6 Months Living in Lyon, France: What We Wish We Knew Before Moving | American Expat Life

6 Months Living in Lyon, France: What We Wish We Knew Before Moving | American Expat Life

[Music] Open [Music] the door. [Music] I’m Deri. I’m Marshall. And we’ve been living in 
Lyon, France for 6 months now. And today we wanted to talk to you guys about all the stuff we’ve 
learned um about our new life here um 6 months in and the things we wish we knew before we came here 
and the things we wish we knew before for sure. So one of the happiest surprises that we’ve 
found uh over the last 6 months is the uh sense of community that we’ve gotten since we moved. Um, 
I think whenever anybody moves to a new country, um, sometimes a new city, but definitely a new 
country, especially when there’s a language barrier, um, I think it’s it’s almost a given that 
you’re going to be lonely. And in all honesty, one of the most surprising things about living in Lyon 
for the last 6 months is how not lonely we are. we end up finding people who obviously can 
speaking speak English. Um, and some of those people we end up having conversations with and 
some of those people end up having real genuine friendships with. Um, so you end up just making 
friends with um definitely some French people, but a lot of international uh friends as well. 
Um, so yeah, we’re just a small little part of the the American representation in Lyon. Belizean 
American representation. Yeah, there’s one of those one. There’s one Belizean American that we 
know about. So yeah, so the sense of community is is thriving in Leon and it’s something that we 
really didn’t expect but we are absolutely loving. I think the other day in um just a couple of 
weeks, weekends ago, people were setting up and there was an orchestra and it was playing 
ABBA and there were drag queens singing to Abba and there were kids playing on the playground 
and there was just the community just gathered, young and old and they were dancing and 
you just kind of are you pass by doing errands and then all of a sudden you’re in the 
middle of a a community um get together orchestra. Yeah. It’s which to me I I you know and and I 
looked at that and I I said, “Yeah, this feels right. I’m home.” You know, and and it’s just 
stuff that consistently happens. Um especially in the little village that where we are, it’s 
just those things happen all the time and and that’s a community things. But then we go to class 
and we get together with our friends from school. Um, I I have really gotten into Pilates lately. 
And then you meet people at Pilates class and you end up just really um finding people and and 
talking to different people from different places as well. I have to plug Lewang because I feel 
like they’ve just been there since day one. Um, and if anything, that’s where we get to practice 
our French and have some really good food. And um Penelopey gets lots of cheese and 
lots of hugs and um and a blanket to sit on and people are are genuinely friendly and 
kind. And I think that right there is exactly what we were looking for. Um, when we came 
to Lyon and when we made our move to France, One of the things that I wish I knew before we 
came here is that the buses are actually great. Um, in Florida, the buses are not great. There not 
a whole lot of routes, so it’s not very efficient to where you need to go. Once you get off the 
bus, you still have to walk in 150° heat. And um we kind of carried that with us and probably 
for 4 months we didn’t ever take a bus. I don’t know what the aversion was to uh the bus, 
but when I started taking the bus um in Leon, I was very pleasantly surprised and at and mostly 
at how efficient it is. Um pretty much you use a bus to go wherever you want here. And really the 
buses they want you to take uh buses or um the metro or walk um or they are very much um here in 
Lyon they’re very much wanting you to take other uh means of transportation as a velv or which is 
our the bike system here or uh Marshall’s favorite way of of getting around is a trottinette or a 
scooter the electric stand up electric scooters which are widely disallowed in the United States 
for whatever reason. Yeah. No, but here you can actually um get on the the sharing system if you 
don’t have one of your own. Um and you can take a a scooter downhill if you want, which for me is 
just kind of nuts. It is scary. Marshall loves it. I love it. I’m No, I did that once and I said I’d 
never do it again. I can I can talk forever about riding scooters around the city. So, if that’s 
something that that you want to see a video on, uh you know, comment comment below and I’m 
happy to to talk about uh insurance for it. Yes, that’s mandatory and speed limiting and all that 
kind of stuff. So, if you’re interested in that, comment down below and we’ll uh we’ll put a 
video together on that. But yeah, if you see Marshall around town, um most likely he’ll be on 
a little trottinette electric. [Laughter] [Music] Um we do a lot more biking these days as well. 
That’s the other thing that that um I never really I never really knew would happen. Um I we 
knew we’d be able to do a ride share, but we now um are doing our own bikes. Um to the point where 
even Penelopey has her own little uh bike carriage because we pretty much use the bikes especially, 
you know, whenever sometimes Penelope has two bike carriages. Yeah, she has two bike carriages. This 
is how this is how much we’re using bikes these days. Um it’s actually not only a form of um just 
you know transportation. Um obviously we use it to you know to go on our picnics but it’s honestly 
like a really lovely way to spend a day if you want to uh do biking around the city. Um you can 
take your bike out for a couple hours and be on different parts of the city and you’ll see a lot 
of really interesting things. So, we are really into biking now. Something that I never realized 
would happen before we got here. But yeah, just because we um do everything by bike or by 
trotinette or by uh just just walking just walking sometimes. That doesn’t mean that we don’t do car 
things as well. We just do way less of it. Um, and in fact, it’s been six month. Yeah, it’s been 
6 months and I have not driven a car in over 6 months now. Um, not since we sold our cars the 
day before we left. It’s been about an hour for me. Yeah, I just came back. We don’t I mean we 
don’t use the car in town at all. We just don’t um unless we go um a little outside the town 
to do a major shopping trip and that’s maybe once every couple weeks, not even um or if 
we need the car for something specific um in town. Mostly we use our car to go to 
um go out of town and do weekend trips, which there have been a couple so far. We have 
lots of little places we want to go um and even obviously outside of France as well. Um so we’re 
we’re very much looking forward to that. Um and possibly um using our car a little bit more in the 
future to be able to go and visit some new things. I’d like to say that I knew what the bureaucracy 
was going to be like in France before he came. Um, and I’m I’m I’m always back and forth on this. 
Everybody always rolls their eyes and uh French bureaucracy. And I mean, even the people here, 
I’m not just not just others, right? But um I’m I’m sort of of two minds. On one hand, there’s 
a lot of paperwork and um they for example, I just got done with the bank setting up a bank 
account yesterday. They asked every question that possibly could be asked. I mean, United States, 
you go to the to the bank with $1,000 and your and you know your social security number 
and they’re happy to have you as a customer. whereas I was literally asked, “Well, why do you 
want to open an account at our bank?” So, I I didn’t expect that question, right? And my answer 
was, “Well, you’re number one, right?” So, that’s that’s why I want to open an account at your bank. 
But but there was a just a ton of paperwork to do. And I know there’s probably a little bit more 
for me because I’m trying to open an account at a French bank as a non-FFrench citizen, but um it 
was sort of it was sort of representative of what you’ll have to go through. So on one hand, yes, 
lots of paperwork. They asked for everything. Having said that, everything has been faster 
than anticipated and more fluid than anticipated. And it’s it’s not a joke to say that if they ask 
you for five documents, bring them and then bring 10 others just in case they ask. Um, but it’s it’s 
been very fluid and it’s been I think the example that I like to use is the lice driver’s license 
swap. They told me it would take 8 months to do the swap and 5 weeks later the licenses were 
swapped out. So there’s a lot of paperwork, a lot of bureaucracy. you’re required to provide 
a lot of things. It’s when you walk into an establishment to try to get something done, you 
are asking nicely the person on the other side of the counter to do it. You are not commanding the 
situation as in the US where you’re like, look, I’m the customer. I’m always right or this is that 
that interaction that that feel doesn’t exist. Yeah. Just don’t do that kind of interaction. 
Yeah. Be nice. It’s not going to be taken well. So, yeah. Yeah. So, bureaucracy, there’s a lot 
of it, yes. But it’s pretty fluid. It’s pretty efficient, and it’s more and more becoming um 
uh digitized and and you can perform a lot of it online now. Yeah, I don’t want to say pro tip, 
but two items that have been extremely extremely useful to me and I didn’t get them because of 
these types of processes, just the sort of the way that I like to do paperwork is within the 
first couple weeks I had gotten a scanner and I had gotten a laser printer and and I know it’s 
like it’s a little bit of a a splurge to get those kinds of items. if you don’t have those things, 
you have to go find a place to print them or get copies made and and it’s just it’s so much easier. 
So, if you’re if you’re serious about getting your paperwork done quickly, uh maybe invest in 
a printer and a uh and a scanner. Good tip. So, since we moved here in early April, 
yeah, since we moved here in early April, um we’ve been able to experience uh spring, 
summer, and now that we’re getting into October, a little bit of fall. Um a lot of fall, a 
lot of fall. We realized that in the spring um it almost seems like as we arrived uh you 
know Leon was kind of falling like waking up um and and it but it was the most beautiful 
weather. Um the weather was crisp and clear and not a lot of rain and we were just you 
know kind of getting used to everything. June, July, it felt like there was always 
some sort of community event and community um you know getting people out of their houses 
and just onto the streets. That’s and it’s so interesting to watch it. Uh one of my favorite 
weekends was um Fete de La Music weekend. Um, and this is this is something I think everybody 
kind of knows of it in Paris, but this is really something that is done all around uh France. And 
um so Lyon is no different. And basically what it is is just um every square and every area has 
is just dedicated to music. Music of all sorts. kind of just go around all the different parts 
of Lyon and listen to music and listen to DJs and listen to, you know, people with you drums. I 
think that that was one of my favorites was there was this drumming um this like almost almost like 
a Brazilian drum group and it was so good. [Music] I had too much of a good time that day. Yeah, it was just one of those really fun days. 
The whole community, everybody’s out. Everybody is out um and they’re singing and they’re 
dancing and they’re just having a good time and it it honestly feels like a really great 
start to the summer. Um, so it’s definitely one of my favorite things that I can’t wait for 
for next year. Also in uh the spring as well, June of course is Pride Month and they 
have a they have a pride festival. Um it’s smaller than than what I’ve seen before. 
Uh but there’s a again a really good little parade. Um we were there for the ending of the 
parade and um our friend of ours walked us to where a big celebration afterwards and 
that that was just so much fun as well. And what month was it? So there’s the um and then 
in July maybe it’s for the summer. So I think it’s June, July, and August they have outdoor 
performances. So the the place where there used to be a stage back 2,000 years ago there’s now 
a stage again. another stage for the summer, but with big speakers and amps and then they they 
turn that into a a music venue. It’s really just lovely how Lyon has taken things um of history 
and you get to kind of use them still to this day. Um in August it the whole city shuts down. 
Yeah. If I were to tell anybody one thing, uh if you’re planning to visit Lyon, don’t 
come in August. you won’t find anything open really. It is very much um yeah, it’s a ghost 
town. You’re just going to see nothing but uh people basically saying that they’re on Vans 
and they’re usually gone for either a month or 3 weeks or two weeks maybe at minimum. If they’re 
unlucky, two weeks. Yeah. If they’re unlucky, two weeks. And they’re just closed down. and and 
to the point where in August um like I think our metro wasn’t running for a good two weeks either 
for servicing or or what have you. That’s when they’ll plan the some of the services. 
If they need to do an annual maintenance, it’ll happen during August because there’s 
less people using the service. In August, that’s where you’re going to see a lot of the 
crews come out and you’re not going to be able to pass on a road or sidewalk or what have you. Um 
but of course most people in Leyon are on vacation at that point. [Music] So as we reflect on our 
last 6 months um I think we are just filled with gratitude of being here and you know really that 
we just happened to land in one of the best spots um that we believe in France. We absolutely 
adore Lyon. We absolutely adore people here that we’ve met and we are so thankful for 
the experience and so thankful for for all the all the new experiences that that we’re 
we’re having and everything that fell into place to to let it happen. Oh my gosh, it 
sometimes it was just kissment cuz again um we could have been in Lille right now. We were 
honestly before Lyon, we were actually planning on moving to Lille. [Music] We’re going to we’re 
going to pop a little champagne. Um we’re going to raise a toast. Um and how thankful we are for 
the last 6 months and um all the experiences that we’ve had. Um so here’s a toast to that Airbnb 
in Lille falling through cause I think if that didn’t happen, we wouldn’t be as happy as we are 
in Lyon. And a toast for everybody watching that’s somehow for some reason happy to listen to us 
drone on for some reason about our life. Um so thanks to you and thanks to that Airbnb host that 
canceled our our Airbnb in Lille. Cheers. [Music] We’ll see you soon on our next 
episode, guys. Thank you. Take care.

After 6 months living in Lyon, France, we’re sharing everything we’ve learned about expat life! From surprising community connections to navigating French bureaucracy, transportation tips, and seasonal changes – here’s what we wish we knew before moving to France.
🇫🇷 What We Cover:

Finding community as English-speaking expats in Lyon
Transportation surprises: buses, bikes, and trottinettes (scooters)
The reality of French bureaucracy (it’s not as bad as you think!)
Seasonal life in Lyon: spring awakening, summer festivals, and August shutdown
Fête de la Musique and other cultural celebrations
Why we chose Lyon over other French cities

📍 Living in Lyon:
We relocated from Boca Raton, Florida to Lyon in April and couldn’t be happier with our choice! From neighborhood festivals to Pilates classes, we’ve found our home in France’s culinary capital.
💡 Key Takeaways:
✓ Bring extra documents for everything
✓ Don’t visit Lyon in August (everything’s closed!)
✓ Invest in a bike – it changes everything
✓ The expat community is thriving
✓ French bureaucracy moves faster than expected
Whether you’re planning your own move to France, considering Lyon as your destination, or just curious about expat life in Europe, this video gives you the real experience of living in Lyon after 6 months.
#LyonFrance #ExpatLife #LivingInFrance #MoveToFrance #FrenchExpat #LyonExpat #LifeInFrance #AmericanInFrance #ExpatCouple