When I worked a desk job (cubicle hell!), I used to get these travel weekly deal emails from
Airtran on Tuesday morning. Never Monday, but Tuesday just when the week has started to kick your a$$, you would get these emails telling you, there's hope yet, you can escape all this, do you want to? The emails would present cheap airfares to places nobody really wants to go. You know those places, in Middle America somewhere that are not known for their vacation qualities. No Disney, no beaches, no notable nightlife, no tourist activities, it's just plain ole America with a main street that runs for about half a block. However, tickets to these places would be dirt cheap. Sometimes even costing about a third of tickets to places everyone wants to go, like Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco (that used to be about 4 times everyone's price), Seattle, and of course, New York City. My co-worker and I would remark that one day, just one day we would like to go to an airport and ask for the cheapest ticket out of Atlanta. It could be to one of these mildly interesting places, just as long as it's a ticket out of Atlanta. And buying that ticket, sight unseen, no plans made, just on a whim we would make the best out of the place. Be it Boise Idaho, or Kentucky somewhere, we would embrace every little bit of this place and make it an adventure. She used to say with a sparkle in her eye: At least it's not here so that's half of the fun. I still remember that.
I never got to do that in America.
Once my course was done in Amsterdam, I had about 5 days worth of vacation time to fill before I returned home to Nigeria. My stay at the host family home was done and they drove me to
Den Haag Centraal train station for me to continue my stay elsewhere, as long as it was not in their home.
I got to the train station and felt overwhelmed. There were tickets available to everywhere within Europe. I'm sure there was a certain radius limit but still, they had choices to places I had never been to. You either had your ticket in hand or you purchased them on the spot. That's a lot of travel in one stations hands. I just saw a tremendous opportunity to go, anywhere in Europe and make it back in time to catch my flight back home. So why not?
After checking all the available ticket options to Paris, which seemed like the most attractive destination choice, I asked the sweet elderly, ever so patient female train station ticket clerk, "
Since Paris is out, what's the first, cheapest ticket outta Den Haag?" She asked me, after assessing my age: "You just want to go...anywhere?" I nodded intently. Without a hint of judgment in her tone, she smiled and said, "Have you been to
Lille?
Lille is pretty nice." I respond,
"No, I haven't been to Lille. Ok, I will go to Lille. 1 Adult ticket to Lille, please." I paused for a second and asked her how long the train ride was, she explained, estimated about 4 hours give or take. I asked her where exactly it is. She proceeded to pull out a map and plot point
Lille on the map. North of France. I see. 4 hours to a part of France that I've never been to. On the bright side, I can spend 2 days in
Lille and head to Paris and hopefully, train tickets to Paris from
Lille won't be that damn expensive. I make a calculated quick judgment and she looked at me for confirmation.
This is the point where the single spontaneous spirit kicks in, and I wouldn't advise anyone who is not spontaneous or carefree (or of age) to ever do this. I had no hotel reservations in
Lille. No relatives in
Lille. No Francais vocabulary asides from junior secondary school which comprised of asking your name or saying my name. I had never even heard of
Lille until about 5 minutes ago. But I wanted to get out of
Den Haag because my time there, I felt, was done. When a sweet old lady says, "It's like Paris, not just quite expensive." You think, "Now, look at her...will she lie to you?" Then, I remembered that travel wish, buy a plane ticket out of Atlanta to anywhere and make the best of it. The travel deal emails would contain the
Airtran slogan:
Go. There's nothing stopping you. You only get one shot to be adventurous, and if there was ever one for me, this was it. I could do it or continue to live the rest of my life hoping for an opportunity to do it.
So I did.
The train ride with about 3 stops was hellacious because I had so much luggage, which I will talk about in another update about
"How To Pack for Europe - so you don't break your neck hauling your excess baggage." The worst changeover occurred in
Antwerpen where I had to get to the next platform 3 floors above me all within 20 minutes. It was the worst luggage hauling experience of the trip so far. But I made it. I got to
Gare de Lille Flandres and sat down to map hotels around me. I found one -
— Hotel Campanile Lille - on my iPad and pointed to its address when I hailed the cab. I got to the hotel and hoped their prices were affordable. They were. The hotel wasn't even a dump. It was quite a charming piece of basic living in
Lille with the friendliest most amusing staff I've ever encountered. Thus, began my 2 day stay in
Lille.
Lille exceeded my expectations. Granted it was a bit cold but it reminded me of Napa. I don't know why. Like a small city with an affluent following. The only tough part occurred when I got lost, and inevitably harassed in French no less, by some tall lanky black youth. I was scared shitless. Asides from that little snafu and exercise of poor directional judgment on my part, Lille warmed up to me and made this spontaneous gal a fan. Glad I could take that one chance on a destination and just go...and it was so worth the trip.
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| Had dinner at this Hotel Casino's Restaurant - Wonderful Buffet |
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| Don't know what cruising means but ok! |
After I recovered from my harassment situation, I stopped at this restaurant -
Le Napoleon - for a very late dinner with a lot of beer to quench my fear. It felt good to be in a safe place. I almost hugged the non-English speaking rugged bartender.
