Aug 2008

Yesterday morning, Eowyn, Maddie and I packed up the car and headed to Lille, France, which is about 3 hours driving from the Hague. Most of the trip is spent driving through northern Belgium, which had excited me until I realized that the very north of Belgium is the Flemish area, not the French area, so it was like being in the Netherlands. Flemish is a dialect of Dutch, so I still didn't really understand any of the road signs. Lille is about 25km inside the French border.

But I have to say, it was a real treat to be in a country where I understood the national language (and that language wasn't English), especially after spending so much time in the Netherlands and Kenya this summer. My Dutch is minimal, but at least I am starting to recognize some things. My Swahili is non-existant beyond "thank you very much". Dutch has the advantage of being linguistically related (and very closely) to English and French, where Swahili is not at all.

So we stayed at the Suite Hotel in Lille which was, well, sweet! We got a good deal booking the room over the internet and it was beautiful, clean, with great TV and internet access. But that wasn't why we went, of course! After checking in, we walked into the center of the town, which takes about 5 minutes. This is where the Eurostar train arrives from England, so it's a huge tourist destination for Brits looking to shop for cheap. They have 2 huge train stations within two blocks of each other. 1 in 4 tourists to Lille is British, and about 20 million (yep, you read that properly) pass through Lille on the trains each year.

The old, central part of the city, like so many other European cities, is pedestrian access only. We walked around until we found a suitable-seeming restaurant for lunch, although lunch was pretty unimpressive, I must say. We had fried camembert salads and a Welsh dish (probably on the menu to cater to the Brits). It was all right, not great, but not bad. Then we walked around some more, checking out the old buildings and the new shops. Maddie had a ride on a carosel, then she and Eowyn got splashed by a nearby fountain. The wind was pretty strong, so the fountain was spraying pretty far. The fountain was cool; those of you who live in Edmonton should be able to picture it. It had a small glass pyramid in the center, it looked like Edmonton city hall (but much smaller) and water came up from four sprayers to splash down the sides of the pyramid. Pretty cool.

We then visited an old castle, although it was tiny (an old duke's residence) and only the ground floor, now converted into a tourist's office, and the old chapel on an upper floor are open to the public. I don't know what the rest of it was, but it was pretty nonetheless.

We finished up with some shopping; because Maddie goes to a French school in the Netherlands, its easier to find her school supplies in France. All the French schools require the same supplies, so one list gets distributed to everyone. I got a few things for myself, since my Canadian credit card was overpaid and I now have a balance on it in my favour. It's like free money! Okay not really, but it's still a treat, since the money was already paid onto it.

We went back to the hotel then and rested. Maddie and I watched Shrek 3, which I liked more than I thought, and more than Shrek 1, which I didn't like. We went for dinner in the city center, but at a different place. We were caught in a freak rainstorm and got pretty wet, but at least we were close when it started raining! Here, I had a great meal. It was a quarter of a roasted chicken with gravy and a side (half the plate!) of green beans. So, so, so good! Eowyn and I enjoyed some French wine, too. Yum! For dessert I had a crepe with chocolate sauce, whipped cream and ice creams. Sounds good, but too sweet!

Today was extremely windy, so instead of walking around more, we packed up and drove to a nearby outlet mall which was disappointing in its lack of selection. Mostly baby/children's clothing stores. We went to pick up the rest of Maddie's school supplies and something like a year's worth of baby food for the twins, then drove back. On both the way there and the way back, we got stuck in traffic in Belgium; apparently there's always a traffic jam in Belgium. Today, thankfully, there was an alternate route and we were able to get back to the Hague before 6pm!

France is definitely on my list to go back to. It's great to be able to understand the people around me when they aren't speaking English and the men aren't bad looking either! And people aren't as oblivious to the presence of others as they are in the Netherlands, so you actually get help in the stores and people move out of your way on the streets. Good times!

I've been admonished by Varina that it's time to update my travel blog, and far be it for me to ignore the threat from my younger sister who probably has loads of blackmail material she can use to get me to do her bidding. For those of you who live under a rock (ie: who don't have facebook), I'm back in the Netherlands after 7 weeks in Kenya. I got back on July 29, so yes, I've been lazy updating my blog and Varina was probably right to chastise me. It's easy to be lazy about blogging after 7 weeks with no internet access and my days filled up with a five-year-old and two one-year-olds. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

All in all, Kenya was a pretty good experience. I'm glad I went, and the camping conditions weren't nearly as bad as I'd been led to believe by other grad students in my program, which is a plus for me, because it meant a pleasant surprise. While I was away, I kept a journal every other day or so. I'll be putting these entries up on this blog, and I will try to get started on that in the next day or so, so that the aforementioned sister doesn't have to order me about again. Although perhaps she enjoys being able to do so, since she was the youngest and was probably bossed around all the time...

Now I meant to start putting up pictures but have run into a snag: I can't find the USB cord for my camera. I found my iPod USB connector and the AC adapter for my cell phone, but the camera cord is not where I thought I left it, in my suitcase that stayed here, so I'll have to look again (for a third time; I already looked twice). So all my ambition for photographs today is for naught, unless I find the damn thing. My camera is weird and has a very small port for the connector, so it's not like I can even use my sister and brother-in-law's adapter. If worse comes to worst, I will put my memory card in my sister's camera and do it that way, although I'd prefer not to do that.

I'm glad to be back in Europe, which is sort of a like a second home and nicer than NJ, where I'd be otherwise. It's not as hot here, the people aren't as rude, and the air not quite so dirty. I should write travel pamphets for NJ, eh? I have so many positive things to say about it! Although I must admit, as soon as I moved there, I began to understand why Americans make fun of the state... However, back to Europe. Next week, Eowyn, Maddie and I are taking a 2-day trip to France, to Lille, to be specific. This follows on the heels of Marc and Kareen's trip to France, and, although we aren't going to Paris or Nice, after seeing their photographs, I'm looking forward to it. Plus, Eowyn says that prices are cheaper there for clothing (the Netherlands is extremely expensive) so I might get some fancy French clothing. We'll see how it goes.

Eowyn and I also bought a lotto ticket for the 8.2 million EURO (not dollars, take note, you North Americans!) draw that's tonight. If we win, you may never see me again... or see me when I come visit from my fancy European home! Haha! As if we're going to win, but it's fun to think about staying here. The small snag: I do have this PhD to finish, and I'm only going into my second year. Hmm. I guess if I had 4.1 million Euros I could have a European home anyway- after all, what would be stopping me? Hahahaha! Oops, sorry.

All right, I'm going to attempt to find my camera cord again. For those of you who are facebook friends, there will be more pictures up there than here, I'm sure, because of the space limitations here. Wish me luck in finding the USB connector.