Nous Sommes Awesome

(Caveat: This post is the most hastily written and sloppy of all my posts so far, and all pictures taken in France were hurried, blurry and a bit crap. My trip is rapidly coming to an end and I haven’t the time to put this together nicely, so my apologies…)

D, K, and I went on a two day road trip last week. Destination: Lille. Route: London to Dover, ferry to Dunkerque, Dunkerque to Lille, and then back again the next day.

Our overall impression of Lille was this:

Day 1: Lille sucks.

It is gross and rainy.
We have learned the following things about this town:
1. There are approximately 12 people in the whole of the town. Fortunately, all 12 of these people are incredibly cordial*.
2. There are no crepes.
3. There are a plethora of hair salons, pharmacies (all with competitively unique and siezure-inducing neon signs), and dog crap on the sidewalks.

And our favorite Frenglish for the day: Nous sommes awesome.

*Day 1 confusions all take place at the supermarket and include:
1. Almost buying table wine to drink but being told that was not wise by a fellow patron.
2. Me peeking in the side doors along the perimeter of the store to see if I can spot a bathroom, being subsequently followed by a security guard because I look suspicious, thinking the best way to avoid giving him a heart attack is to just ask, having this conversation (I don’t remember genders or how to spell in French, so bear with me here as I make it up):
Me: Avez-vous un sal du ban?
Him: Une toilette?
Me: Oui.
Him: Vous ette malade?
Me: Non.
But he either misunderstood, didn’t believe me, or decided to be nice anyway because he proceeded to usher me through 10 minutes-worth of behind the scenes store until we reached staff bathrooms where he waited and then escorted me back.
3. K not realizing that to buy loose fruit you have to get it weighed and stickered before checking out, the woman at the register trying to explain this to us for five minutes, us finally understanding, K running back to get stickers, and D and I trying to pay for the rest (and then stand in line again later for fruit) but the register woman kindly and stubbornly refusing, therefore holding up the whole line (containing the remaining residents of the town) waiting for K to return.

On the endless drive from the ferry to Lille.

Multicolored curtains in the buildings across from our hotel.

Dog crap (please note that, in the grand scheme, this is actually quite a nice picture of dog poop, since most piles had at some point been stepped in, smeared, and tracked for at least the next 10 feet – and lest you think “there’s always dog poop on grass!” note that I chose this photo op because of the stunning composition, and that most piles were indeed right smack dab in the middle of the sidewalk).

Wine in a plastic cup. An important component of our hotel picnic.

Day 2: Lille est awesome.

Realizations about plethoras hold firm, but realizations about a dearth of crepes and people are both shot down as we find the bustling city center full of creperies. Shrill pitched excitement ensues.

We decided to avoid the traffic nightmare the second time around and so left incredibly early to get back to Dunkerque. We were early. Hours early. So we spent some time in the industrial area by the ferry, then went on to the town of Dunkerque and wandered down to the docks.

Eventually we returned and boarded the ferry where K bought a Cosmo, and we took some quizzes, and learned some very insightful things about our makeup habits.

Day 2 confusions all take place at the ferry dock and include:
1. Me almost not being allowed back into the country by customs because I don’t have a copy of my return ticket (out of the UK). I would like to take this opportunity to note that a. the customs agents at Heathrow have never looked at my return ticket and b. I thought there was this thing called the EU?
2. Us holding up our entire line of cars getting on the ferry because they made no announcement about boarding: we were crammed in the back seat of the car watching the West Wing on a laptop, somehow the car in front of us made no noise when it started up, and when D finally noticed, he couldn’t find the car keys (though to our credit, there were a lot of people who had wandered from their cars and not noticed the boarding so several lines were held up).

Palais du Beaux Arts

Dass right.

People!

Doors of the Opera House:

Ok. Probably the coolest part of the whole trip was wandering into this little courtyard full of people with stands of used books. There were French magazines from the 70’s, leather bound volumes of Moliere, stamp collections, comic book anthologies, and more. I should have bought something but was too busy drooling and being confused as to where to start: