Lille vol 3

Hello everyone

Last night we went to the CS Quiz event here in Lille. It was pretty cool, although it was in French and we don't know the language. Fortunately we were able to team up with two americans, a french woman and a guy from Brazil, who all spoke English as well. Got to hear some great travel stories and get some useful tips. Since Steven was working late, he joined us a bit later.

On Friday we also spent a lot of time looking for a place to stay in Paris. We got an offer near Paris for 3 days starting from Monday night, so we probably are going to spend the weekend here in Lille and head out to Paris on Monday.

In the morning of saturday Steven took us out for some croissants and coffee, to get the real french breakfast. We had a great time while staying with him and it was a nice way to end our stay. Steven will head to Paris today, but we'll be staying in Lille for couple of more days. Saturday and Sunday we are going to spend at Yann's place, at first impression a nice and very helpful guy. He welcomed us in even though he had to work today. These last days in Lille are going to be great, but can't wait to get to Paris already.

On Saturday we looked around the town some more. Since we are staying in a different part of town now, we're discovering new places and streets. Also did some shopping and prepared a nice dinner. :)

So far comparing the food prices in Netherlands, Belgium and now France, to Estonian prices, they have been the same and even cheaper from Estonia, especially if you get food from bigger stores (big Carrefour store for example). Just for comparison the average salary is about 3000 EUR in France (statistics say that it is around 850 EUR in Estonia). Must say the people have it pretty good here. Although it is a bit hard to find a good job in France, even when you are french, since the unemployment rate is quite high. And for foreigners to get a job, fluent french is a must have, and even then it is definitely not one of the easiest things to do.

On a side note, we are trying to learn some french here as well. Since neither of us has never learned any french, it probably will take more than a couple of days or weeks to get fluent at it :D (found an article that said that you should never try to find a job as a web designer in France, just because it's almost impossible, so Erki isn't that enthusiastic about learning French anymore =P)

Hopefully you all are having a great summer as well, would love to hear about your adventures through comments. Also if you have some suggestions about what to do while in Paris, then just let us know :)

Will try to make some videos of Lille during our last days here ;)

Note of the day: Don't buy breakfast for the next day at noon - especially French bread - it's too good to survive that long!

Elu on Lille

Enjoying some french pastry

Having breakfast with Steven

Having fun in the train station

Game of the day: find Erki on the picture

Enjoying dinner at Yann's place