Jason's Daily Notes

Having fallen asleep so early the previous night, I was surprised at how difficult it was for me to wake up. Nike had left early (she was starting the first day of her work placement at the school). I finished reading On the Road. It's a very satisfying feeling to finish a book.

I packed my stuff and rushed off to meet Tim in the city center. I had almost forgot that he was around in Antwerp, but I'm glad that we got to meet up. We walked back toward the station and caught up - he's going to move to Paris with his boyfriend soon. We had coffee at the Starbucks in the station. We discussed technology and he seemed genuinely interested in exploring more. Like me, and everyone else in my generation, he's slightly lost about what to do in life. He walked me to the bus stop. I checked in; my bus wasn't there yet. Soon it was, and I got on and said bye to Tim - maybe I'd visit him soon in Paris.

The bus was empty. There were only 3 other people in the whole bus. 2 of them got off in Gent. I just sprawled out and created a personal hotspot on my phone (which, oddly works, but 3G internet doesn't) and looked up some maps of Lille so that I would know where I was going. I put my stuff away and began to doze off. But before I knew it, the bus arrived in Lille. That was fast - less than 2 hours total (including the stop in Gent).

I got off at Gare Lille-Europe and walked toward Gare Lille Flandres, where I was to meet Charly later. Easy. I then walked around the old town center. I was really hungry, but not sure whether I should go to a cafe, restaurant, or just get take-away food. I passed McDonald's and saw that they had free wifi - I couldn't resist. I was tired and wanted to play around online anyway. So I ordered a Royal and sat down, spending an hour at least on my phone, chatting, facebooking, and looking things up.

I continued to walk around, and I really enjoyed the city. It's charming, clean, upscale, but still filled with seemingly lots to do. There was an upside-down house. Cool. Everything was in French, which is always somewhat intimidating to me. But I can manage.

At 18:30 I went to meet Charly. I was really hungry again, so I got an order of frites from a take-away. Charly was there right when I sat down. Haha. We bought some dinner supplies from the store (Carrefour) and walked to his place, which is less than 10 minutes away on foot.

Charlys friend Thibault came over. We had cocktails (I tried out Charly's banana liquor) and cooked dinner - burgers. With no ketchup, we had to improvise a sauce of mushrooms, onions, and cream. It was pretty good. After the first round of burgers, Charly's flatmate Alexi arrived. I was already full, so I offered him my burger. Thibault is studying law and wants to take a civil service exam to work for the police department (I think). Alexi is in his second year of business school (masters). We watched some of the political show Le Grande Journal / Le Petit Journal, which seems most similar to the Daily Show.

I called home. It didn't really go through. But my uncle called back on my UK number and I talked with him for about 20 minutes.

We watched Argo. Good film. Quite American. I slept on the couch, which was too small so I had to stay bent the whole night.