J'aime Lille!


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Europe » France » Nord-Pas de Calais » Lille
September 30th 2007
Published: October 4th 2007
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Lille


LilleLilleLille

Beautiful city center
My first couch surfing experience could not have been any better. Language school was finished, bags were gone, and pretty much most of the group had left Cologne. So Justus and I decided...lets go to France! Warum Nicht!? (Why not?) - This is going to become my new motto for life I think.

I stayed out a bit too late on Friday...ok 4 am...partying the night away with the kids from our exchange group. Great way to end our 2 months in Cologne, but didn't fare to well when my alarm went off at 7 am in the morning. I somehow managed to move and get myself to the train station on time for our 8:30 train. Didn't get a whole lot of sleep on the train, was interested in seeing a bit of the countryside since I had not been in that direction before. It was quite beautiful. We had a stop over in Brussels for about 15 min, but I managed to grab one famous belgian waffle for the road, quite delicious, and then we set out on the TGV. This is the start of my weekend of completely not understanding the language. I became quite accustomed to giving people a blank stare.

We arrived in Lille around 12, and headed out to find our friend Antoine's apartment for which we had been given directions. Unfortunately all of the subway machines and directions were in French, I know they are supposed to be, but an english options would have been nice...anyways we finally bought a ticket, not sure if it was correct, and after a few tries figured out which way to go on the subway. It was a lovely 60 degrees and raining, so we trudged through the street, and after reading the directions wrong a couple of times, figured it out. We were greeted by Soizic and Caroline (Antoine's roomates) as well as Fred, another couch surfer from Paris. Theresa and Antoine were soon to follow. After greetings and setting out who spoke whch languages and how well, we finally got to talking about things. They are all great and interesting people and with a mixture of German, English, and French, we all got along just fine.

We realized after about an hour that the rain just wasn't going to quit, so we gave up and decided to go for the city tour anyways. Antoine took Justus, Fred, and I out to the city to walk around. It really is a beautiful city, lots of red brick buildings (dont see those too often in Germany), and very quaint. There was a hilarious fitness fest going on in one of the squares, which might have been one of the funniest things I have seen yet in Europe. It was raining, and of course no one was participating, but this poor guy was up on stage teaching what would have been an arobics class, to a bunch of staring tourists. Yes, very entertaining. After walking around some more, we had a panini and some belgian beer at a local restaurant which was quite fabulous. I had a hard time having to ask Antoine and Fred what EVERY sandwich on the menu was, I felt bad. It made me realize how well I can get along in German, and how hard it is not to be able to communicate at all. Antoine then took us to a local brewery and we had a "meter" of the local brews. Quite tasty. Our table was inside an empty beer kettle which wa cool too.

We were getting a
UmbrellaUmbrellaUmbrella

The green umbrella that Antoine later "passed on to society"
bit drunk at that point, the alcohol content is higher in Beligian Beers than in German, so we decided to head back to the apartment. Fred and some others made a fabulous dinner that consisted of a gigantic omlette, salad, and of course, a french baguette! (its only real if it comes from france) ;-) We hung out and talked and enjoyed our meal together which was quite nice. Then Antoine took us to his friends house to hang out for a while. They were having a crazy jam session in their tiny studio on the 4th floor of this building. They had guitairs, flutes, recorders, a diggery do, and this crazy french instrument that looks like a recorder but sounds like an accordian. We hung out and listed for a while, and people kept talking to me, but i kept staring at them blankly, until finally this guy said to me..."sorry, no subtitles"...haha. I said that was fine and i was enjoying myself.

After the jam session, we headed out to downtown Lille to try our luck in the bars. We surfed around a bit until we decided on one and sat down to enjoy some more belgian beer. There was a diskotek downstairs and we did a little dancing until pretty late. I think I finally went to sleep around 4 am, so quite a long day after my short night on Friday. Justus and I woke up on Saturday morning and decided we better take our train we had paid for, but wanted desperately to stay longer to enjoy an outdoor concert that day. Fred drove us to the train station, and had a great GPS system, it talked like YODA!! haha, no joke...it said..."in 100 m, right you will turn", "at your destination, you have arrived" in Yoda's voice and everything. Hilarious.

And for your viewing entertainment...please check out the following video about Kebabs.


So overall a fabulous weekend. Not much sleep, but I believe that shows that there was too much better to do than sleep. Thanks to Antoine, Theresa, Caroline, Soizic and Fred for a fabulous weekend in Lille!

All is well in Hamburg and I am having a fabulous time, I will write an update soon about the move and my first days here, hopefully before I leave for Oktoberfest on Friday!


Additional photos below
Photos: 12, Displayed: 12


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Aerobics GuyAerobics Guy
Aerobics Guy

Poor guy teaching a class to no one.
ReflectionReflection
Reflection

Really cool reflection of my logo onto my beer...awesome.
mmm beermmm beer
mmm beer

Justus enjoying his Belgian Beer!
MeterMeter
Meter

More of the meter...which was promptly finished.


4th October 2007

FRANCE!!!
Awwwww, Paige! I could have helped you with the French!!! (By the way you are going to be interpreting every panini on the menu for me in less than 3 months!) Je t'aime! P.S. Antoine was so cute! =)
4th October 2007

cute!
Ok, so call me crazy... but you and Antoine look like a couple in that one pic. How adorable!

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