I was up early on Sunday morning to shower and pack, as I was catching a train from Gare du Nord at a quarter to 11. The final stage of the Circuit Franco-Belge was finishing on Sunday afternoon in Tournai, a small town in Belgium on the French border, near the French city of Lille, and I was planning to be there. I headed off to Gare du Nord with a full bag on my back to buy a youth discount card and tickets for the TGV to Lille and the connecting train across the border to Tournai.
Since I had been planning to catch a later train, I wasn't as early as I would have liked, and I arrived at Gare du Nord with just under half an hour until the train departed. This may not sound like a problem but the place is more like a rabbit warren than you'd believe, and despite having figured the station out somewhat on my last visit, this time I wanted tickets not for a regional train as last time but for an international train, which seemed an effort bound for disaster.
This time, however, I had some knowledge of how the station, tickets and transport systems worked to my credit, with my rapidly improving French my secret weapon. With 15 minutes to go I found myself standing in the queue for international tickets with no idea if or how the hell I was going to make the train. There was a vague possibility that international tickets required a prior reservation, in which case I really was screwed either way.
Luckily the train gods decided to smile on me. Just in time I got to a window with a very understanding lady who knew exactly what I wanted and was able to process it fast enough that me and my much-reduced ticket (youth discount card was the best idea I've had all week) were headed for the train with four minutes left. This time I knew how to composter (validate) my ticket and jump on the train, ignoring the part about allocated seats as the train wasn't full and no-one seemed to need the seat I was in.
The TGV - train à grand vitesse - is strange to say the least. These things go at 300km/h, and though you know you're travelling at a high speed as the scenery whizzes past, much higher than normal, it doesn't look or feel like anything faster than a regular old V/Line train. It seemed like we'd barely gotten on the train - in fact, it was nearly an hour later - when we arrived in Lille, on the Belgian border. I jumped (hobbled) off the train, walked to the adjoining platform and boarded my connection to Belgium, because that's just what you do in Europe. My head still has a little trouble getting around how casually one crosses international borders on this continent.
20 minutes of beautiful French-Belgian countryside later, since I have no idea where France left off and Belgium began, I was at the station in Tournai, barely an hour and a half after leaving Paris. Unfortunately Europe's moved on a bit since Le tour du monde en 80 jours was written and you no longer even have the option of getting your passport stamped when you arrive somewhere new, so I had to forgo my decorative proof of entry into the country and instead celebrated my arrival by falling down the stairs. A couple of kind passers-by helped me up and guided me out of the station and, with rejoinders to be more careful in future ringing in my ears, I limped down the street on my crutches towards the finish line of the race.
Again, I will try to avoid as much as possible from talking cycling on this blog, seeing as I have a whole other blog for my fangirling and journalistic pursuits, but I will speak a little of Tournai (and just a very wee bit of cycling). Tournai is in Wallonie, the southern, French-speaking part of Belgium, which has never made any sense to me given the Flemish-speaking northern part has the wonderful French name of Flanders. Admittedly the Flemish name of 'Vlaanderen' does sound a little less French, but then again so does Wallonie. Europe really is hopeless at this 'countries' thing.
Wallonie and France are almost indistinguishable - in fact, most European geography and scenery pays no attention to international borders, instead following linguistic, historic or simply nature's borders. Wallonie and France share almost all of the above, so the gawking done in Tournai was more or less the same gawking I've been doing for the part three weeks in France. The train station was a huge, amazing construction of stone, and the town had the same narrow, cobbled streets, same feeling of being steeped in history, same surroundings of farmland and green countryside that I've already come to know and love in France.
Just a short cyclistic interlude, since I can't resist - Orica-GreenEDGE, the Australian ProTeam, was racing the Circuit as well, and by dint of some excellent timing, careful stake-outs and a bit of sheer dumb luck, I managed to get a photo with Jens Keukeleire, one of my two GreenEDGE cuties, and also a photo and a chat with GreenEDGE soigneur extraordinaire Joachim of Backstage Pass fame. For those non-GreenEDGE fans who are reading, you need to see this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG6VCBx9kfc&list=UUV9vvIQ8gxceqrBkn-P7rlw&index=74&feature=plcp followed by the first few minutes of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dBfubmcGCE&list=UUV9vvIQ8gxceqrBkn-P7rlw&index=72&feature=plcp to understand why this was so exciting. Everyone on GreenEDGE was chosen so they'd 'fit' the ethos and ideals of the team, and let me just say they did a bloody good job. Everyone, from the riders and DSs down to the soigneurs and mechanics has the same larrikin sense of humour, regardless of their nationality. Joachim was happy to chat with me for a couple of minutes, talking about the upcoming races, and before I left he gave me a GreenEDGE musette full of spare GreenEDGE water bottles. Needless to say, these two encounters totally made my day.
Race over (read the Maillot Jaune article if you want more info), I headed back to the train station and bought a ticket for the next train back to Lille, taking extra care on the stairs this time. My friend Julien, who lives in Lille, met me at the station there, and together we headed to the youth hostel where I was planning on staying the night. Luckily, as the Internet had promised, I found a bed in a girls' 5-dorm, where I met two of my new dormmates, an American called Shaylee and a Russian called Ana. Both girls were staying in the youth hostel while they searched for permanent accommodation in Lille - Ana for her Master's degree, Shaylee for her English teacher assistant program. I dropped off some of my stuff and Julien and I headed out to get dinner.
After sampling a Dutch yummy called croustillants, the predecessor of the modern doughnut but distinctly lacking on the jam front, we ended up at an Alsace restaurant near the station that Julien had recommended. We took our time over the funny Alsatian versions of pizza we'd ordered, Julien quite amused by my reactions to the very pungent French cheeses on mine. I believe I have some way to go on that front before I can be considered properly French.
Heading back to the youth hostel around 11 - yes, I said we took our time - I sat down in the foyer to get stuck into my article on the day's race and start sorting through all the photos. Having exhausted my camera battery during the presentations, I was pleased to discover that Past Me had had the presence of mind to pack the camera charger, too. By half-past midnight I'd finally sent off my article and a selection of photos to my editor, and I headed upstairs to change and perform my ablutions in the bathroom I found.
I got a bit of a surprise to find myself apparently locked out of my dorm, but a bit of quiet tapping succeeded in rousing the girl nearest the door to let me in (and yes, I'm aware that 'quiet' tapping is sort of redundant when your intention is to wake someone). Realising I was a new addition, Chloe promptly introduced herself and shook my hand by way of greeting, as though it wasn't one o'clock in the morning. Like Shaylee, Chloe was in Lille for a teacher's assistant program, though hailing from Britain rather than the US. This was when I also learned my first lesson of youth hostelling - make your bed when you arrive, not before you go to sleep, though a blanket was all I really needed.
I woke at 6am when Shaylee and Chloe left for work, and then fell asleep again only to wake at 9. In a panic, I pulled on my clothes and raced down for breakfast just in time to catch the end of the apple juice, hot chocolate and baguette with Nutella. Upstairs, I packed my bags, said goodbye and good luck to Ana and went back downstairs to check my emails and look up bus tours of Lille. I made my slow, limping way over to the Tourism Office to buy a ticket for the 12pm tour, my right ankle still sore from yesterday's tumble, and then detoured to the Post Office.
On my way back to the Tourism Bureau I felt obliged to stop in at a little place called Le Chat Bleu, which bore the further inscription 'Chocolatier'. I needed no further invitation. I explained my awed gawking at the sheer amount of sweet, sweet goodness to the chocolatier behind the counter by telling him that chocolateries don't exist in Australia - a statement which of course gave carte blanche to speak to me in English! Naturally I needed a couple of samples, and the chocolatier was quite happy for me to take some photos of all the ones I was leaving behind. As he very rightly pointed out, "free advertising". It turns out the store got its name from the two blue Persians cats who greeted visitors to the original franchise, owned by a pair of sisters in Le Touquet in 1912. Cool.
The bus tour of Lille, while normally something I'd avoid like the plague, was definitely a good choice for a girl with a gimpy legfootstump. I listened to the English-language commentary through my headphones as we drove around the town, soothed by the lovely British accents that informed me that Lille had been around for a super-long time, had all kinds of exciting things happen there and was essentially way cooler than anything back home in Australia. I've been getting this message a lot in France.
Afterwards I headed to the station to buy a ticket from Paris, discovering that the train left from Lille's other major train station. An excuse to use the Lille metro! Their metro is freaky in that they have unmanned trains. Unmanned. No driver. The whole thing is automated. It's scary. Of course, that means that they have heaps of excess personnel who instead man the metro station and check every ticket manually, despite the ticket barriers. I managed to buy myself a ticket and boarded a metro train to take me one stop from the old station Gare Lille - Flandres to the newer Gare Lille - Europe, where I bought some lunch and got stuck into Paul Kimmage's book Rough Ride that I'd downloaded onto the Kindle earlier that morning.
It was only an hour back to Paris, during which time I alternated between reading voraciously and staring out the window at the countryside, watching and dreaming. It really did seem an inordinately short amount of time before we were pulling in at Gare du Nord again. I hauled my bulky bag, now with extra weight from the GreenEDGE bottles, onto the RER bound for Le Bourget. Off the train, hauled myself home and collapsed with a cold drink. Most of the rest of the day, and most of today too, was then spent in little administrative tasks - unpacking, emails and the like. Thus ends Epic Adventure 1. Stay tuned for Episode 2 next weekend - but before then, I start classes at the Sorbonne...
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| The TGV to Lille from the Intercity to Tournai |
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| The Tournai train |
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| Typical French-Belgian countryside |
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| The train station in Tournai - how cool is it? |
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| Me with Joachim Schoonacker!! |
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| Me with Jens Keukeleire - what a cutie! |
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| The Lille Opera House |
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| The Lille Post Office - well, that's what it is now |
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| Le Chat Bleu |
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| Yummy! |
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| So much sugary goodness... |
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| Statue from the official lullaby of Lille |
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| Gare de Lille Flandres |
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| The funny unmanned metro |
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| Gare du Nord and my train (I think) |
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| My spoils from Joachim :D |
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