Moving to Lille

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We got an earlier start today packing and cleaning up the apartment. At 10:45 the father of the apartment owner showed up and we gave him the keys. We were taking the metro again to the train station, but fortunately it was not too busy on account of today's holiday (the French seem to have a ton of holidays).

Despite our attempts to plan this route today, the metro stations seem to have few elevators and escalators. It means for a lot of hauling around of suitcases. We end up arriving at the station a good hour and twenty minutes early, so we have time to look around in the souvenir stores beforehand. Security at this train station is quite tight with machine gun toting guards patrolling the platforms. It sort of reminds me of the dementers from Harry Potter when they walk past.

A few minutes before the train was to leave, the platform was finally posted and so no matter how early you get there, you end up with the same mad scramble to get aboard and make sure that you can find a place for your suitcase.

Once aboard the train, Evy, Joshua and Benjamin settled into a game of Snakes and Ladders. We were quickly outside of Paris, and we watched the train speed on the GPS, moving closer to 300 km/hour (but never quite reaching it). We ate our picnic lunch on the train as the French countryside whizzed past the large flat fields. The train travels in sort of low ditch much of the way, I suppose to reduce the sound for the surrounding towns.

With the short distance and the speed of the train, we were quickly in Lille. The train station here is quite large - larger than I was expecting. Despite the map we had on the iphone, it was a bit confusing as to which direction we had to go for our hotel. We wheeled the bags a block or two in one direction, before heading back and discovering that our hotel was only about 100 meters from the station in the opposite direction.

The description of how to get to our room was a bit long and convoluted, but when we found the room (high up in the building) it was a beautiful attic set up with a full kitchen. After our Paris apartment, we were all very happy.

After settling in Evy and I went for a walk. There turned out to be a large Mall about a block away and we looked through the shops before heading back to the station to look for a car rental company. The plan is to rent a car for tomorrow to take us to the Vimy ridge memorial. The rental place had only standard drive cars, but the price was good so we booked it, though only I drive standard.

Back at the hotel room, we managed to get the internet working and posted more blog entries. We also got directions for tomorrow on how to get to the Vimy memorial, though I am not looking forward to driving standard in France tomorrow.

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