Once we got back to the house I did some lesson planning (the last of the year!) and Danielle organized her suitcase. She had brought me some goodies from the states: Jiff peanut butter, US weekly with an article about the Bachelor, all the ingredients to make pumpkin pie (she knows how much I missed not having pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving), and some bath stuff from Bath and Body Works. We made pumpkin pie that night and it was soooooo good!
Monday morning I only taught one hour at Boris Vian because my first class was on a field trip and no one told me about this "minor detail" before Monday morning. Then I only taught 2 hours at St. Exupery since one of those classes was also on a field trip. I did get to go home an hour early, which was nice to have an extra hour at home with Danielle. That night we pack our bags to leave for Paris the next morning.
When we woke up Tuesday morning it had snowed more than expected, which meant the buses weren't running. Luckily we left early enough to just walk to the metro. We then found out the metro wasn't running into town. I panicked on how to salvage the situation so I called Deliece and Janine to brainstorm alternative options on what to do. We ended up taking the metro into Roubaix and got off at the train station stop. Once we got there we found out there may not be any trains running into Lille. As we were trying to decide whether or not to just return our tickets a train pulls into the station and we hear someone say "Lille" so we ran for the train and hopped on without a clue as to where it was going and not having a ticket. We both were too determined to give up! Luckily it did take us into Lille, but we then found out that all trains in and out of Lille had been cancelled until noon. All we could do was sit around the train station and wait for a departing train to Paris to be posted. We left and got breakfast. We spent majority of the morning going between the shopping mall and the train station to check on train times. We met up with Emily at one point since we was heading into Carre four we decided to pass the time hanging out with her while she grocery shopped. As we were walking back through the metro station into the train station I noticed a train for Paris was posted as leaving at 11:40am but it was already almost 12:45pm. I knew they wouldn't keep old trains posted on the screens so that had to mean a train was still in the station and due to leave relatively soon. We quickly made our way to the train and just got on. Of course the train was all mixed up with people sitting in each other's assigned seats, but since this was the first train out of Lille to Paris that was bound to happen. We did get seats and after about a 20 minute wait the train slowly rolled out of the station. There was only a minor 30 minute hold up along the way, which was better than the sight of miles and miles of semi trucks pulled over and stranded on the highways. France can not handle snow. Once we got into Paris we bought lunch at a small cafe right outside the train station. After buying our 2 day metro passes we located our hotel. We had booked a hotel in the Montmartre area (my favorite part of Paris), and had a perfect view of the Sacre Coeur.
We dropped our bags off in the room and headed for the Place de la Concorde and the Champs Elysee. The snow was coming down pretty hard and the wind didn't help as we walked along the famous street. We saw the Arc de Triomphe, but couldn't cross under the street to see the tomb of the unknown soldier since there was a military ceremony going on. We then caught the metro to the Trocadero to see the Eiffel Tower in the snow. She was pretty :) We were there just in time to see her light up at 7pm. We then went to the Louvre Museum and the Notre Dame to see them by night. We ended the night with a fancy dinner along the Seine. We both got a chicken in a creamy lemon sauce and a side of vegetables. When we were walking back to the metro headed for the hotel I saw my first rat in Paris. Scared the shit out of me! We ended the night with a trip to the Moulin Rouge (just from the outside).
The next morning we checked out of the hotel, but luckily we could leave our backpacks chained to the heater in the lobby for the day. We started out with nutella crepes for breakfast by the Eiffel Tower and then to the Notre Dame (no rats this time). I did make it back to the Lover's Bridge and found Chad and my lock still attached to the bridge. We did a little souvenir shopping before heading back to the Louvre and the royal palace. We then took the metro up to the Montmartre area, where we had to climb the giant hill. We stopped for a traditional french lunch of quiche lorraine with fries and a salad. We then walked to the Sacre Coeur to see the gorgeous 180 degree view of Paris. We finished up our souvenir shopping in Montmartre before we stopped back at the hotel to pick up our bags. We had some time to kill before our train was scheduled to leave so we stopped at a little kebab shop outside of the train station for dinner. While we were waiting for our platform to be announced in the train station I noticed a recorded announcement kept playing over and over that our train was to join another train on the same platform, but the large monitors that list the train times and platforms didn't reflect this announcement. Luckily we decided to head down to the platform to check out the situation and indeed we were supposed to be taking that train, even though the departure screens didn't reflect that information. Typical France... I had bought a tarte aux fraise (strawberry tart) towards the end of the day and rewarded myself with a nice dessert on the train as we headed back to Lille.
Thursday morning rolled around and despite the fact that the buses may have been running in the snow I still decided to take a mental health day after a whirlwind of adventure the previous two days. In the afternoon Janine came into town with Danielle and I for a tour of downtown Lille. We did a little shopping too, since I had finally received my CAF money. (What a nightmare...) It was nice to buy myself a little something nice after all the heartbreak that stupid CAF office put me through. Hey in the end it is free money. After dinner that night all the girls of the house piled onto the couch to watch the season finale of the Bachelor.
I worked my three full hours on Friday at St. Exupery. That night the housemates and Danielle met up with some of my other friends for a drink in Lille. I'm glad Danielle got the chance to meet all of my new friends in France. We had to come back rather early so as not to miss the last metro home and rest up for our trip to Brussels the next morning.
After eating a quick breakfast we headed to the train station to catch our ride to Brussels, Belgium (and outta France!) The train went on without a problem and when we got into the station we bought our train passes for the airport the next morning. Our next trek would be finding the hotel. We'd looked up the hotel on a map and even figured out which metro lines we needed to take. The one thing we didn't account for was a crappy 3G signal, which means we had no means of navigation. After trying to figure out our current location on a map we finally decided to stop a bus drive to see if he knew where the street our hotel was on was located. He was so kind he let us ride his bus one stop which dropped us off one street away from our hotel. (Wouldn't get that type of kindness in France.) We checked into the room and dropped our bags off before heading back out to explore. We first stopped into a giant church that was absolutely impressive on the inside.
Next we headed into the center of town and got a real belgian waffel. I of course got a waffel covered in speculous. I just needed a moment to take it in and indulge myself. After went into at least 5 different chocolate shops, and Danielle got some assortments to take back to her family in the states. We walked through the Grand Place where the locals were giving out fre hugs. We then went on an adventure to find the famous statue of a little boy peeing into a bird bath. Super lame as we soon found out. We did take some pictures to mock all the chavs we saw taking ridiculous photos in Paris. (You kinda had to be there to appreciate it.)
We walked through a couple of shopping galleries and found the palace of Brussels. Just next to the palace was a large spanse of gardens that lead to the parliament building.
We were getting hungry at this point and ventured back into town to find dinner. We found a quaint winding street lined with traditional Belgian restaurants. They were all offering the same menu deal but each restaurant manager tried to offer us something different from the last. We finally settled on one of the many restaurants. We each ordered a starter, entree and dessert with a free beer all for only 12 euro! The food was excellent! We were pretty stuffed and tired after dinner so we went back to the room for an early night's rest.
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