In the Land of LEGO®
What does one do on a gloomy and wet day in the north of Spain? One goes to a mall, of course … but not to do any shopping; one has no room in the suitcase for shopping … Instead, one goes and spends a ridiculous amount of time looking at wild and crazy stuff other people created with millions and millions of pieces of LEGO®, of course. And then one stops referring to herself as “one” (sorry about that).
Way back at the beginning of June, when I first discovered this mall, I came across an empty space that was slowly becoming converted into a LEGO® Expo, per the large posters outside. Knowing that my memory has become rather faulty unless I wrote everything down, I promptly created a reminder for myself to check the final product which was to be completed by the end of the month, just in time for me to visit before departing from Bilbao. As it is the norm with me, however, I remembered without being reminded (writing it down is usually enough) and made my way to the Zubiarte Mall. I’m sure the girl selling tickets thought I was pretty weird to go into this exposition without a kid in tow, not that it made any difference to me. I was here as a representative of my fellow LEGO® aficionados back in Victoria and you all know who you are.
I won’t go into details of everything I saw (that’s what pictures are for) but let me make a few observations:
- The sheer variety of themes was really impressive: from Star Wars® everything to giant airplanes, from children’s fairy tales to body parts, from life-size superheroes to life-size (mostly Polish) athletes, and from interactive and animated cityscapes to a rather dark diorama of pre- and post-martial law street in Warsaw.
- The ongoing Polish theme … as mentioned above, especially the diorama which, despite some written explanations, would have gone over every kid’s head and most of the parents’ too. Also, of all the tennis players, why a life-sized Agnieszka Radwańska? Not that I mind, of course, I like her well enough, but this is Spain where world-class players are dime-a-dozen. Weird.
- The massive Air Force One. Again, why?
I did spend quite a bit of time, to be honest, so I guess there is plenty of a kid left in me to truly enjoy this exhibition. I am the one, after all, who bought the Hogwarts Train for the kids one Christmas many years ago and proceeded to put it together myself. I wish I knew where it still was … I’d do it again.
On my way out of the mall I did spot the mini-IKEA, similar to the one in Madrid: such a brilliant idea!
