"Mesdames et Messieurs, je vous rappelle qu'il est interdit de fumer dans la gare!" The cry comes onto the loudspeakers every few minutes, reminding everyone in the train station that smoking is not allowed. The station, Gare de Charles de Gaulle, is crowded, full of people alternately rushing to catch a plane or a train or sitting, staring at the 'departures' board, awaiting their time to rush to catch their transport. I am among the seated, sitting between an elderly woman on my left and a younger woman clutching the leg of a collarless, and very clean, white dog on my right - "Il n'aime pas sa laisse, c'est pour ca que je lui tiens la jambe" she explained to me ("he doesn't like his leash, that's why I'm holding his leg"). I smiled and patted the dog, who was quite friendly. The elderly woman to my left then turned to me and asked me about which train I was taking. We struck up a conversation, and I discovered that she was coming back from Thailand and lived in Belgium. She loved to travel. I was glad to see that I remembered most of my French, although my vocabulary was a little lacking... One thing I've noticed about my traveling is that, now that I travel frequently by plane and train, it is easier to speak with fellow travelers. I've always been a little reserved, and when I traveled in the past, I was usually with my family, and would speak only to them. I never talked to the person siting next to me on the plane or train. Now, especially after the fiasco which was my flight to Florida last year, I find myself talking to others a lot more easily. There is a sort of camaraderie between travelers - we are all waiting, almost in limbo, in the station, and then sitting together for hours on the journey, and are at the mercy of the machines - if the plane doesn't work, we are all stuck. This commonality, I think, brings people together, and perhaps that's what makes it easier to open up to strangers in the train station or airport while traveling than, say, on the street.
The view of the sunset outside Noemie's kitchen window.
I was in France for a little under a week, first in Lille and then in Paris. I'd never been to Lille before, and it was a very nice town. It's quite small, at least by American standards, but very pretty, with many old buildings of typically French architecture, such as the one pictured below, but also full of popular shops and boutiques, the flashing signs and advertisements of which contrast nicely with the older stone buildings.
Me in front of a museum in Lille. Unfortunately, as it was a holiday, the museum was closed.
exploring in the rain
I took the train from the CDG airport in Paris to Gare de Lille Europe in Lille. My friend met me at the station, and we took the metro back to her flat, where I deposited my bag, and then returned to the metro to travel across the town to meet her friend for a beer. The area we were in in Lille was famous for it's beer, she told me. Apparently, going out for a beer at night is what everyone in Lille was doing, because every bar was pretty full, but we managed to get a seat outside. It was nice to sit and talk in a mixture of French and English for a few hours, and my French started to come back to me quickly.
The streets of old Lille. Here, you can see some of the newer shops, the insides of which are quite modern, even if the outer buildings are older.
I was only in Lille for two days. The second day, we slept in quite late, and then studied a bit in the morning - me for my exam on the 21, and her for her dissertation. Then, we went walking around the old part of Lille. The old town is very French, full of old French buildings and little crepe stands. Unfortunately, I was there during a holiday, and most of the museums and buildings were closed so we just saw them all from the outside. Also unfortunately, it was raining. Luckily, I'm used to the rain, and it wasn't too cold. Everyone apologized for the bad weather, saying it was a bummer that it wasn't nicer, but in fact the weather was quite nice for the rest of the trip. It was a little cloudy and a little rainy some days, but a lot warmer than it is in Edinburgh. We walked around and looked at everything. I saw the opera house, the theater (where my friend is working on an internship) and a lot of museums. The architecture is truly amazing in France. The old buildings are all made of stone, with extreme attention to detail and precision in the smallest of things. For example, in the photo below, every detail of the statues is precise, from the angle fo the figures' noses to the direction of their fixed stares.
the opera house - Opera de Lille
After walking a while, we were soaking wet from the rain, so we ducked into a cafe for a quick cappuccino and spoke, once again, in our mixture of English and French. We were seated outside, but under a covered balcony. Even though it was outdoors, there were many heaters nearby, and it was quite warm. This sort of outdoor heated seating was abundant in Lille, and the cafes and brasseries were all full of tourists escaping the rain. It stared raining harder when we were just about to leave, so we sat at our table a while longer, trying to guess what language all the tourists around us were speaking. Finally, the rain lightened, and we ventured out again to walk around Lille.
I made a stop in the Carrefour, which is a big store, to buy some Carambars (a french candy which James and I always buy in abundance when we are in France) to bring back to James and Dill. Then, we continued our walk around Lille, and finally returned to her flat for the night.
a crepe stand
A slightly crooked photo of the centre in Lille. The umbrellas outside show a covered out door eating area similar to the one where we stopped for coffee.
The next day, we woke up earlier. I had a train to Paris to catch, and Noemie had to go to her internship. Before we left, though, I walked to the grocery store to get some baguette for breakfast. The bread was still warm, fresh from the bakery that morning. That is one of the things I love about France - the bread is always fresh.
After breakfast, we took the metro back to the center, and I returned to the Gare de Lille Europe station to catch the TGV to Paris Nord and into the next section of my journey.
The first photo I took in Paris, a few hours after I got there.