Lille and Brussels and London, oh my.

Since people are hassling me (shucks guys <3) and I am seriously 2 weeks behind again (boo), I'm going to be a good Suz and update. For the curious, I am currently in Colorado, under 2 feet of snow, and I saw Eragon last night. If you're considerng seeing it, don't. ;)

Anyway, two weeks ago! We went from TOURS to...

LILLE

• Which is a town in northern France, about an hour by train north-east of Paris, in the region that is called Flanders.
• We arrived around 2pm, and since the tourist office was a trek from the tran station, I sent Elise off to find us accomodation whilst I guarded the bags and continued to soldier through my Massive Loaf o'Brioche.
• The tourist office in Lille, however, was exceptional in that it would not book hotels for us, so Elise had to trek all the way there, and all the way back to the hotel she chose, which was 1* but still damned expensive, and then back to me, which took her over an hour. I, meanwhile, was sitting on my bag collecting security guards with DOGS, who wandered up and stood about ten metres away talking. There were two there when we finally headed for the hotel, casting me amused looks while their PITBULL and GERMAN SHEPHERD eyed me like dinner (yes, I exaggerate; shut up, who's telling this story, you or me??).
• Anywho, we found the hotel and then headed back to Lille's famous mall, the Euralille, to shop. It is right between the two stations, and it ain't all that. It had some of my favourite shops: Zara, H&M and Bershka, but alas, not Sfera, which was my FAVOURITE, but I think it's a Spanish brand exclusively. But I bought a lot of Sfera stuff in both Madrid and Barcelona.
• Once we were done with Euralille (and I think the only purchase was Elise buying eyeliner because I had at this pont absolutely no idea how much money I had left in either of my accounts and was consequently very edgy), we headed down a street lined with life-size fake elephants to the Christmas markets, which were swingin'.
• We were hungry, and there were a number of stalls selling food, so we had: Poelee de Noel (with a ton of accents I can't be bothered finding), a sort of curried pork stuff in bread, mulled wine, a frankfurt (me), leek soup (elise), and waffles (aka gaufres in French) dipped in ohgodchocolatesoooooogood, and a cup of hot chocolate to finish off. And I think everyone now understands why I've gained 7 kilos, yes? Then, having perused the stalls selling items other than food, we staggered back to our hotel to diiiiiiiiiigest.
• Before dawn (ie, about half past seven :p), we got up to catch a train up to Brussels, Belgium, which is actually
  

  Elise, freezing cold in Brussels
  only a half hour train trip.Everything was closed and it was BLOODY FREEZING when we got in, so we thought since we both really needed to, that we'd find an internet cafe. But, alas, even they were closed, so we spend a very cold couple hours until 10am. then headed in to the main square type thing. In the way, in the middle of a metro station, we found an internet cafe and did housekeeping things like printing off e-tickets and booking flights.
• Then we went up into the main square which I should remember what it's called but I DON'T. There was a fog over Brussels and most of northern Europe, I believe, that didn't clear up for several days. From roughly this point until when I flew out, I don't think I saw clear European sky again . Oh Europe. Anyway, Brussels was very pretty with its gothic architecture and its overpriced beer useum and no, not even Belgian beer can make me like the stuff. It is yucky.
• Finally, around 11am, the Christmas  markets opened and you know where this is leading, right? It is leading to more eating. Of a funny potato carbonara (me), a mushroom poelee thing (elise), waffles with whipped cream (possibly chantilly cream; we're not sure), halva (me) and bargain truffles.
• Then we wandered around the central district for the rest of the day, browsed shops and saw the Mannekin Pis, a little statue of a boy pissing that is, for some reason, a famous Belgian icon.
  
• Around 3.30pm, we caught a train back to Lille, where we'd left our bags, then another an hour later to ...

CALAIS

• THE MOST BORING TOWN IN FRANCE. Seriously. Both my and Elise's guidebooks were basically like, "skip it", but we wanted to catch an early ferry to Dover and thence to London, so Calais was the best place for us.
• We hunkered down for a supermarket dinner in an odd little 1* hotel we found by dragging our bags along what was I think the main street.
• Then, we went down to their restaurant (well, brasserie) on the bottom floor, which was filled with fowdy older folker. Elise ordered some wine, and I ordered hot chocolate, but the guy wa slike, "no, no hot chcolate," so I was like, "wah," but when he bought Elise her wine, he took pity on me and made me some anyway, much to the amusement of the patrons.
• In the morning, we bag-dragged back to the train station to find a bus or something out to the port, but it was All Too Difficult, and we ended up taking a taxi. We arrived 20 minutes before a ferry was due to depart and were SPED through ticketing and English customs (NOT helped by an irritating English lady going  "hurry up hurry up they'll leave without you!") and ran aboard. The ferry didn't end up leaving for like... another 1.5 hours anyway.
• I should clarify: I say "ferry", but it was huge and cushy, with a bar/restaurant and a department store, and several levels.
• The crossing took a couple of hours, then we disembarked in Dover, on English soil, wandered around a bit in a lost and confused fashion and found our way to the train station. Where a surly Engllishman sold us tickets, then warmed up enough to say, "just don't mention the cricket!" Elise and I were in despair! We'd spent ten days being mistakenly loathed in France because people thought we were British; we get to Britain and are correctly identified as Australian, and we're in the poo for it.

• The train delivered us into Victoria Station in the midafternoon, and we headed straight for our hostel, the Globetrotter Inn, which I do recommend, even though I only stayed one night. Elise stayed longer, and I think she liked it a lot.
• Having dumped out bags, we headed into town to have a look around, walked from the Monument (erected by my main man Charles II) to the Tower, which we were going to go into but it was EXPENSIVE and I realised that the Victoria and Albert museum was free, so we went to that instead.
  
• Alas, a suspicious package at South Kensington station closed down our train line, so we had to walk from the previous station (Knightsbridge), but that was ok, we walked past Harrods and lots of other fancy shops. I really only wanted to see the costume section of the V&A, so we swung through that, which was amazing and cool, then headed back to the hostel.
  
• We had some dinner there, then went out to a bar where we met some funny Croatians and got chatting. After that, we found the Globetrotter cinema and wandered into a screening of Muriel's Wedding (of all things--did I mention the hostel was 80% Australians?).
• In the morning, dragged selves out of bed, had breakfast, and then got on the train for Heathrow (lovely Elise came with me to see me off), because I had to catch my plane to the US of A. Heathrow was a shambles (worse than usual, I mean :p) because that fog I mentioned in Brussels? Had basically shut down flights in and out of northern Europe. consequently, there were a lot of people milling around watching ther flights get more and more delayed, and for some unfathomable reason, they were putting all the big USA flights through on one check-in zone, even though the others were practically empty.
• Anyway, eventually I got through, and bid tearful farewell to Elise, my travelling partner of a month (and we did travel very well together; surprisingly well), before walking through security. Because the check-in had taken so bloody long (almost two hours once the check-in zone was announced), I had only about a half hour to wait on the other side before the plane boarded.
• And because of all the domestic flights and Europe flights being cancelled or delayed, about half the people registered for our flight didn't make the connection and the plane was half empty. I used to put a qualifier on this saying, "far be it from me to gloat about other people's misfortune..." but the weather gods have evened up my travelling karma in the last couple days, so sod it.
• Anyway, hopped off the other end in New York, made my way through immigration and the Americans generously allowed me into their great nation, and met my family at JFK Airport (they were flying in from Australia via LA and their plane was supposed to arrive about 30 minutes after mine) with surprisingly little drama (some slow luggage was about all), then we piled into a cab and made our way to our Manhattan apartment.

This is where my handwritten notes end, on about... the 20th of December, so I'll need to write up the rest and make sure I haven't forgotten anything before I continue. I may not get that done before I fly out of Denver on the 2nd, in which case you might not hear from me until the 7th or 8th when I am in Seattle/Vancouver.

It's early on the 31st here, but I gather already new year in Australia, so whether it's 2007 already or only almost, HAPPY NEW YEAR, everyone!