A-Traveling I Go

Whew. I have officially been in France for three full days now and I am just getting the time to write a bit about my experiences so far. That traveling stuff, man. Hard work. 

I left Denver at 6:15 am on Friday morning local time after a slightly tearful but mostly kept together goodbye with my parents and headed to Atlanta, where I enjoyed a six and a half hour long layover. The first hour or so was spent wandering around Concourse A because I was apparently there too early for my flight to have been assigned a gate. Once I finally got to the correct concourse, which was thankfully much less crowded, I bought myself some lunch, settled down in an unoccupied corner and watched Sex and the City for like four hours. Because honestly, what else is there to do on a six and a half hour layover by yourself?

My flight for Belgium left Atlanta at 5:46 pm. I mostly spent the eight hour flight being uncomfortable, eating somewhat unidentifiable airplane food and watching How to Train Your Dragon 2.

I arrived at the Brussels airport, groggy but excited, around 8 am local time. After making my way through customs, I met up with another girl from my program, Ginny, and we found a spot to wait for Amber and Andrea, the other girls from DU coming to the same university.

When we had finally all met up around 9:45, we took a metro to the train station and caught a train to Lille. I should also add here that the employees at the ticket counters were very nice and patient with our bad French. This is your shoutout, guys. Thanks for being nice to us stupid Americans. 

One very slap happy train ride later (read as: sleep deprivation) we arrived in Lille and immediately dropped our bags off at the hotel and began exploring. The next two days were spent wandering the streets of Old Lille and halfheartedly fighting jet lag. 

The view from our hotel

The fountain on the Grand Place and the old newspaper building.

La Cathédrale Notre-Dame de la Treille

The Chamber of Commerce

The Operahouse

A used book sale held in the old Stock Exchange

The city is a beautiful collision of new and old architecture (though I have mostly captured old here). In the centre ville there are modern office buildings mixed among historic buildings. We even saw this cathedral which features a modern entrance and a traditional interior.

A traditional cathedral with a modern entrance.

On Saturday we mostly walked the streets killing time before we could sleep, but on Sunday we got to explore a bit more purposefully. After eating lunch at a small cafe in the square by the church above (I ate a salad. Be proud, Mom.), we attended a Catholic mass at a cathedral nearer to our hotel. The priest even introduced us to the congregation, and everyone was very welcoming and understanding of our limited knowledge of French catholic services (though mine was admittedly more limited than the other girls).

After the mass we visited a corner store and bought some baguette, soft cheese, water and chocolate to have for a small dinner. We ate our dinner in a beautiful park nearby and then headed back to our hotel to get some rest.

Picture of me with a baguette, as promised. The others are Amber and Andrea, two of the girls from DU also attending Lille.

The next morning we woke early (something we failed miserably at on Sunday. Damn you, jet lag.) and had espresso and pan au chocolat at a nearby café before hopping on the metro to head to our new apartment building.

So, after six or seven stops on the metro and a half mile of dragging our suitcases - which in Amber's case is literal because the wheels fell off of hers - we finally arrived at Triolo, our new home for four months, and began to settle in. I will write a blog post on this later once I've gotten more acclimated.

In all, based on what I can gauge from my very minimal experience with the matter, international travel seems to be mostly about waiting. Waiting to get through security. Waiting for your plane to take off. Waiting in line at the food court for a seven dollar salad that tastes vaguely like the lettuce was rinsed in dishwater (I should have just caved and eaten fast food). Finding somewhere to sit on your butt for a seven hour layover and wait to sit on your butt for eight more hours on a plane. It's fascinating stuff, honestly. My rear end has never been so sore in my life.