Wandering the city

I arrived in Lille and immediately was excited to be in a city where I could communicate in people’s first language, rather than needing them to switch to English. After getting to my hostel and dropping my stuff off, I wandered the city to see the local cathedrals and buildings that were notable. The hostel had given me a local-made tourist map made by USE-IT (if you ever see these in a city, they’re always good. There’s an app that I used in Prague that was great, they just don’t have many cities on the app). Sadly, most of the city was closed as people were on vacation.

One cool place that I did find that was open was called L’Impertinente which was a tea and gâtal (cake) shop. The food was amazing, but I am not sure how much English anyone there spoke. I only really interacted with people in French and was treated very kindly. It isn’t like Paris, where people will respond to you in English more often. I honestly spent most of my day eavesdropping to give me the confidence to actually talk to people in French.

Feet hurting from walking all day, I headed back to the hostel to check in and shower in time for 7:30 welcome drinks (always take advantage of a free drink). You can see some of the beautiful sites of Lille below!

The locals show me the evening

During welcome drinks, I befriended some other travelers who were planning to head to some of the local bars. However, when we were sitting in the bar Gastama, which was attached to our Hostel, some locals sat down at the table next to us. In Lille, everyone is very friendly, especially after a couple drinks, so they started chatting with me. They were very confused as to why an American would ever come to Lille, but once I explained that I knew French and it was a nice stop between London and Paris, they just wanted me to see the city. So I joined them and left the other group of travelers.

The night that followed was one that is a dream come true for someone who studies French for 10 years with a professor from Lille, then proceeds to have a job speaking with Quèbecois for a year (their version of French is extremely hard to understand compared to that of northern France). We were popping between French and English all night. We went to a kind of throwback bar that played clips of old TV shows and played songs from the 80’s and 90’s in both English and French. Then we went to a jungle-like bar, and finally my personal favorite was La Pirouge which featured a very strong rum drink called Zazou which is about 85% 118-proof rum with some lemon juice and other mixers. Thankfully this was our last stop and I had only had a drink or two prior to this. The drink was delicious.