lille, france part deux

Before we went to dinner at Brasserie Andre we wanted to walk through the city square and Christmas market at night. Marco had the romantic idea to take a ride on the ferris wheel.  As you can see from my expression in the photo above, I have  - unknowingly - acquired a new found fear of heights in my old age!  So while Marco was snapping away at the beautiful city views of Lille at night, I am trembling and holding on for dear life.  Half laughing, half crying.  In my defense, there were no seatbelts.  I'd say by the last go around I finally relaxed and enjoyed the view.

Dinner was great.  Brass and mahogany filled rooms and charismatic (older men) servers in crisp white jackets gave the restaurant a classic french vibe.  Marco and I, pleased with our dinner local selection, whispered and giggled to each other trying to decipher the french menu.  After a few awkward but kind exchanges with our server letting him know our French was minimal we pointed to and roughly pronounced our course selections on the menu. While I was pretty certain of what my selections were (poisson soupe followed by moules frites, DUH) Marco on the other hand picked croquettes followed by who-the-hell-knows-what.  Hilarious.  My fish/seafood soup was amazing and his croquettes were pretty good too.  Marco's main course ended up being a boneless chicken breast in a rich cream sauce paired with buttered linguine.  Bored at first by it, he ended up pleased.  All in all a good time.  No dessert, we needed room for booze.  Next stop the bars!

check out that mountain of frites

We headed to the old town for some drinks.  We stumbled upon a lively bar, La Capsule. Warm, dark, and gritty with an amazing beer selection.  By coincidence the beer shop (some American microbrews in the window caught our eye, rare find in Europe) we stopped in the next day, L'Abbaye des Saveurs, is owned by the same guys.

marco at la capsule

my new kicks

walk back to our hotel, a light tunnel of sorts that runs for blocks

Saturday we headed to the Palais ds Beaux Arts de Lille.  The scale and technique of the medieval and Renaissance collections blew me away.  My favorite was seeing the Spanish collection containing works by Goya, Greco, and Picasso.

oh haaaaay monet

   Next up in part 3, I'll lay down our French basketball game experience!