Today we went on a field trip to Brussels, Belgium, which was fun! It was nice to have a break from class. We left at 7:45am this morning, and we got there around 10:30am. The French Arts class got to go to this comic strip museum (the field trip had to have something educational), which was interesting, but I left after like 30 minutes. All the writing was in French or Flemish, so I couldn’t appreciate everything as much. We then had free time until 4:45pm, so we headed to Grande Place, which is the center of Brussels. It was full of restaurants, touristy shops, and, of course, chocolate shops. The first chocolaterie we went to had a ton of free samples, which I took advantage of! I also bought some hazelnut dipping chocolate for hot chocolate, which I am very excited about. Even though weather.com said Brussels had a 20% of rain (thus I didn’t bring my umbrella), it was indeed raining all morning. I was pretty miserable and was reminded of the awful weather of Bruges. I just dodged around the rain as much as I could, and we ended up finding an indoor mall type thing that was very pretty with its fancy architecture. We eventually found some cheapish food, and I had some sort of chicken sandwich with a Flemish twist and fries. It was just ok, nothing special. It was then my mission to find a coffee shop for some hot chocolate and to find shelter.
We ended up finding one eventually, and I made a big fool of myself ordering the hot chocolate in French. We wanted the Chocolate Maison, but we wanted to have whipped cream as well. So I ordered a Chocolate Maison avec Chantilly. The waiter was confused at my lack of French and apparently the next item on the list (Chocolate Maison Viennois) was what we wanted. Oh well, at least I tried! I looked up viennois in my dictionary and it said that was a crescent, so I am not sure how this translation works haha. We stayed in the coffee shop for a good two hours, and the weather was semi-nice and sunny-ish by the time we left. I got some souvenirs and then split a waffle with chocolate sauce and whipped cream with Claire, soooo yummy! I had to get on more of those while I was in Belgium. I have been to Belgium three times this summer, and my last trip there was today, so it is sad to think about. I wonder if I will ever find my way in Belgium again?
I thoroughly enjoyed the bus ride back to Lille. I love bus rides because it is one of the seldom times I can relax, sleep, listen to music, and read. I just love to do nothing, especially since I am non-stop all the time in Lille! I signed up for an option couscous dinner when we got back to Lille. I was expecting a mediocre dinner at le RU, but I was so wrong. We went to this North African (I think) restaurant and had grand meal. Grand is the perfect word! We had couscous with chick peas, carrots, onions, sausage, and all sorts of yummy additions. The waiters kept bringing more and more food, so I was full. They also brought this jug of white wine, which was amazing. I wish I knew what type of wine, so I could go by some at Carrefour. We then had mint tea and little desserts. I don’t like tea, but this was tasty! I really want to buy some and bring it back to the States.
Now to rewind back to Monday and Tuesday of this week. On Monday, we had International Night. The whole European Summer Program had a reception and had a pot luck meal. We were supposed to bring a food that represented our country. I just bought some cheap cookies from Carrefour, so I hope that was good enough! The food was good, though. I ate way too many sweets! I then watched people do some performances that represented countries, and those were entertaining.
I also booked a trip to Marseille, France that night! Wooo-hooo! The lack of summer weather here is really getting to me, so I splurged a booked a trip to the beach with Hannah and Rebecca. We are so excited to just go to the beach all day and get some sun and be warm! The weather is going to be 80 degrees and sunny, so perfect. We leave at 6:45am on Saturday and get back at like 11pm Sunday. The train ride is like 6 hours long, but we’ll just sleep. I like train rides anyway, so I can just relax as I said before.
Tuesday was an exciting day. There was a huge music festival throughout the country of France. It is to celebrate this first day of summer (which I now realized it is summer now!), and random bands play throughout the streets. It is basically a big party throughout the city. I got a bottle of wine with the girls, and we just wandered all night. I had a lot of fun. We wanted to dance, but no one was really dancing, which was unfortunate. Overall, it was a cool experience, and I walked on streets I had never before, so I got to see the city! Apparently, the heart of the festival was in Vieux Lille, which I was unaware of, so we never made it that far. Oh well.
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