La Ville de Lille

(While I'm writing this my little host brother started singing The Imperial March from Star Wars. Haha!)

So my planned trip to Marseilles this weekend was ruined by the strike, although my friend Lauren was still able to make it on a different train, but that's a long sad story I won't tell again.

Instead, I took the train to Lille on Saturday, which meant I finally got to activate the Eurail pass I bought and ride France's high speed train. The strike was still going on, so I checked online before I left to see if my trains had been canceled or not. About 1/3 of the trains from Paris to the provinces were canceled, but luckily neither of mine were. I arrived at the station an hour before my train left, but I needed to get my Eurorail pass activated at the ticket window. I waited in one line for about 15 minutes, only to find out that I needed to go to a more specific ticket window. I waited in that line for 30 minutes, and was getting a bit anxious as it was about time for my train to leave. I assume the lines were so long because of the strike, only a few people were working and trains were being canceled so travelers were trying to exchange tickets. I finally received the activation stamp on my pass, which took all of 30 seconds, and managed to quickly get on the correct train and the correct car, which was at the other end of the platform. I'm glad I got there so early or I would have missed my train. But then I never even had my pass or ticket checked by the conductor!

It was a high speed train, with an average speed of 124 mph, obviously slower in town and faster in the country, which was cool. It was exactly a one hour trip from Paris to Lille. At the Lille train station there was a very long line to buy metro tickets, and when I looked outside of the train station I saw the steeple of a cathedral, so I decided to just leave the station and walk towards the steeple. This was a great decision, and in the end I didn't ride the metro all day, I just walked everywhere. I really wanted a map of the city, and lo and behold as I wandered around the streets I accidentally stumbled upon the tourism office where I snagged a free map.

I passed the day in Lille just walking around on the streets, eating, drinking, and window shopping. I did visit the Lille art museum, and I would have visited the natural history museum had it been open. Over the course of the day I had a beer, a hot chocolate, a glass of red wine, then a glass of blush wine. I think all I did was pass the time at restaurants. For lunch I ate at a chain brewery called Les 3 Brasseurs and had a dish called flammekueche in Alsatian. Alsace is a region in north east France that borders Germany and has formerly been a part of Germany. It happens to be where my host father's from, and I certainly have trouble understanding his French because of his Alsatian accent. But the flammekueche is a well known Alsatian dish, and it resembles pizza in theory and appearance, but it tastes a bit different. It was basically a giant piece of very thin dough that tasted more like a cracker than bread.. The one I ordered had grilled onions, mushrooms, ham, and cheese (just in spots, not spread evenly like pizza) with oil underneath. It was very yummy.

Brief comment on French food. Most traditional French food is very rich tasting, has lots of fat, may contain weird animal parts, and it's difficult to eat a lot of it. Eating traditional French food makes me feel like I'm in the Middle Ages. I don't know if that makes any sense but if you ate here I think you'd understand. Hot chocolate here is a very bitter cocoa bar dissolved in hot water. I will admit I have to add a little sugar, but even then it's still super bitter and wildly delicious.

I was surprised by the amount of high end shopping in Lille, and by the afternoon the streets were packed with people. It was rather chilly and I was bored so I browsed the stores but I'm broke so I left each store empty handed. I found a courtyard where people were selling old books, comics, and records. I bought a coin of Napoleon III for 1 Euro, which was a nice find even if the coin isn't the best quality. The Lille cathedral was somewhat interesting because it was built in the 19th and 20th century and the facade was finished in 1999. This is the rose window of the cathedral, I think you can tell that it's not 600 years old.



I was finished exploring Lille earlier than I thought I would be, but my train to Paris didn't leave until 10pm, so I read a book in a bar at the train station. But the bar kicked me out at 8:45! Kind of ridiculous, but my train was the last train of the night, and again, it was a strike day. When the train arrives I check my ticket and it says I'm in car 3, second class, but car 3 is just first class, so my place doesn't exist. I see an older couple on the platform looking lost, so I ask them and they have the same problem as me. The woman told me I spoke French well, which was a nice compliment, but I don't think I really said much to her. I mumbled about my ticket and then I told her I was American. I guess that's more than other Americans can say. lol. I decided to just sit in an empty seat in 2nd class, which wasn't a problem as the train was nowhere near full. When the conductor man came by I told him my place didn't exist and he was like "Whoa that's weird!" But obviously it wasn't a problem.

Today I have to write a paper for French about The Stranger by Albert Camus, pretending that I am the main character. Most of the book isn't too terrible to read, but Cliffnotes summary has been extremely helpful to me so I know exactly what happened. If you don't understand one word you can miss the meaning of the whole paragraph or even the chapter. I read through one paragraph twice and didn't realize that he had murdered someone. D'oh! I have a love-hate relationship with Cliffnotes because it allows students to not read the book and just read the summary, which has always upset me, but I love to read. Reading books is good for you. Scientists say so. But now that I'm reading books in French I'm glad the summaries are there for me so I can confirm my interpretation.

By the way, I've had this song stuck in my head for a while. If you don't like it I don't think you have a heart. From the musical adaptation of Notre Dame de Paris aka The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Please listen to it!

"O notre dame, oh laisse-moi rien qu'une fois, pousser la porte du jardin d'Esmeralda."



A bientot!
Sarah