Lille

Wow, its been a while since I've written! When I started this blog I told myself I would write at least once each week about how that week was or what I did...yeah that's not really happening.
Okay so now to fill you up on what I've been up to...I can't even remember what I last wrote about haha.  When I try to think of the past few weeks they all seem like a blur... I can't quite remember what happen..and  no, it's not because I have been drinking all the time haha. It's more because there's been a lot going on, emotionally.
I don't want to start to get all depressive here, but let's just say I was not doing well emotionally. There was a lot of things going on, so it was a mix of everything that made me feel very "down". But after having a serious conversation with my parents and crying for 2 days straight, I feel so much better now and "awake". I say awake because after speaking with my parents I felt like I had an epiphany, I felt like I snapped out of that "trance" or whatever I was going through. I feel so much happier now! (I know I'm not being very detailed here, and you might be wondering what happened that must have made me so depressed, but it's a long story so let's just keep it short and simple!)

The last 2 weeks of February where the "spring break" equivalent here in France (lucky them, they have TWO weeks off! and we only get one!) and I got one week off so I decided to take a small trip to Lille with this other au pair I met through an au pair group on Facebook. A day before leaving to Lille I was regretting going, I realized it was going to be more expensive than I thought it would be and I realized I could've taken advantage of that week in Paris to visit all the museums I wanted. (I thought I would finish all of my money I had saved up, which I almost did but in the end I didn't. Of course that was due to me eating 5 euro meals and I found 70 euros in my purse!!)
However, it was too late and I couldn't cancel, but I was not very excited to be honest. But now I'm glad I did go,even if it was Lille, a city that is quite small, because it was a good experience to see another French city other than Paris. I got to compare the different "lifestyles" and see that not every city in France is like Paris, oh not at all. Paris is a whole different world compared to Lille. Of course Lille is very small compared to Paris (we walked everywhere, there was no need for metro or bus! Everything was at walking distance in the center of Lille), it's more calm and laid back. I found it really cute and quaint, but I would not like to live there, it's too calm!
What did we see? Well I think pretty much everything, we walked all around and when I say all around, trust me all around. After those two days I felt like I had been living there for a while now because I could somewhat find my way around!
 On the first day we took a walking tour of the Vieux Lille (Old Lille) where we were told about Lille's history and showed around. We also visited several churches one being Notre-Dame-de-La-Treille. We went to the park right next to La Citadelle which is a military base (we couldn't go in of course), we went to the Marche de Wazemmes, which somewhat disappointed me. There was a lot of merchandise and everything was cheap, but I thought it would be..I dunno, prettier I guess?

Notre Dame de la Treille

Marche de Wazemmes

We then decided to go out that night (not much was happening on a Tuesday night) and that's when we met a guy who lives in Paris but was in Lille for work. I found it so funny that we met a Parisian in Lille (not very surprised though, because most of the tourists in Lille seemed to be other French people). The three of us decided to go to a bar called The Wos Bar which is an Australian bar (there is one also in Paris). He was very nice and I actually went out with him on thursday night with another friend and he invited us to a party he might be having this weekend at his place, which I'm excited about because I think it'll be a great opportunity to met other french people!

Opera de Lille and la Chambre de Commerce(clock tower)

On our second day we visited the Palais des Beaux Arts, which was very nice. We also went to the house were Charles de Gaulle was born in. There was also an exposition on Anne Frank in the house, and it was funny because after the tour I felt like I had been to an exposition about Anne Frank and the house was something on the side. It took us longer to see the expo than the house!

For lunch we decided to go to this restaurant that served very traditional Lilloise food and I decided to go all out and when I say all out, I mean it. Realizing that I had not spent a lot of money (We eat 5 dollar meals, and the museums and tour were no more than 7 euros) I decided to take this Formule (a lunch/dinner menu where it includes either appetizer+dish or dis+dessert) that included: cocktail, appetizer, dish, dessert all for 23 euros. You might think it's not that bad (which is what I thought, because after all it was a lot of food, but when you think about it 23 euros is quite an amount of money, specially with an au pair budget), but it was SO worth it! and dessert was the cherry on top. I got served a Ch'ti cocktail (Ch'ti is the name they give to people who live in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais in France), for appetizer Escargots (snails) with Mareille cheese, then I had Carbonnate Flamante a l'Cassonnate (it was meat with a sauce made with beer and brown sugar, it was quite good!) and for dessert....drum roll please!.... CREME BRULEE! So so so good!! Of course after this meal I felt like my stomach was going to explode.

Okay, so I know the last paragraph isn't the best travel review hehe, but I don't want to go too descriptive because I know how long my posts can get.... So that was it for my trip. For those of you who are thinking of paying Lille a visit, I think it's worth it but no more than 2 days and maybe on the weekend so there is actually some parties going on.