B&B Lille Seclin

Or at least, the Lille metro.<br><br>Lille's metro system was the first one in the world without a driver, which is pretty clever really. It does make the journeys interesting, however!<br>As there is no driver, sitting right at the front of the train you can look at the tracks straight ahead of you, which is quite good fun really and reminds me of being on a rollercoaster! Of course I don't sit there screaming and shouting. At least not all the time.<br>Getting on the metro early ...

... that I have been dying to do in Lille is to climb to the top of the Belfry in the Hotel de Ville and see the view of the city. I have made two attempts to do this now, both at times when it was closed! <br><br>I took my parents to a market on the first day they were here, which was a lovely little French Sunday market in the old part of town, it was much nicer than the big "famous" market in Wazemmes, which is slightly out of the centre. I went ...

... we stumbled upon a circus tent and after enquiring, bought tickets for the next showing. The Citadelle also holds the city's zoo, which is huge and also free, so while waiting to go to the circus we took a wander through the zoo. While cooing over all of the animals we stopped to sing "compare the meerkat . com" to the meerkats, before realising that a British couple were standing next to us!<br><br>The circus was incredible, despite some cruel ...

Hello all, <br>sorry it has been such a long time, but the pace has really picked up around here. This trip was from a long time ago, about two weeks now. I will briefly cover it because it was such a great experience. <br><br>Our school takes us on one field trip each semester. This first field trip we went on went to Couzy, Laon, Lille, and Amiens. All are in Northern France. All 41 students went along with three of our professors, history, design and structures. We ...

... but French, Spanish, German, and on Friday I even observed a "Couture" lesson, which is a strand of the vocational studies which my school provides and trains students on how to design and make clothes.<br>The week has been challenging but very worthwhile, if not only for my confidence in French but meeting other foreigners in Lille and branching out of my comfort zone.<br>Today to start off as we meant to go on, travelling-wise, we took the train to Brussells, went for lunch in ...

... and offered to take us to Bruges!<br>Tomorrow we both start work, although we are supposed to have two weeks where we are simply observing classes before we begin teaching, so hopefully it won't be too challenging to begin with! That doesn't stop me from very nervous though!<br>I'm really looking forward to moving into our flat and making it our own, we are hopefully going to go to IKEA on Friday afternoon to get some bits and bobs that we might need so that we feel more at home.

... up some wine at the local supermarket. I had forgotten how cheap wine/beer is in this country. I found some Australian wines (wolfblass) which normally costs an arm and a leg back home so I never buy it but here it was all under $7 a bottle!! I so wish we didn't have limits on the amount of liquor we could bring back because I think I would have gone to town to bring back a suitcase full ...

... a chocolate croissant, and a granola bar on the go, we arrived at the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille. It&#8217;s a classical museum that recently had an extremely successful addition. My camera had already died at this point (lesson learned: charge battery EVERY night), so I&#8217;ll try to steal pictures from someone else soon. The addition is notable because its façade is a glass wall filled with little metallic strips that reflect the classical face of the ...

... where little cemeteries were scattered here and there like secret gardens. Ed's vegetarianism went out the window when he ordered the infamous Flemish beef stew as did Lucy and David. I stuck to my veggie-guns and settled for the seafood casserole since I had been privileged to have been served home cooked Flemish stew by my grandmother many a time during my childhood. Nothing requires a good night's rest like stuffing your face like there ...

... city. Much of Cologne was destroyed in WWII, so the cathedral is now surrounded by typically 1950s quickly built architecture. On the way home we stopped in Belgium for a nice visit with one of Jim's friends who is also a Korean War Veteran. On Jim and Martha's last day in town, we visited a large Willet-Holthuysen Museum. It It is the only fully furnished patrician house on Amsterdam's canals open daily ...