A day in Lille, France!

     Hello all! So we had a very busy week this week. Jessica was off from school for the week, so we took the time and spent it traveling! Our first stop was a simple day in Lille, France. It is one of the most northern cities in the country and it is also the precinct capital of the north of France. It is a fairly large city with about 225,000 people or so. It is somewhat a cornerstone of North europe. Almost all bus travel from the UK comes through Lille. In addition the city has two train stations! The older one, Lille-Flanders, is the one we arrived at. It is a nice looking station, but obviously fairly old. It was originally constructed from 1869 to 1892 and has roughly 18 lines. The front of the station is actually the original station facade from Paris Gare de Nord, the northern train station in Paris. It was dismantled and then moved. When the facade arrived in Lille the architects added a second story to the facade as well as the large faced clock.

Lille-Flanders Train Station:

 Lille-Flanders Train Station 2:

The second train station in Lille is Lille-Europe. It is a much more modern train station built in the 90s. It is only 500 Meters from Lille-Flanders but is much larger having roughly 56 lines coming in and out from all over Europe. It is not as nice looking nor did I manage to take any pictures of it. Although this is were we met our bus. But back to Lille.

     So during our layover in Lille we hiked out of the train station and headed to the nearest sites so we could see what Lille had to offer, and I have to say the city did not let us down. First we came across the Church of Saint Maurice. The history of the church is just as interesting as the saint who gave it its name. Saint Maurice is one of the earlier Saints from the Catholic Church. According to the history, Saint Maurice was a legionnaire who denied to give up his christian beliefs and was therefore martyred for not giving up his christianity. The church is built in a very different style than most Northern French churches as well as most churches in Western Europe. It has the center aisle, but instead of two side isles it has four side isles which all create a large grouping of five chapel apses around the ambulatory section of the church. This design makes a very startling and spectacular looking church from both the inside and the outside. 

Church of Saint Maurice chapels, Exterior Views:

Church of Saint Maurice's five Isles:

     Another amazing feature of this church is the center chapel at the back of the church. It contains two busts, one of Saint Maurice and one of Saint Peter, as well as a beautiful gilded carving. As well as having the walls painted. 

     After we left the church we walked to the city center where the Opera house and the newer government buildings that surround it. This area has substantial historical value. It was the area in which the Duke of Flanders lived and his palace is still partially standing and is used as the tourist information center. 

The Duke of Flanders Palace:

 

Lille Opera House:

So After we walked around this area we headed back to the mall in between the two train stations. We discovered an awesome shoe store that sells hand made shoes from Brazil. They are unique because of the colors are picked out and designed once per shoe size and style making each pair unique and one of a kind. After we bought some shoes we headed to the bus stop and waited. The bus ran about an hour late, which made us really nervous that we might not get to Amsterdam. After the delay we got onto the bus and rode for almost five hours to our final destination, AMSTERDAM! Our next post will be about our few days in Amsterdam. Until then safe travels!

  

One Month Update!

     Well it has been a while since we last updated our blog, but due to the start of the semester, illness, and finalizing everything since our move it has been difficult to find time to write a blog entry, or even doing something worthy to write on the blog. So first off Jess has been sick since around week two or so and she was really feeling under the weather. She has since made a full recovery but not without the sickness taking 8 days or so to leave here. After she was feeling better she continued finishing her school schedule and starting to attend her very busy semester. Also during this time we planned and booked our first vacation while in Europe. On Jess' first break from school at the end of February we are going to go to Amsterdam for 4 days. We are traveling by bus as well as train to get there. We also decided to stay in a bit more of a familiar hotel chain, Best Western. We will have blog posts and plenty of pictures coming up from that visit. In addition, we have started making plans for our 1 year wedding anniversary and the weekend trip to Paris we are taking to celebrate! Of course pictures will come with that event as well at the end of March. Another idea I have recently had for writing on the blog is to go to a few history sites and take photos and do some light research on the area and write a post about the historical location and include pictures. I think this will start this week since we will have a little bit of free time.
     One of the things we have really enjoyed and have explored quite a bit already is the culinary world here in France. We have really tried to expand what we normally eat and try plenty of new things just in the short time we have been here. This includes new sandwiches and toppings on sandwiches we never thought of. All of the sauces France has to offer for the french fries, and of course fresh seafood. One of our largest forays into the culinary unknown was making our own mussels in a white wine sauce. It was very delicious and quite an experience. We bought the mussels fresh so in order to prepare them we had to de-beard them, scrub them, and let them sit for a few minutes in fresh water in order to filter out the sand and salt from the mussels themselves. It was an exciting experience and one we will get to look back on frequently.
     In total, I think our first month here in France has been great. We have had to learn an amazing amount of things as well as had to make a lot of changes to our lifestyles. Overall, we are starting to settle in and have begun to explore our surroundings both by ourselves and with other international students from the university. We went to a gathering a few days past where we won first and second place prizes in a pop culture quiz as well as met some fellow Americans we went out with the following night. I think as time continues we will only become more involved with the community from the school as well as in our neighborhood. Until next time, safe travels!