This last weekend I took a whirlwind trip to Lyon
for the Fête des lumières, the annual light-spectacular that takes France’s
second-largest city by storm with thousands upon thousands of visitors filling
up hotels in the greater 20km area. Rooted in the celebration of the Virgin
Mary (December 8), the tradition has turned into a fantastic display of light
and color projected against historic buildings, dramatic music accompanying the
strange series of whimsical images.
It was weird. But cool as well. Here you can see the same
building at different points during this particular 7-minute show.
Because of the lack of hotels available Saturday night (the
first night of the 4-day festival), we (Julien, Loreto, Victor, Ingrid, and I)
thought it might be a worthy challenge to stay up the night partying with
the alleged-fellow-all-night-partiers that made up the festival. By 1:30, however, everybody had cleared out, and
above all, it was cold, so at 2am we
started the multi-hour drive back to Bourges,
leaving the car to rest at almost 7am
exactly. Somehow Julien and I managed to drive the whole trip (our companions
snoozing away in the back!) and felt no shame sleeping the rainy morning away.
***
Life has been, as my ever-cheerful Chilean roommate
describes, very “tranquila” ("tranquil" for those who may not have caught that). It could be
the early night-fall or the crappy weather, or it could be the general society,
but the nightlife of even Bourges
(a city of 70,000+) has a bit to be desired. By 7pm,
the streets are empty, and everybody is shut up in their houses, doors locked, shutters
closed...silence. I’ve at least now found my own hole-in-the-wall to call home, a
place where I can snuggle up to my humming computer to chat with friends online
and look at pictures, read articles online, etc; the best of evenings I spend conversing
with my roommates in my ever-improving Spanish, casually reaching for the bottle
of wine while eyeing the baguette and cheese that are within reach…
I mean we’re in France, right? :)
A plus,
annemary
