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Published: January 7th 2013
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The next day we decided to walk around Lille, use one of our Christmas presents, and visit the art expo known as Fantastic. The expo is composed of fantasy art all throughout the city. Lise parked in an underground parking deck in Euralille, a newer area of Lille. It’s a big shopping mall and if you park in the parking deck and bring the ticket to Carrefour after making a purchase, they knock off an hour and a half from your parking time. Most of the parking in Lille is not free so this was the most cost-effective option. The first thing that we did was to go on the Grande Roue (a big Christmas ferris wheel) that we had been given tickets to by Lise’s sister for Christmas. When we arrived at the top the ferris wheel stopped for a few minutes and Lise gave me an airborne verbal tour of Lille. My camera takes videos that don’t upload to Travelblog so I’ll have to convert them before uploading.
The Grand Roue was exposed to the elements so we were pretty cold when the ride stopped. We decided to go to a nearby restaurant called La Chicorée that Lise
recommended for some local French food.
The restaurant was incredibly busy and had made the most out of tiny spaces so that they could hold the most possible customers at one time. As such, the waiters and waitresses were very busy and Lise commented on not wanting their job. We each ordered a northern France beer called the Chti de Noel (Chti pronounced shtee and it’s what the French call a really strong northern accent. It’s halfway between an insult and something they’re proud of). Lise ordered a dish called Welsh Rarebit that was composed of toast, ham, topped with cheddar that has been melted with beer. I ordered some salmon tartar and flank steak. Both meals were served with fries because that’s very common in northern France. They brought out a chopped up baguette to eat with the meal as well. The guys next to me were eating the congealed meat that I mentioned a few days ago. We paid and left warmer and considerably less hungry than before.
After dinner we started to explore the city for the various art opportunities. The first place we went to was the train station Gare Lille Flandres to see
a UFO that had been installed. Our next destination was a church called Eglise St. Marie-Madeleine to see the expositions titled “God Hungry” and “Lotus”. On the way Lise showed me the oldest patisserie in Lille called Meert. The way the shops display their food next to the windows pointing out to the street makes it very difficult to not walk in and buy the goodies.
We walked 10 minutes or so and arrived at the church. The “God Hungry” piece was probably my favorite. The artist’s goal was to show the devastation of the tsunami in Japan. I can’t remember exactly how it was worded but it was something like: the gods killed all these people in Japan through the Tsunami but they couldn’t digest silver so this is the collective silver of the families that died. Every single piece was welded to the surrounding pieces through very tiny welds.
The next art structure was called “lotus”. It was composed of a rotating light that would rotate towards anyone that was close by, and it would follow them if the person moved radially around the lotus. The surrounding leaves of the lotus were photo-sensitive or heat sensitive
and would respond to the light and heat by opening up. The result of all this was that if you walked up to the lotus it would seem like it was opening up to you.
After the church we went to go see the upside down house. In French the name is something like maison qui tombe du ciel which translates to house that fell from the sky. The line was hella long so we didn’t actually go inside, but through some teamwork I helped Lise get to a vantage point where she could take some good pictures. The glass on the windows was intentionally very reflective so that anyone interested would have to enter to see what was inside. You can see the pictures of the upside down house here.
The final art presentation that we went to was inside of a church as well. It seemed to me like the churches were more like museums or art shows than churches. It was called Fantastic Huang Yong Ping after an artist from Xiamen, China. It cost 2 euros for students but that wasn’t a big deal. The first thing that we saw when we entered the building
was a huge octopus emerging from the ceiling. I did my best to take an octopus panorama for my dad so I hope it turns out well. The second presentation was a presentation of Noah’s Ark with animals that had been taxidermized by a local business, but the business had caught on fire years ago. This led to some of the animals having burn marks on them, but it was also supposed to have meaning in that the animals escaped but were still left with scars after the event. The final presentation was something in the shape of a gourd that had some significance for Chinese medicine that I didn’t really pay attention to. Lise broke the rules a little bit and put her face on the opposite end of the gourd and I took a picture of her peeking out at me.
After the last Fantastic art, Lise wanted to show me the Notre Dame de la Treille, a church in Lille. The story behind the church is that it took an incredibly long time to build and so part of the church is more modern than the rest of the church. The front of the church has
a huge marble front that looks like it is under construction, but it has actually been finished for a while. On the other side of the marble, you can see the sun shining through. The church had a nativity scene and we could see that the wise men were on their way and would gradually make their way to the nativity scene.
After the church we were walking back to the car and decided that we wanted something sweet. We went to a street vendor on the side of the street and ordered a Belgian waffle with nutella for 3 euros. It took forever to get out of the underground parking deck and there were some pretty steep inclines that Lise was worried about for her tiny stick shift car. However, she navigated them masterfully and we got back home fine.
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