When Promise, Sam and I found out that we would be spending a semester in Lyon, France, we joked about living together. “It would be like a reality show!” said Promise. “We could film it and send it back to our friends in Toronto!” said Sam. “You would literally kill each other!” said everyone who heard of our idea.
In the end, Sam opted for a single dorm room in a university residence and Promise and I decided to look for accommodation once we arrived. Sam arrived first—settling into a small dorm room that would serve as his bedroom, office, kitchen and living room for the next three months. A few days later, Promise arrived, making her home, temporarily of course, on Sam’s floor, wedged between the bed and the kitchen table. I came three days later and, like Promise, settled on Sam’s floor on an air mattress that was situated beneath Sam’s desk. While Promise and I (and definitely Sam) hoped that we would find permanent accommodations quickly, we soon realized that finding a place to live in Lyon would be very difficult.
In the weeks that Promise, Sam and I occupied a space about the size of Bora’s elevator, we learned to co-exist (almost) peacefully. Sam and I learned that, in the morning, Promise reverts to her 5 year old self who refuses to get up and then refuses to get in the shower and then refuses to eat the breakfast that you have made for her. We learned that Sam has habits of talking in his sleep (“She smelled like salmon! She did!) and stripping down to his underwear immediately upon walking in the door, regardless of who is there. Promise and Sam learned that, while they are both very stylish individuals who take great care in the clothes they buy and wear (Sam even brought scarves! And not just for practical cold-fighting purposes!), I am, as they have told me repeatedly, devoid of any fashion sense and totally incapable of dressing myself. After hearing my go-to line of “sure this may not fit properly but I got it for free!” one too many times, they forced me to go shopping to buy something that they could be seen with me in.
We developed a routine. In the morning, I would get up first, “bopping around” (as Sam liked to say) and making breakfast as noisily as possible. I leaned my air mattress up against the desk to create what we called “Promise’s change room.” At exactly 8:25 I would begin my daily routine of lying to Promise about what time it was and coaxing her to get out of bed. We quickly learned that Promise does not like to hear clapping, singing or laughing before 10:00 am. Meanwhile, Sam rolled around in his bed, using what I came to think of as his “colourful morning language” (
FYI he also has “colourful driving language” and “colourful seeing-beautiful-French-countryside language”). Usually, we left for school about ten minutes after I would have liked and ten minutes before Promise would have liked.
In the evening, we would come home and get our “kitchen” ready (i.e. pulling the table to the middle of the bedroom) and have a romantic team dinner with some combination of cheap, and delicious, French wines. After what was usually a very late dinner, we would turn on our favourite French reality TV show (“Love is on the farm”) and settle down for the night—Sam on his single bed and Promise and I on our mattresses.
Because we cannot get enough of each other, the three of us have also traveled together in our time in France. One weekend, we went to Cannes (with an irrelevant Windsor law student) where we stayed in a hotel room with a single double bed (it literally felt like a palace to us) and inadvertently went to a bizarrely racist drag show where everyone was smoking inside (someone accidentally put out a cigarette on the nose of the irrelevant Windsor student, causing second degree burns). More recently, we visited the lovely U of T law crew in Paris. Demonstrating my inability to be taken out in public, particularly when shopping is involved (Promise once yelled “Can’t you do anything right?!” at me in a crowded h&m), I knocked over a mannequin in a really fancy store on Champs-Élysées (of course, the head rolled across the store).
In the time that we spent living together, Promise, Sam and I literally—literally—were not apart from each other for all but three hours. In 13 days. Three hours. Combined. Although, in retrospect, this seems crazy, the one time that I was left on my own I almost managed to cut my thumb off making dinner. A sign, perhaps, that I am not to be left unsupervised. While there were a number of downsides to our living situation (Promise’s poor boyfriend must have felt like he was in a relationship with all of us), we managed to get through it without killing each other and, when Promise and I finally left, we felt like we were breaking up.
Our time in France has been incredible. From bars that serve free nutella and crepes right next to the dj to bakeries that open at 5:00 am (perfect for a snack on the way home from the bar!) to freely drinking high quality, low cost wine on Lyon’s riverbanks to (Attention: Alexis Archbold) studying international law principles that will be an indispensable asset to us in our future legal careers, we have been having a great time. We are looking forward to the remainder of our exchange experience. And when we return to Toronto in January, I am hopeful that we can continue having dinner parties in Sam’s bedroom.
