France

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!