In Lille with Yann

Bonjour

Would like to start of this post by saying Happy Birthday to Liina, our lovely friend back home, hopefully your day will be filled with great moments =)

So this is our 6th and last day in Lille. We're staying with Yann, who is an awesome host :)

After having our breakfast, an interesting meal with vegetables and black rice noodles, we headed out on town for a "Quest of Cheddar". Apparently on sunday all shops in Lille close around 12:30 - 13:00, which is quite annoying, being used to having shops open all the time back home. We were looking for a shop because Yann needed to get some cheddar cheese for his special Welsh dish. Having spent couple of hours walking around Lille and looking for an open shop that had some cheddar. Unfortunately the few shops we found were so small, that there was almost no chance of finding some english cheese from them. At some point we were joined by Thomas, Yann's friend and co-worker, who eventually offered to make some pancakes for dinner, as the planned dish wouldn't be the same without cheddar. So now we'll have a small pancake party with Yann and some of his friends :)

The party turned out to be awesome. Thomas kicked off the pancake cooking and showed us his culinary skills. Must say he his pretty good at the kitchen. Later in the evening Dan, british friend of Yann's who happened to be in town, and others as well had a go with the pan :P

Must say, Britannic styled pancakes are really good. Perhaps some day we'll manage to learn how to make them ourselves, so we can give people back home a taste. Also we are looking forward to the moment, when we can taste Yann's special Welsh dish ;)

It was a really great experience to meet with all of the party members and hopefully we can repeat it at some point. For now, we'll be heading out to hitch-hike to Paris, wish us luck and see you in Paris ;)

Note of the day: If you want to shop on sunday in France, then good luck, because you have to get up early!

Cooking with Yann :)

Making pancakes

Pancakes vol2

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

Lille vol 2

Bonjour

After a good night of sleep we went out to look around town for a bit. Walked up to the town square and tried to find some good spots to see. Found a few shops as well, where we picked up some groceries. Once back at "home" we prepared our favorite dish that has no name. This time we used veggies, rice noodles and some meat.

A lot of our time was spent on trying to find someone to stay with in Paris. Apparently it is not the easiest thing to do. Lots of people travel there and good hosts probably get tons of requests all the time. But we will not give up and are sure that we will find a good host to stay with.

Steven is such an awesome host that he even offered us some tickets to go to the cinema. As we are in France, the obvious decision was to see a French movie, even though we don't understand French. It was called "Paris Manhattan" and it was pretty good. It even had Woody Allen in it, so fortunately there was some English as well :)

We had planned to head out to Paris on Thursday already, but by the end of the day we still hadn't found a spot there. Fortunately Steven was kind enough to offer us a chance to stay with him for one more night. Thank you Steven :)

We will spend Thursday being busy with searching for someone great to stay with while in Paris. In the evening there's an CS event happening here in Lille, so we will go check that out. It will be a  productive day :)

Note of the day: If you want to travel in Paris by CS, be prepared to spend a lot of time on it!

At the cinema

Hanging at Steven's place and doing some couch-surfing online

Katrina being productive :D

Erki being productive :P