Update Time!

Well... it's late at night... I kinda took a nap this afternoon and woke up to it being dark out! Oops! But I figured I might as well update this as it's been almost a week.

Classes are over, which is very nice! I now understand why my classes ended on April 30th on the Wed instead of on Friday - May 1 is France's Labor Day and everything is closed! I mean everything! Not even the metro runs on Labor Day! And... when a National Holiday lands on a Tuesday or a Thursday, a lot of places take the Monday or Friday off and make it an extended weekend - thus my classes ended on Wed.

But, that being said - it's been a rather relaxing week since then. I really haven't done that much in retrospect but in some ways that's what has made it nice! After I finally caught up on sleep, I just relaxed around a bit the rest of the week - especially because everything was closed too!

I had planned on just staying in on Saturday night as I had no idea who was staying here over this break, let alone if anyone was going out. However, I heard a bunch of noise in the hall... so I went to check it out! Turns up a bunch of my friends were having drinks and getting ready to go out for the night - so I tossed on a better shirt and joined them! After having drinks in the residence (and getting one of the guys into his bed because he was a bit too drunk already!) we finally headed out around 1 am. We first went to the Palace Cafe because there was a supposed Erasmus party going on there (Erasmus is an exhange program throughout most of Europe - so it's mostly for exchange students)... but it was way too crowded for us! So we decided we'd hit up somewhere new and headed out to the Tchouka club - which really was a fun place! So we hung out there for a bit. Around 3 or so we ended up coming on our way back and split up our separate ways... and I kinda crashed on my bed with all my clothes on!

Somehow, even without setting a single alarm, I woke up around 10 am... a little hungover but awake at least. I had wanted to get to the market to buy some fruits and veggies so it was really a good thing I woke up on my own! However, I had to deal with a bank situation first so that took some time - I had to balance my money and all of that fun stuff, sent a few emails out... but finally I headed on out to the market. On my way there, I passed a friend, Danielle and a guy who had just arrived here in Lille from Canada. They had met in the lobby and Danielle took him out to the market... so I was invited to go with them later to the Modern Art Museum just outside of Lille when i got back from the market. Being the first Sunday of the month, all museums in France are free for this day. I had originally planned on doing the market, then going to the Palais de Beaux Arts which is the second best museum in France after the Louvre ... and it's right here in Lille! But I decided I could do that another day!

So I went to the market... and realized that I really will miss going to the market! We don't have anything like it that I know of back home and especially since the Wazemmes Market is one of the largest and best in all of France... it's going to be direly missed! I mean, when you can go and come back with a huge sack full of fruits and veggies and only spent 10 euros... that's dirt cheap! And you can get so much more than just food at the market too... well the nice thing is that I have two more Sundays left to savor it!

So anyways, I got back to my room afterwards... put away my groceries...made a quick lunch and met up with Danielle and Jordan (I think is his name - I'm horrible with names!) to go out to the museum. Since it was completely on the other side of town, we took the metro. I had my pack of tickets left still so I was good, but they both bought tickets... only Danielle didn't put hers in the machine... She said she normally just carried the blank ticket around and if they stopped to check the tickets, like the occasionally do, she would just play the "dumb foreigner" who didn't realize she had to do that... Well, of course this is the day that there was at least one ticket controller in most of the major stations - all checking tickets... So Jordan and I were good since we did what you're supposed to do... but b/c Danielle didn't composite her ticket, we all had to get off at the one stop while she talked to the control people. Of course, it really made here look dumb because it was obvious that she was with us since we all were speaking English... and we had both composited our tickets.... so in the end we wasted a good 20 minutes just on that alone - which didn't make me too happy!

So we finally get to the metro stop we wanted, then we had to wait another 15 minutes to catch the bus because we didn't know how far away it was, let alone which direction to go. But once the bus got moving, it didn't take that long to get there. So we finally get to the stop, and start walking down into the park to where the Modern Art museum is... only to find out that it is still closed for major renovations! So, since we were already out there and so many people were out, plus it was a gorgeous day... we just walked around the park for a bit. I had noticed a Moulin Museum (Windmills) so we tried to see if that was open - but of course it wasn't either! What was cool though was that there was a little fair area set up for little kids with food booths and things, so we got granitas which are basically slushies, and walked up a hill to sit down on the grass in the sun and just enjoy a day in the park.

By about 5 pm though, we were getting tired of the sun, as well as Jordan was on the verge of sleeping! He was still having the effects of jet lag! So we started heading back to the metro. We figured that it really wasn't that far to walk there, and now that we knew which way we were going it would be easier than catching a bus back. So about 20 minutes later, we got back at the metro station and hopped back on the metro to go back. We weren't stopped this time at all, though Danielle got her ticket marked this time in case. So when we got back, we split our ways and I headed up to my room.

The rest of the evening I spent fighting to get the internet, working some more on uploading my Paris pictures and just relaxing in general. Talked to my mom a bit on Skype... and ended up putting a movie on.. then another movie... then another.... lol

I did get some sleep though which was good. But when I had gotten up about 10:30 am, I had planned on getting to the post office to mail at least one of the two boxes I have packed up and then hitting the Palais de Beaux Arts today. (I have two boxes packed up with papers and souvenirs to mail back, but the one is 3x the size of the other and at least 2x the weight... so I figured I'll mail the one and see how much it costs then decide if I need to split the large box into two or three smaller ones) However, I was smart and checked online to see what time the post office opens... and it doesn't open till 2 pm on Mondays! So, I thought that I could go to the Palais de Beaux Arts first instead, so I looked up what time they opened... and they don't open until 2 pm as well! So here I am... not able to do what I wanted till 2 pm.... by now it's about 11:30 and I was getting hungry. I still had some food tickets left which I needed to use up so I don't end up wasting the money, so I figured I'd head on out and maybe do some windowshopping or something and grab lunch at the cafeteria place.

So I get my typical lunch of a tuna baguette, a drink and a piece of fruit... and start walking. We actually have a zoo here in Lille, located right next to the Citadel - and it's free! Since a lot of my fiends told me it is completely worth going to, and the fact that I had nothing else better to do... I walked through Parc Vauban to go to the Zoo! So I'm walking around, and actually surprised at what they had to offer! There were two rhinos, a couple zebras, a few gazelles, a bunch of types of monkeys, a couple alpacas, tapirs, peacocks, porcupines, owls, birds, muskrats, a cute young white tiger, a couple kookaburas, and a bunch of other fun interesting animals! I ended up spending a good 20 minutes just watching the monkeys and taking pictures of them - they're so cute! I got pictures of them monkey-wrestling too! Then, I go to keep on walking and there are three HUGE pink Pelicans just sitting on the railing along the path... So, after getting pictures of them, and getting really, really close as well... I kept on walking. They must be used to the people because I was maybe 4 feet away from them taking pictures! Unfortunately the tropical building where they have lizards and all those things was closed still for renovations but the sign says it should be opening soon so I might go back at some point. I also didn't have my tripod with me to get good closeup pictures so I might just head back one afternoon to have something to do!

From the Zoo, I ended up walking into the Vieux Lille part of town and up through the Grande Place. There, I swung by the Place Rihour and finally stopped in the Lille Tourist Office to see what they have there. I didn't buy things but did find out they have Lille shotglasses and other souvenirs so i'll have to stop back there someday soon to get those! After that, I kept on going to Carrefour because I wanted to see if they had some boxes made for mailing since they were out the other day - but they didn't have any new ones in... so I ended up coming on back home. By now it's about 3 pm and I was quite tired as I didn't get that much sleep last night... So I laid down for a short nap, intending to get up in about 45 min or so and get to the post office with plenty of time to spare before they closed....

Well... the result is I woke up and it's dark out! Oops! Guess I'll have to get to the post office tomorrow though thankfully they open at 10 am instead of 2 so I should be fine! However, the Palais de Beaux Arts is closed on Tuesdays so that will have to be another day!

I do have some fun things lined up for this week though: On Wed, Danielle and I are going to take a day trip up to Bruges, Belguim. We've been told that it's one of the best places to go in Belguim and it's actually nicknamed the "Venice of the North" because there are so many canals and waterways. The chocolate there is also so much better! We'll be leaving early in the morning and coming back about midafternoon - but it's only a 30 min ride by train so it'll be fun. On friday, the residence here has planned a trip down to Parc Asterix for the day - and since it was only 20 euros with everything but food included... I joined along! Though they posted today that we're leaving at 7:15 am - yuck! But Parc Asterix is the best theme park in France after Disneyland Paris, and actually has some huge rides there too. It's themed off of the French comic book characters Asterix and Obelix - and has some really huge rides too! It should be a fun time as I know some others who are going on it as well.

Then, I'm thinking I might go up to Calais for the day on Saturday, spend some time on the beach perhaps. There's some things up there which would be fun to do, like climb the Calais lighthouse. Hopefully it will be a nice day out so I can see across the English Channel to the white cliffs of Dover.

Well, I should get going here... get to bed... laterz!

Oh, I got the first two days of my Paris trip uploaded, still working on the others and will also upload the pics from the Zoo!

But I kept