Some things that I saw that one time...: Lille

Monday, December 10, 2007

Lille at Christmas

Every year, around Christmas time, Lille will have a ferris wheel in its city center. This is quite common in many of the major cities around France. Additionally, many of the streets are decorated with wonderful christmas lights - which I just love. I wish they would keep them up all year round.

I find this street hilariously decorated. I began referring to it as the "commie" street. They should be more careful - with decorations like that... it's like begging for an "american invasion." (not so politically correct - well, I'm sorry - most jokes aren't!)

Anyhow, Christmas is approaching and my life will soon begin its next chapter as I am now finished with all my classes in my masters program (with the exception of one one-week long class in April). This next chapter will bring me to the South of France as I have been hired for a six-month internship at Amadeus.

End-of-the-Semester Party

The entire class and significant others were invited to dinner by Iéseg for dinner at this restaurant, l'Omnia. As you can see, it has the coolest entrance to any restaurant I've seen in a long time. The above picture is actually the corridor to go into the restaurant.

The interior of the restaurant also had its own interesting flare to it. As we were informed by our place mats,

"L'omnia is a former theater dating back to the XIXth century. As early as 1850, this place was a cabaret, which soon became a brothel where a large number of our ancestors living in Lille, and its surrounding areas, visited at least once... or even more. The history of the place in the recent years is also known to many! In the 1980s, it housed the Omnia, a large theater which quickly specialized in pornographic movies. This porno theater was the biggest and the last to close down in the North region."

It was a wonderful way to end the semester, but it was also quite sad - as this was the time when most of us were saying our good-bye's to each other. Many of us were leaving for Christmas break - whereas I was leaving in two days to begin my internship in Nice.