Lille, France

Early one morning Sam and I grabbed a train and arrived bright and early in France. After grabbing our first of what would be many breakfasts consisting of pastries we had nothing better to do than spend our first day in Lille, laying on our picnic blanket in the park, listening to an accordion player. It was a perfect way to start our time in France.

In the late afternoon we grabbed our stuff and walked through the city to meet our couch surfing host Tilbult. After a small rest we headed to a bar were a whole the whole Lille Couch Surfing Community was meeting to celebrate Lille Braderie, which is what we were there for, and is basically a giant flea market that takes over the whole city, but more on that later. For now we arrived at this bar, and worked our way through conversations slowly, as we could not speak French, and no one was very confident in English. People were nice enough to shout us a few beers, unluckily for Sam i don't drink Beer so he was drinking two for everyone else’s one. We didn't get to eat until about 11.30 at night, and we hadn't eaten since our croissants at 9 am... so we were pretty hungry. We ate the traditional Braderie meal, of mussels and fries... I’ve never eaten a bowl of mussels so fast. Everyone was very friendly but we were exhausted and were super keen to head back, there were also 3 other couch surfing girls and our hosts girlfriend (who spent the whole night crying, but she didn't speak any English, so I never knew why she was so sad) and we all walked home together.

We were super lucky because even though our Host, Tilbult, was a major jerk he did have a very nice location for his apartment - looking right over one of the main streets of Lille. The morning starts with a marathon, of which we of course did not participate but did however watch from the window of the apartment. As soon as the marathon ended the people who had been sleeping in their vans all week, marking their territory leapt into to action to claim the most coveted spots. We witnessed from our window a battle to secure a spot. Apparently the “red” team had been waiting to claim the spot all week, and then at the last minute, the “blue” team swept in and began setting up their store. A both very vocal and then physical as someone from the “blue” team picked up and threw a chair of the ‘red” teams. The blue team ended up being triumphant in the end, and the streets quickly filled with stores full of junk and cheap Chinese imports. It spread across the city so quickly; it would take us two whole days to walk through the crowds to sort through the junk.

On the first night of the market, which is usually a huge party night were people don’t leave the streets til dawn, a huge storm hit, wiping out many stalls and forcing everyone in doors, this was a pity, and apparently the first time in the long tradition of the Braderie this ever happened. We watched from the window of the apartment, seeing people running everywhere getting drenched, and rubbish and bits of debris swirling around the streets. We spent the night with 5 other couch surfers, + our hosts and his girl friend having a couple of drinks and watching videos of Tilbult’s favourite band (which was pretty lame).

In the morning many of the stalls set up again and we continued to walk around the junk, before taking the train to Paris in the afternoon.

It was a weird introduction to France, but a interesting experience all the same.