What do you mean Belgium?

Lille, France  

Tournai Cathedral, Tournai Belgium 

A day in Lille
4 Trains
40 minutes as fugitives
mystery meat for dinner

The week that I've been here has been absolutely exhausting. It feels more like six months than one week, but so far an exciting six months.  The weekends in Douai are mediocre at best. It's a fairly small town with very little to do. The streets are usually deserted by 8:00, but this weekend I've encountered more adventures than expected in the small town of Douai.
SATURDAY:
The adventures begin with a day trip to Lille.  We left around 10:30 bound for Lille and were planning to return around 8:00...the trains back to a small town finish their routes around 9:00. Unfortunately, unlike the beautiful, sun-filled day before, Saturday was wet and dreary, but such is life, we enjoyed are day of travel regardless. For a few hours, we wandered about the city, taking pictures, visiting a six story bookstore (yes, six stories and an amazing art section) eating pastries and finally sitting down to a typical French meal of duck, fries, and salad.  C'est incroyable!
We toured a cathedral, did some shopping in the cheap home stores (I bought towels in Lille because Douai is incredibly expensive for a small town) and decided to head home around 6:00 due to complete exhaustion.
Here comes the exciting part.  We found a train leaving for Douai at 6:20...apparently too good to be true.  We could get on a train in ten minutes time and be back in our warm, dry rooms watching movies and skyping friends in less than an hour.  Well, it didn't work out that way.  Train schedules still throw me. Instead, we got on our 6:20 train, relaxing for around 20 minutes until we realized that none of the scenery looked familiar (Well, I didn't notice. (French countryside is French countryside to me). It wasn't until the conductor announced "une problème, une problème" did we discover that we were in fact headed to Belgium (without passports). Ummm...that's sort of another country. We got off of the train in Tounai, BELGIUM to wait forty minutes for a train back to Lille to wait for another train back to Douai. Our hopes to be home by 9:00 were quickly dashed, but all in a days adventure. We spent the next forty minutes searching for something to eat...regrettably we stumbled upon mystery meat sandwiches and fries (there are some foods you just have to experience in life I suppose). Finally, we caught the train back to Lille, then the train back to Douai.
The fun is in the journey and one unexpected trip to Belgium has us planning a day trip this weekend for Brussels.

Belgium was just the beginning of an interesting weekend


A Bientot