November 7th--Today was a nice, relaxing day visiting friends in Lille.
I visited Lille during a trip to France last year, so I had seen some of the sights already. During the morning, I went to a small group project meeting for school with Caroline before walking all around Vieux Lille (Old Lille) and checking out some of the cool shops and sights.
Lille is much smaller than Paris, but is most definitely a city, not a town. The architecture is much different than that of Bordeaux or even Paris, taking inspiration from German architecture. The buildings in Vieux Lille are colorful and varied, and it was nice to walk around for a couple hours.
After lunch at Caroline's apartment, she had to go to class at 1:00. I stayed there and worked on updating the blog and making reservations and plans for the next week or two. I'm traveling to Antwerp tomorrow to stay with a friend, but I'll spend 4 hours in Brussels so I can explore the city a little bit.
Having spent enough time online, I left the apartment to try and see the Citadelle in another part of the city. However, I didn't take a map with me and didn't pay nearly enough attention to where I was coming from, so I got completely lost.
It was fun to a point, and that point was when I found I was literally walking in circles. These European streets really get me down sometimes...eventually I found the Citadelle, where a sign informed me that it was a military institution, and that I couldn't enter. Fantastic. I quickly lost myself again trying to get back to Caroline's apartment. Howere, following some panic, I found it.
Caroline returned from class, and we had dinner before some friends, including Valentin, arrived to play bilingual card games. It was a lot of fun, and then people trickled off to bed. A good day, and a welcome change of pace from Paris.
Valentin, Creighton, et Caroline 
No comments:
Post a Comment