Carlton Lille

... démontés et empaquetés dans des cartons, une remorque, un réchaud et une popotte, des vêtements pour tous les temps, des éléments de rechange pour le vélo, une trousse à pharmacie et une brosse à dent :)

Attention top chrono : J-23h

On vous embrasse tous très très fort.
Vous allez nous manquer quoique....!
N'hésitez pas à nous écrire et à commenter nos images.

Hasta luego amigos.

Joséphine

I just arrived in Lille just over an hour ago by TGV (in right around an hour from Paris, super fast). I got a bit lost arriving to my new host's house, but here I am, safe and warm. I'll stay here till Friday, when we carpool (two groups in two cars) to a big CS weekend meeting in Rotterdam. There I should be able to meet up with my host in Hague (about 20 or 30 minutes away).

The last few days were ...

... soldier'. Again, it was pretty sobering, seeing all these graves.

We managed to all get completely soaked today, and it was freezing cold and windy as well, so it wasn't particularly comfortable. After that, it was back to Calais, stopping at one more of the massive French hypermarkets for a few souvenir pieces of food, then back onto the ferry back to Dover.

So, that was the Crumball Rally over! We did ...

Or at least, the Lille metro.

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!
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.
Getting on the metro early ...

... just outside of Ypres. It seems that every direction you drive in you find military cemeteries of the various regiments who fought and lost soldiers here. There were Irish, British, Canadian and even a few German cemeteries, and all were uniform in there perfectly lined up white gravestones with various memorials surrounding them. Each town in this area had their own memorials commemorating the local soldiers who fell in combat ...

... 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!

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 ...

... examples of lesson plans, which is really useful.

At the weekend Erin's boyfriend arrived in Lille for a visit, so we did a bit of exploring of parts of Lille which we had yet to visit, such as the Citadelle, a massive architected park just on the other side of Vieux Lille. The Citadelle is really popular with sports enthusiasts such as runners and cyclists, and you can also hire scooters to whizz around on!

On our way into the ...

... we then went to Lille, the fifth largest city in France, by the way it is at the top of my list of places visited so far. Our hostel was based in Lille. We all went out as a group and found some really nice bars. There was a lot of dancing going on, and come to find out the next day, our professor told us we had been in the gay district of Lille. No wonder no one was getting talked to besides the guys. It was fun all the same! The next day we walked around Lille and ...

... sweet. That said, I arrived and almost immediately began to feel off. Until this point in the trip, I'd not yet encountered such a feeling... I can't quite put my finger on what did it, but something about Warsaw freaked me the hell out. I hid this though. Walked around, talked and tried to open myself up to the area. Still no dice ...

... all the stores had 'sales' which I am sure go for 365 days. Other than the diamond stores there isn't too much to see so I headed back to Brugges. I really like that place, it's small and queit, especially if you get away from the tourist areas. So 3 more sleeps till I get on a plane again. 2 months has been a long time. I think I am ready to have my own ...