Elsie, my host sister from 1999, was back in Lille from her current address in Reunion Island for a holiday in March so it was perfect timing for me to head up to visit for a few days. It was great to see them again (I had last visited in 2004) and, even better, my French was coping perfectly well with the situation – not at all like when I arrived there for the first time in ’99!I also met up with several friends from school, namely, Sylvain, Magalie, and Clémence. Sylvain works as an engineer for the SNCF (French rail service) and was telling me about how he gets tickets on regional trains for 1 euro…considering my return ticket was 150 euro I wasn’t exactly too pleased to hear about that!
Magalie came out to NZ for three months several years ago to do some work experience at The Warehouse head office. She still absolutely loves NZ (see if you can recognise the pictures behind us in this photo) and can’t wait to come back. I keep telling everyone I should be back for Christmas 2009 so we might have some people camping on the lawn! The top photo is of (L-R) me, Nilo (Sylvain’s girlfriend), Sylvain, Magalie, Damien (Magalie’s boyfriend) and Magalie’s sister and the bottom one is of Clémence and her boyfriend Gregoire.
Clémence has just finished some work experience at the European Parliament in Brussels, sounded fascinating! She’s keen to do more traveling too so again, another tent in the garden perhaps… Luckily Lille put on a beautiful day so I took a video of the walk from the metro station into the Grand Place.
Here are some fun pics of Elsie’s farewell party where we found some dress ups which had been worn a few weeks earlier at one of the north’s famous carnivals - my best ‘Waynetta’ impersonation and Elsie showing that pretty girls really can turn ugly if needs be…
On my last day I had lunch with Chantal, Elsie, and Chantal’s new boyfriend Jean-Claude. We had a traditional northern meal of ‘frites’ (hot chips), salade (self explanatory I think) and ‘potjevlesch’ which is a terrine of pork, chicken and rabbit in jelly served cold. It was actually much nicer than it sounds!
Finally, I managed to catch up with Ulla and her husband Pierre while they were in Lille too – Ulla’s about to leave on an AusAid posting to Indonesia but is in Lille at the moment with Pierre as he’s got a job as a lecturer here.
So all in all, my little jaunt up to Lille was fantastic. It’s a really cool town and I would recommend a stop off there if anyone’s going from London to Paris or anything like that. It’s definitely changed heaps too since we’ve been gone; it was European Capital of Culture in 2004 and Vieux Lille (Old Lille) in particular is now a maze of fantastic shops and great restaurants with a really fantastic vibe.
Loads more photos are here if you’re interested too.
Finally, I managed to catch up with Ulla and her husband Pierre while they were in Lille too – Ulla’s about to leave on an AusAid posting to Indonesia but is in Lille at the moment with Pierre as he’s got a job as a lecturer here.So all in all, my little jaunt up to Lille was fantastic. It’s a really cool town and I would recommend a stop off there if anyone’s going from London to Paris or anything like that. It’s definitely changed heaps too since we’ve been gone; it was European Capital of Culture in 2004 and Vieux Lille (Old Lille) in particular is now a maze of fantastic shops and great restaurants with a really fantastic vibe.Loads more photos are here if you’re interested too.
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