Ce week-end

So this weekend I went to Lille and Brussels! Friday morning we got up super early and got on the TGV (stands for tres grand vitesse, very high speed in English). We arrived in at 8 am and went to drop off our bags at our hostel in the pouring rain. Then we found the tourism office, which is actually in an old castle, and decided to take a bus tour of the city to get out of the rain. It was really nice, Lille is a very old and very pretty city. We got off the bus and found the Place Charles de Gaulle, which is kind of the major square. We walked around some of the winding streets and admired the architecture and eventually found a place to eat lunch. Luckily, it stopped raining while we were eating! Lille is much prettier in the sunshine. Then we walked across the city to the Maison Natale Charles de Gaulle (the house where Charles de Gaulle was born). This is Lille's major claim to fame. As a museum it was sort of small and disappointing but interesting to walk to, we saw a lot of cool things along the way, including a church that was modern from the front but Gothic in the back. We then decided to make our own dinner in the hostel, which somehow evolved from cooking something in the communal kitchen to buying Camembert, Nutella, and fresh baguettes and making sandwiches. Then of course, we had to buy wine, cause we were in France. So we ate dinner in our hostel room. Our room had three sets of bunk beds and was kind of like being in summer camp. It did have sinks and a table, which was cool. We spilled a lot of wine while eating our Bohemian feast, but we decided that Nutella is the best stuff ever. We hung around for awhile, went out to a bar for an hour or so, then came home cause we were exhausted.
Saturday morning we left for Brussels! We arrived and got ourselves oriented, then headed up the many hills of the city in search of the perfect Belgian frites (French fries). Belgium is the place that created them and they are delicious. We started out at a flea market (Becky had never been to one before) that was pretty cool, then walked farther into the city and found a pretty church with a frites stand right at the foot. The fries were delicious...hot and fresh and salty. In Belgium it's traditional to eat them with mayonnaise, but they had a lot of other sauces to choose from, including curry and ketchup and bearnaise sauce. I got mine plain and they were amazing. Then we went to a cafe, where everyone else tried fruit-flavored beer. It was apparently very good. After lunch, we headed off to find Manneken-Pis, the fountain made of the statue of the little boy peeing. He is surrounded by chocolateries and souvenir shops. He's also much smaller than I expected. We walked around and saw the chocolate for awhile, then went to the Musee de Cacao et Chocolat, where we sampled chocolate, learned about its history, and saw demonstrations, then saw Le Grand Place, the main square of Brussels, where we went to the Maison du Roi, a museum about the history of Brussels, including an entire section on Manneken-Pis where his many costumes are stored. It started raining at that point, so we went souvenir shopping for awhile and then holed up in a tavern (where Megan and I ate some great chicken nuggets and french fries) until it was time to head back to Lille. We were all exhausted when we got back to the hostel.
Today we got up late and then walked around Lille for awhile. We saw a few churches and then went to the Musee de Beaux-Arts. They had some cool sculptures and paintings. After lunch, we went to La Bourse, which is the old stock exchange. Now, instead of the stocks, they sell books! Tons of vendors come every day to sell them. I bought a few :-) After that we had just enough time to get our luggage from the hostel and head back to Paris. It's a relief to be back, it feels a lot homier after a weekend away.
Anyway, I have a quiz tomorrow in class so I'd better go study! Here are the links to my new photo albums:
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2052451&l=d2654&id=15805278 (first Lille album)
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2052454&l=e3630&id=15805278 (Lille and Brussels)
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2052455&l=0f5cc&id=15805278 (Brussels and more Lille)
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2052457&l=22560&id=15805278 (final Lille album)