Formule 1 Lille Villeneuve d'Ascq

Hé hé !

L'Amérique latine, nous voici nous voilà très très bientôt !!!
Plus que quelques heures avant le décollage...
L'excitation et l'appréhension sont 2 émotions qui se battent en duel en ce moment.

Le départ est prévu à 20h ce lundi 7 décembre de Paris CDG et l'atterrisage le mardi 8 décembre à Buenos Aires.
Nous en avons rêvé et ce projet va enfin devenir réalité.

Nous partons tout équipés : les 2 v ...

... in Paris. I really had so much luck with the weather and the city itself was beautiful. The last few days I visited Montmartre, the picturesque artsy part of town on a hill, where I visited the gorgeous Church of Sacree Coeur, as well as the cafe where one of my favorite movies, Amelie, was filmed. I took lots of pictures and arrived there as I listened to it's amazing soundtrack.

I also ...

... huge damage during the war and required significant reconstruction. Some parts of the original buildings still stand, and show shrapnel damage, and some of the statues in the church walls are badly damaged.

Next stop after Ypres was at the Hooge Crater Cemetary. This cemetary contains the graves of nearly 6000 soldiers, many of whom were younger than I am, and a lot were only engraved with 'A British/Australian/New ...

... else trying to find out if they're British as well (hey, that's me!), and look quite defensive when somebody else sits next to them (hey, that's me as well!). They then get out an English book and try to look very superior because they speak another language. (I do that sometimes.)
A lot of French people, particularly early in the morning, sit down and close their eyes and somehow magically wake up when it's their stop and run off the train. I don't know how they can do that ...

... Many said it was difficult to start fighting again. Others used the lull to their advantage and attacked the unsuspecting soldiers. The exhibit tried to explain the horrors of No Mans Land, where the mud was so thick and deep if you went of the trails you could sink and never be seen again. It’s amazing to think all the fields and towns that now exist here were once a battlefield. They also discussed how the first gas attacks ...

... therefore imagine how disturbing it was to see this torture machine in real-life!
Parts of the exhibition were very interesting, and the artist takes inspiration from contemporary society and when explained, some of his works make a lot of sense, but some of them are incredibly strange!

Yesterday I took a trip to Dunkirk with two other English girls, my guide-book says that Dunkirk is the most interesting of Nord-Pas-de-Calais ...

... with animals, we really enjoyed the acrobatics and the incredible diversity of the circus. Acts came from all over the world, including England and Kenya and was well worth the 7€!

My Sundays are now typically spent preparing for school on Monday, after a nice lie-in and a visit to the Sunday morning market, of course!

This week at school I began teaching. However, not many of the teachers remembered this. I arrived for my ...

... at various buildings. All were very interesting and each professor incorporated their own concepts/ideas with each building. This became a more integrated approach to us learning our architecture. The next day we traveled to Amiens, to look at another Notre Dame Cathedral. A little different then the last, but still very impressive. Amiens was a nice little town, it houses a main university in France so it was awesome to get to see how other students in Europe ...

... twisting passage until the guide shines her torch on a bison. It is a stunning artistic accomplishment - imagine trying to paint in a narrow pitch-dark cave, with rough irregular walls and primitive stone-age lighting, painting tools and materials. The artist has used the shape of the walls to give a 3D effect, for example on the shoulders and haunches of the animals. We go deeper into the cave and there are paintings of a horse, more bison, and a reindeer.
I ...

... to see, and it is amazing how this whole place was flattened and then had been re-built. Around the corner was a replica of a little Irish tower. Worth a few photos, but it was getting late, so Paul put his foot down, and I managed not to get anyone lost, and we arrived in Ypers. We dumped the bags, poured down a few quick Belgium beers, and went to the Menin Gate. We were here for the Last Post. It was my fourth time here, but I had never seen it. As ...