Lille!

Hi Friends,

In the middle of last week, I decided that I needed to go to a Christmas market this weekend. I contemplated lots of different options, but ended up finding 32 euro (round trip) tickets to Lille. Then, I toyed with the idea of staying over night, but most of the hotels were booked and I didn't want to pay 40€ extra just to sleep somewhere and that was all that was left. So, it was decided -- I would go to Lille for the day.

I left on a train at 8 am, arriving in Lille at 11. The train had this super fancy bathroom system involving buttons you had to push (and hold down, it turns out) to open, close, and lock the door. But there was hardly logic associated with the buttons and no descriptions to be found. I ended up just kind of... pressing buttons until the door seemed to be closes. An adventure to start out my adventure.

I had exactly 7 hours until my 6 pm train was to leave. Nothing but time and no specific plans except that I wanted to go to the Christmas market. So, I got some chestnuts (Yes, they were roasting over an open fire. Really.) and walked off towards the Office de Tourisme. I never made it there though, because as I was approaching it, I ran into the market. There was the world there! Literally, thousands of people were filling the streets of Lille. The market was rather large (much bigger than Rouen's) and it was packed. I spent a long time walking from booth to booth, trying to decide which food to eat next, which things to buy for Christmas presents.

And then, of course, in a town of 400,000 some people, I would run into the one person I know in Lille, who is also an assistant, and she's from Chicago. We met when I was up in Chicago for Visa stuff, or maybe I was just visiting Donnie, actually. Anyways, I met her friends and we walked around for a while, stopping to get some hot pear cider. Amazing. Then, a bit before two, they left to go catch trains, and I resumed my market wanderings.

I got some Christmas presents for people, and periodically ducked into real stores (rather than the open-air market) to warm up. And I accidentally spent way too much money at H&M. I can't help it- it still feels like such a novelty to me, since we don't have one in CU.

I stopped for dinner at this cute "fast food" pasta place that reminded me of Za's, actually. The pasta was super tasty and I managed to break into the upstairs seating that was apparently closed. Oops. But it was much warmer up there and I felt that I deserved some defrosting time. I guess the lights out and the chairs upside down on the tables should have clued me in, but the cold does funny things to people!

Somehow, I managed to spend the rest of the time in the city -- 7 hours is a lot longer than you might think, especially with a lack of free public bathrooms. My strategy is basically to always use the bathrooms on the trains and then wait until I'm either at someone's house, my hotel, or back on another train. It has worked so far and I'm planning to continue doing this until I am persuaded to do otherwise. :)

What a successful day it was. I need to take advantage of being in France more and go on little day trips -- I won't be living here forever, so it's time to en profiter!