Bring on the sights!

Bonjour! Today was a full day of sightseeing in the center of Lille! It is a holiday devoted to the ending of World Ward II. I mistakenly thought it was Ascension Day, but that’s in two weeks. Anyhow, many sights were closed, but enough were open to fill the day. Kami and I ventured around together and ran into several unfamiliar sights! The first, being a modern art statue of some brightly colored flowers. I forgot to mention in yesterday’s entry that on our way out of the cinema, a young woman followed us past a church shouting “Girls! Are you happy? Do you love life?” then continued on to preach a little sermon about God’s love. We should’ve told her we loved life and were already Christian, but she was obviously drunk so we nervously scuttled away. There is an exposition lasting three months here in Lille called Europe XXL. Thus, each day there are activities going on and booths set up. Today they were celebrating organic foods and tents were set up selling soy products. Kami and I tried some of them and the apricot soy yogurt wasn’t half bad. We walked through the Galleries Lafayette and stared at the sparkling luxurious shops. Then we headed down through H&M and the shops more in our price range to uncover the secrets of French fashion. I bought a fabulous mustard colored scarf for six Euro and before leaving, the saleswoman said if I wore it the way I’d tied it, I would give off the impression that I was uptight. (Little does she know I sort of am an uptight person :)) Anyway, she came around the counter and proceeded to knot both ends of the scarf and wrap it twice around me. It looked neat afterward, I’ll have to learn to replicate it.
Architecturally, Lille is very different from Paris; due to the Flemish-Dutch & German influence the buildings have much more color and are built with a sense of movement. No two sectors of a compound look the same and their steeples and windows aren’t meant to match. I tried to capture that in the picture in the town square. Finally, the last picture is of the Grand Palace, also known as the Palais des Beaux Arts. It is the Louvre of Lille as I may have already mentioned in previous entries; I am going to visit it tomorrow and cannot wait to see the works of Monet, Seurat, and especially Camille Claudel-whose exposition was in Paris while I was there but was not able to visit. Oh how I love the art of Europe.
For one of my internship classes, I have to write a ten page paper on Lille itself so I’m anxious to see more of it and pinpoint exactly what I’ll write about. But for tonight, I brought several books with me so I’d better get to reading them. It’s amazing to think that I have now been here in Lille one week!