23: Lille

After two weeks of travel, I got to Lille! One of the largest cities in France, the metropolitan area extends into Belgium, and is a capital of sorts for the Flanders region. The initial plan was to live here for a month then move to Dunkirk (french: Dunkerque. Irksome, I know), where I will be working, but [spoiler alert] we fell in love with Lille and ended up deciding to stay for the rest of the year!

Blaire & I immediately moved into our long-stay airbnb, a small two-room apartment in Vieux Lille (charming cobblestone-street neighborhood just north of city center). We’ll only have it through December since we expected to move, but it already feels like home (and it’s such a relief not to be living out of 3 overpacked suitcases!)

The Eberts came here from Paris while we were in Northern / the north of Ireland, and stayed for a day to help us get settled before they moved on to their real objective (Italia). We explored the neighborhood of Vieux Lille, got some food/essentials for our place, and figured out how to get to the main square in Lille-centre (pictured below)

Grabbing food with them, we tried some local ch'ti specialties (like “Welsh Royal”, and this awesome stuff called “beer”, which they drink more than wine up here in Flanders). We also went to a great Italian place, despite the Eberts’ next destination.

After they left, Blaire and I got settled and explored. We went to the City Zoo, which was actually awesome (and free for us as residents!)–I was not expecting to be impressed after living in KC and DC with their wonderful zoos. Here’s a pic from our zoological visit, in front of the wild Ivy exhibit:

It’s in a big park right next to Vieux Lille that contains (in addition to the zoo, trails, and more) the original Citadelle de Lille, an (apparently) awesome fortress we have yet to visit. The park is surrounded by the Deûle river [the name Lille comes from «l'île», the island, because the city was founded on an island in this river] and (originally defensive) canals, giving it a very cool feel. Here’s a map of the center of Lille

UPDATE: we found an apartment, and it’s right by the Cathedral Notre-Dame-de-la-Treille on the map^