Author: jessmartin

Yesterday, we did a day trip to Bruges, Belgium, which is about 2 hours by bus from Lille. Since I’ve been to Bruges several times before I didn’t do anything very touristy-mostly just wandered around.

We started off by walking along the most that surrounds the town.

After all that walking, it was time for lunch:

After lunch we wandered, here are some of the pictures I took:

We ended the day with some chocolate shopping and waffles!

Ended the day meeting everyone in the main square before the bus ride back to Lille.

Next up: Lyon!

Not much excitement thus far-my students have settled in wonderfully and I’ve been able to get a lot of work done.

Today, I sat on the courtyard on campus to do some work and have lunch before a meeting this afternoon.

Here’s a few other random pictures too:

I should have more in the coming days because we’ll be doing some traveling.

Sundays are quite slow in France and it’s also unusually hot (90s) here this week, so I’m enjoying the balcony today with a pastry and a coffee while I plan my week ahead! At least that’s my plan until the sun makes it to this side of the building 🥵

The first few days have been busy, but I figured I’d at least get something posted to get started.

I don’t have a lot of pictures yet, but I took some of the apartment and the view is AMAZING! We’re quite close to everything, which is fantastic and the bus stops right out front. My students are doing great and seem to be adjusting so far! More to come soon!

On our 3rd day we went to the gardens and palace of Versailles.

Today, we started the day at Sainte-Chapelle, which has some of the most beautiful stained glass. The boys had fun trying to find various Bible stories in the stained glass. Then we had lunch over by Notre Dame…..it made me so happy to see it standing tall again! Then we took the Batobus to the Musée d’Orsay where we spent about 60-90 minutes looking at art before the kids got bored. We rewarded their patience in the art museum with a crepe break! We ended the day by walking over to Jardin des Tuileries where the balloon they used for Olympic torch last summer has been setup again. Then we headed to the Palais Royale which has these cool columns that all 3 boys had fun playing at and finally we went past the Louvre to see the glass pyramid.

Andy and the boys arrived today! Since they are all fast asleep from jet lag I figured I’d take the opportunity to post the photos we have from today and sort of an itinerary of what we got up to.

I met them at the airport this morning and then we taxied back to the hotel. We had some lunch in our hotel room (it has a kitchenette) and then walked down to the river by the Eiffel Tower to catch the Batobus (a hopon/hopoff boat). We took it to the Jardin des Plantes (botanical gardens), which is also home to several museums. We got an ice cream to enjoy on the stroll and make our way to the Grand Gallery of Evolution, which is mostly just a bunch of taxidermy animals. The boys really enjoyed it and we got them each a cheap camera for this trip, so they had fun running around and taking pictures. Then we rode the Batobus back to the Eiffel Tower (completing the full loop) before we got off and made our way to the grocery store to pickup some dinner supplies and then back to the hotel.

The very last night in Lille we had a group dinner, so the second to last night I went out with the professor I got to know the best for one last dinner. We decided to try this place that had been recommended to us.

After dinner, we decided to walk the 20 minutes back to our respective neighborhoods. On the way she asked if I ever finished the citadel walk (the citadel is a huge park that we had walked in a few weeks earlier and at the center is the old citadel, which is still used by the French army today), I said I hadn’t and since we were nearby we decided to walk it since I had to yet to see the actual citadel!

Then it was back to my apartment and off to bed!

On our final day they took us to the walled city of Guerande, which is a town that still has the medieval walls. We had a few hours to wander around in town.

After free time in the town, we went to a creperie for lunch. This lunch looked a lot like my dinner yesterday!

After lunch, we took a carriage ride through an old village that still contains the thatched roof houses, which were neat to see and interesting to learn more about. Unsurprisingly, they are a lot of upkeep!

Then it was back to Nantes, we had some time before dinner, so I used the time to explore some other areas I remember from my time in Nantes. These first few pictures are of Jardin des Plantes

Then I walked along part of my old bus route, which would take me past this cemetery each day. I remember on La Toussaint (All Saint’s Day) this cemetery was just a mass of orange from all the chrysanthemums that people put on their loved ones graves.

Then we had our farewell dinner, which was a true French experience (4 hours!)

Then the next day it was time to take the train back to Lille. Hopefully, I can come back to Nantes again soon!

Today is the day I bid farewell to Lille, so here are a few more random pictures to finish this out. I still have one more Nantes post to share, one more Lille post and I’m hoping to at least do a photo dump while we’re in Paris even if I can’t do a full blog.

Thanks for following along! I’ll leave you (for now) with a quote from a French film one of the faculty shared with us last night: “Quand on vient dans le Nord on braie deux fois : quand on arrive, et quand on repart.” (Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis)

(When you come to the North you only cry two times-when you get here and when you leave)

A bientôt, Lille ❤️