Groeten from Utrecht 2012: 13) Visit to Lille.. and Brugge!

Sometimes the song "it's a small world after all" replays over and over in my head... it really is a small world after all I am learning as one of my best childhood friends who I lost touch with for awhile since we went to University is living in France right now being an au-pair. Erika visited me in early February so in March it was my turn to go to Lille. Lille is VERY close to the Belgium border so it was only about a 3 1/2 hour train trip from Utrecht. I had to stop in Rotterdam and in Brussels to switch trains but the distances here in Europe are minimal in comparison to Canada.
Arrived in Lille on a Saturday afternoon and Erika and I went for a lovely dinner in the city centre of Lille after she showed me a few of the cities sites. The main church in Lille has part of it that is completely modern and part of it that is very old. I have a photo of it where I tried to capture the difference but to really appreciate how bizarre it is you need to see it in person. Later we went to the grocery store and I had fun finding things in there I had never seen before. The best find was escargot in a jar- YUM ( Kidding by the way- looked nasty).
The next day was Sunday and we didn't have anything planned so since Erika was allowed to use her french families car we said, "hey, lets go to Belgium!" so 45 minute car ride later and we were in the city centre of Brugge.... did I mention how much I love Europe and how close everything is?!? The best part was when we drove thru the border control, there is no border control haha! All there is now is a ghost town of what was the border control. We felt like we were being rebels just driving right thru.
Spent the day in Brugge just walking around, going into every chocolate shop to admire, sitting in the sun and taking funny photos. Funny because in Lille everything is in french and 45 minutes away everything is in Flemish ( which is Dutch with an accent) so Erika who knows more of the France french since she has been living there was in charge of speaking in Lille and me knowing the Dutch was in charge in Brugge. It was a great day! Then went back to Lille for a dinner of bread and cheese and chocolate cake that we had made the day before.
Erika and I really realized how lucky we were to be two girls from Maple Ridge travelling around and living the European lifestyle at age 20.
Monday I had to get back to Amsterdam because it was the day my mom was arriving!