Lyon: La Fête des Lumières

I haven't had time to sit down and write about my amazing weekend until now so my apologies for my tardiness! Really, you can all suck it cause it's final time in France and things are stressssssful. Just kidding about sucking it. Not really. Anyway, this weekend I went with Ayse to Lyon for the Fête des Lumières! (Translation: Festival of Lights) I had seen something on the interwebs about the festival before I left for France, so this was one of the things I knew that I wanted to do during my time abroad, and it definitely did not disappoint.

We woke up painfully early on Saturday to get to Lyon in time to enjoy the city both by day and by night since we were only staying over until Sunday morning. When we got to Lyon the sun was shining, the air was crisp, and in general, the weather was perfect. (God I'm so lame) After dropping our crap at the hotel, we made our way to the center of the city. The center of Lyon is located on a peninsula that juts out between the Saône and the Rhône rivers. The buildings are all old and beautiful. Whatever you picture as French architecture in your mind - Lyon looks like that. Overlooking the city on a hill is the gleaming white church of Fourvière. Everywhere you look there's something new and beautiful to see. We started out by climbing up the hill to get to the church. There is a tram that goes up to the top, but being that this is a famous event in Lyon, the line was INSANE. So we decided to burn some calories. It was a good choice because we ate massive stuffed baked potatoes for dinner at the christmas market. (By the way, European christmas markets have seriously got it going on. America, get your shit together.) The view of Lyon from the hill was gorgeous. The white buildings with their red roofs and the bright blue sky is a view I won't soon forget. (Mainly because it's my current desktop picture, but I digress.) The church was incredible too. The pictures do it more justice than my words ever could. We continued exploring Lyon, going from church to church, and square to square, until we decided to pause for dinner. By the time we finished eating, the sun had gone down and the lights had come on.

The Saône

A traditional lyonnais buchon

Gorgeous view as we climbed up

View from the very top

Fourvière

The incredible interior

We walked all the way up there!

Casual roman ruins

Love me an ancient amphitheater

Ayse et moi!

Going from church to church

Hôtel du Ville

NOM

The lovely christmas market

Thankfully, the lovely organizers of the festival put together a map for visitors who were only there for one night to follow. We started a bit outside of the center of the city in an amazing park and then made our way into the center, stopping along the way to see the lights and amazing projections. Rather than describe everything that we saw I'll let the pictures do the talking. I will say though, that I don't think I have ever walked as much as I did on Saturday in my entire life. It was well worth it.

"Chinese Corner" - This one was by far the most magical

"Chinese Corner"

"Chinese Corner"

"Chinese Corner"

"Chinese Corner"

"Nid'lum"

"Anamorphose" - Inside a tunnel

"Promenons-nous dans les bois"

"Nuages"

"Les Anges Gardiens"

"Suspension Chrominérale"

"Experimentations Étudiantes"

"Le Prince des Lumières"

"Le Prince des Lumières"

"Festicolor"

"Show Case"

"Show Case" 

"Byzance"

"Byzance"

"Pierrot le Feu"

"Pierrot le Feu"

Other fun life updates: My host mom put the most adorable Christmas tree in my bedroom which makes me beyond happy. It lights up and has ornaments and I love it so much cause I'm a dork. This week I have also been serving as a translator at the gallery where I'm doing my internship. A vietnamese artist who's fluent in english but not in french was visiting in preparation for his upcoming show, so I had to translate both for him and for my french-speaking (and somewhat english-understanding) director. I learned so much about language and how we communicate during this process and while it was beyond challenging for me to take english and put it into french (taking french and putting it into english is a piece of cake) I'm really glad that I was able to do it and it was really rewarding to be able to use english in an instructive way and not just a fall back for when I get frustrated with french. Countdown to Christmas vacation in Italy: 9 days Countdown to skiing in the alps with the parents: 17!!!

My tree!

My chair in the foreground, where I sat as translator during an interview