Birthday Weekend in Lights

You know it's not often that a whole city puts on a light show for your birthday, but it is extra special when your friends from England come over for the weekend too. Monica had already been going crazy trying to find a place to reserve for my birthday dinner, but nobody was taking reservations, instead they recommended we come by to eat at the (ungodly early to the French) hour of 6 or 7pm. This was just a hint at the crowds that were to come.

We picked up a couple of free lanterns at lunchtime and nearly tossed them away, but what the heck... Let's do things like the Lyonnais. They've been giving these out all over Lyon. All I can say is THANK GOD we took them. The candles burned all night, and the sleeve kept them from going out, but best of all we could find each other in the crowds later that night.



By 5pm Saturday it was already dark and the crowds were already the largest we'd ever seen - even including the Rugby World Cup games in Lyon. We decided to eat at the La Brasserie Georges as a safe bet. This place is absolutely huge - 120 bustling tables serving up hearty Alpine fare since 1836. They have a couple Guinness World records too. Already it had a line out the door, but not too long. Here you can see us and our very French waiter with very European glasses (dorky red frames).



For dessert we had the foresight to order their famous "Norwegian Omelet" which you must order at the beginning of your meal. What is that you ask? I'll bet you think it's something with egg and lox huh? No, it's called Baked Alaska in the United States. And it arrived with a sparkler and singing waiters who attempted "Happy Birthday" in English! Monica pulled off another one. Nobody else got that treatment. As we left the restaurant in high spirits we saw the current line to get in. It was huge! We estimated 200 people at least.

Well if you weren't that organized, every street corner had some kind of hot food or drink stand. Here's a guy cooking tartiflette (potatoes, bacon, and cheese) and yes, the pan is that big.



As we headed back towards the city center the crowds got thicker. Louis XIV in Bellecour was now all lit up and sporting some neon inside his new snow globe. (You can see the Ferris wheel as a reflection). Bellecour is practically soviet in scale, so it did a good job at handling the masses, but we as headed north towards the Newton's Cradle (that's what Daron told me the desk toy is called), we saw just how many people had decided to visit this weekend.



The crowd was really thick! And, guess what? We were the ONLY people with candle lanterns. Turns out they were really well engineered too. Super light, and easy to hold over our heads, soon everyone was asking us where we got ours - even offering to buy them off us. No way! These were worth their weight in gold. Actually a lot more than their weight.



From here on we progressed slowly but surely north to the Newton's Cradle. I could say it worked exactly like the small version... and from the pictures you couldn't tell, but actually it was more like an extremely slow motion version of the desk toy. Except here the globes changed colors and sent pulses of light back and forth.



Overall, the festival looked like a chance for the art community to do some fun projects with city money. Some were a success - like the synchronized light cubes along the Rhône. The giant cubes are actually industrial chemical containers and the money went into the cabling and computerized colored lights. You could walk among them and at night it attracted fire dancers and fire breathers. But another one looked they blew their budget on giant wood projection towers and sound system... but hardly any light? What happened there?





You know, you can't miss with fog, lasers, moody sound, and reflecting glass. Place Terreaux had a huge crowd just camped out in the large plaza.



Returning to Bellecour our last visit was the illuminated flower field. For days people in white suits with white skull caps very slowly (for artistic effect I suppose) planted glowing bottle-flowers on long stems in the lawn by the Saône and sometimes plucked a dead one. By Saturday, the field was really getting full.



We were exhausted, but at least we live in Bellecour so we could just walk in the door and collapse. The weather had held up most of the night, but it started to drizzle at the end making our paper lanterns look as tired as we were. But we all had had a delightful time.