World, Come at Me Bro!: P'tit weekend à Lille

Last week, most of my week was taken up with studying for a mid-term on Thursday, which actually went quite well; if anything, I tried to write too much and just kind of repeated myself and rambled on, which is surprisingly even easier in French. After three hours, I had written 7 pages of semi-understandable legit french, leaving frustrated but actually pretty proud of myself.
Then the fun happened. Thursday day was filled with chillin: chillin at Place des Vosges, the oldest planned square in Paris. Jacob and I brought some hw and he did his while I took a little nap using my hw as a pillow. Successful afternoon if you ask me. The evening entailed some extended Seine chilling with friends, and then a trip over to Phoebe's for some dinner. Eventually ended up at Café Oz, an australian bar with some bumpin tunes. No one was really dancing but we decided to tear the floor up. After a nice bike ride home during the wee hours of the morning and my morning Friday class, I went over to the Jardin de Tuilleries and slept there like a homeless man. It was too nice of a day to not be outside!
Early Saturday morning, I set out for Lille, a city an hour train ride north of Paris. It marked my first time going on a trip outside of Paris, and the timing was perfect. I was meeting Tamera, a Pomona-Pitzer alum who is in Europe playing professional polo, and her friend Charlotte, who is doing the same thing but for a different team. We went to Bruges, Belgium Saturday, an hour drive from Lille. Bruges was great, a cute city that seems to only sell chocolate, beer, waffles, and frites (French fries). When I ordered my fries, I got them with mayonnaise, because that is how the locals do it. Needless to say, it was different, but the fries themselves were so good I could have eaten them with anything as a sauce and would have enjoyed it.

Train ride to Lille; not used to the absence of mountains...

chillin Bruges buildings

Belfry; wanted to climb it but it is being renovated

PP Polo, represent! Belgium style

Tamera and Charlotte, with the canal outside

Some French kids that came to Bruges to cross dress, lick the street, and drink vodka. Quite the show

the square we had lunch in

None of my pics of the inside turned out well, but it had gorgeous stained glass windows

After a waffle covered in chocolate sauce and some fries and a couple of churches, we rolled back to Lille. First, we went to a men's professional water polo game, which was so much fun. Although the stadium held even less people than Haldeman pool at Pomona, it was packed full with enthusiastic fans since the game decided on whether they would advance to the playoffs. Even with the enthusiasm, t-shirt gun, and CHEERLEADERS (what??), Lille still lost by two. Bummer for the home crowd.

Lille on the left, bad guys on the right

Not great dancers, but you can't have it all

Not so effective counter; Euros don't really like swimming

After that, the girls took forever to get ready and we went out to a club in Lille, an overall great time. Sunday was a wonderful day of relaxing, first going to the large Sunday market and getting fresh produce and fresh bread, all much cheaper than Paris (not surprisingly), then having a little pic nic in the park. Although not as great as wandering in Paris, the wandering we did post-picnic was pretty cool. One thing I have to give Lille credit on is their people: they look happy! I don't think it was anything too crazy, but compared to Paris it was like an episode of the Care Bears: people laughing, people actually raising their voices a little, and giant technicolor bears hugging everything. The chairs in the cafés were plastic, basically just lawn chairs. Although this does not seem that crazy, for people to be relaxed in plastic chairs on a Sunday, the scene is just not seen in Paris.
Later that night, we made a bunch of mini-crêpes and had a little crêpe party, then I had to come back home. "Coming home" to Paris actually made me extremely happy, and I realized that over the weekend I had started to miss it a bit. Who woulda thought, homesick for Paris! I have to say, the weekend in Lille was EASILY my favorite voyage so far...
The next week and a half will be a bunch of work, but after that expect stories of more adventures.