresse and dine on its famed, very pampered, blue-footed chicken at a café overlooking its flamboyant Gothic cathedral. After your coffee you might see the Serra sculpture and superb late Gothic art in its cloister.
With Lyons wonderful location, your hosts might plan a weekend in the Alps or a day on Lake Geneva . Or, on your own, you can extend your France adventure elsewhere in the country. No doubt your host family can give you lists of places to eat and play across their country.
You pay all your transportation costs to Lyon . Expect to pay for museum, entertainment, Metro and train tickets just as you would with friends in Saint Louis .
Of course, youll want to have extra euros to pay for your personal incidentals. Youll want to say Merci to your gracious hosts by treating them to dinner at a restaurant. Buy them flowers or wine as small treats when you go shopping. You might enjoy popping for lunch if they take you on an outing.
Many American visitors find it more generous to take a hostess gift with them to France, or to buy a gift there, rather than mail it later. Shipping a gift from the States opens your host family to the possibility of paying customs duty.
In the summer of 2007, a group of nine of our members spent a week in Lyon living in the homes of French families. And they still talk about it. Many have kept up with the families. Some French hosts are planning to visit Saint Louis .
Become a member of the Saint Louis-Lyon sister City Organization for a nominal fee and stay in the comfort and warmth of a Lyon home. Now is the time to plan for next summer.
For more information and to sign up, email or phone Sal Sutera sps@biomed.wustl.edu
314-862-4282 or 314-935-8538.
| Citizen Exchange 2007, Lyon France | |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |