WEEK TWO

-Paris, France-

"Starting our third full week here in France, things are beginning to feel more like “home”. All of us are starting to discover more and more about our hometown, Lille, by exploring day to day and by visiting the local markets, pubs, and by navigating our way through the busy streets every day. I like the city of Lille because of its size and by how easy it is to access things we need just a short walk from our apartments. The Lille-Metropolitan area (which extends in Belgium) has a population exceeding 2 million people with 150,000+ students living here as well so there is never a dull moment – maybe besides Sundays, as most stores and businesses are closed. The public transportation (from bikes, the metro, or taking the bus) and walkability of the city makes it a great place to live and we are living in the center of it all. 

As far as traveling goes, it’s an easy and exciting thing to do right here from Lille. The city lies on the major rail line which allows you to travel many places near and far within a reasonable amount of time. I started my journey in Paris where I stayed for a few days getting lost in the narrow, busy streets and enjoyed watching the people of Paris live their different way of life. I am looking forward to returning back to Paris to see some more sites and fantastic examples of architecture. I have also ventured to Luxembourg for a weekend with some friends and loved the capital city/extremely small country! It was intriguing to see the financial capital of Europe and it was expressed in a lot of the buildings we saw and the cars that were driven everywhere. It’s a very old city being founded in 963 and it was remarkable seeing the old city fortress ruins and how the city has kept a lot of its halls for paths and walkways outdoors today. On our way to Luxembourg, we had to switch trains and we encountered the Liege-Guillemins railway station designed by Santiago Calatrava and its one of the largest/busiest stations in the region with more than 36,000 people passing through it daily. The station is made from steel, glass, and white concrete reaching 32 meters in height and spans over 160 meter in length. It was an amazing “surprise” to come across and we all enjoyed our time waiting for the next train to arrive.

Along with the rest of studio, the class traveled to Roubaix, France another part of the Lille metropolitan area. Paul met up with all of us at the old Roubaix railway station that is still in use today and was built the same year the Eiffel Tower was constructed. Later we toured an old bathhouse which has been turned into a modern day art gallery/museum. It was neat to see how an architect could visualize an older building used years ago for another purpose than what we are seeing it used for today."   

-David Patnode

-Liege, Belgium-

-Liege, Belgium-

-Luxembourg, Luxembourg-

-Luxembourg, Luxembourg-

-Roubaix, France-

-Lille, France-

-Lille, France-

-Lille, France-

  
                                        

"We are embarking on our third week we here in Lille.  In this time we have made excursions to intriguing places, settled into our new hometown, and became "French" students.

Lille is proving to be an excellent place to call home for three months.  I'm finally getting used to a non-gridded city, "interesting" milk, and not understanding French. Exploring the city of Lille has been more than enjoyable.  The city is abundant in character and charm. Our apartments are located ten minutes from the metro station which takes us right to the city center and basically to the door of our school.  

On the traveling front, this past weekend two of us ventured to Rotterdam in the Netherlands. This trek was only a four hour train ride from Lille. The most notable part of our train ride was the Antwerp station. We were delighted to find such a beautiful train station that dates back to the early 1900's. In Rotterdam, most of the historic buildings were destroyed in World War II, but this unfortunate event paved the way for numerous modern buildings to be built. During our trip we visited multiple museums,  walked the remarkable Erasmus bridge, and ventured around an object fair. Overall, Rotterdam is a fantastic port city filled with modern architecture.

Last week we also settled into our new school, got our official ID cards, and are starting a new week long project.  Working with the French time schedule is very different than what I am used to back home.  There is a lot of lingering going on over here. Last week we also walked around the city of Roubaix, which is a city right next to Lille.  We saw a train station from the late 1800's, an adaptive reuse building where the owners converted a rundown bath house to an art gallery, and an old textile factory."   -Courtney Thompson