Sunday, November 4, 2012

quick jump to France

I'm not keen on meeting other Guatemalans while travelling. This is one of the rare ocassions. I saw on the hitchhiker's forum a post from a Guatemalan. This made me change my mind: another Guatemalan hitchhiker? We were supposed to hitch to Germany, she will continue to Romania and I would had continued to Poland. But in a very Guatemalan fashion, she changed her plans without telling me before and booked a flight to Romania instead. I don't mind people changing their plans but at least tell me before so I can think what to do.

One night in Gent to meet my friends Vanessa and Carlos (from Guatemala). I stayed with Vanessa in november of last year. Carlos, last (and only!) time we met was for the Gentefeesten of 2010

Griet, Claudia's friend, drove us the next day to a petrol station on the motorway leading to Lille. While she was driving, I discovered that the code for cars registered in Lille is 59. I asked an old man by the pumps and he took us all the way to Lille. Once there, a while later we met with Claudia's friend; Yoni.

Yoni and his girlfriend are a very nice couple. we didn't go out for halloween. We only drank a couple of beers and a couple of bottles of wine, I drank very little. Two other friend of them arrived and in total they drank...  a lot.

Lille is a very flemish city, I found it similar to Brugge but without the canals. The old center of town with cobblestone streets is a very nice area to walk around. Near Yoni's flat there is a flea market a few times a week, interesting things can be found and also cheap vegetables and fruits.

Hitching out was not as easy as hitching in. Going into town, the driver almost takes us to the flat. Thanks to rush hour he didn't. Leaving took more than one hour of standing in the cold. the wait was worth it, only one ride back to BXL.

I'm writting this entry while listening to Groundation. I'm sitting alone in a flat in the north of Brussel but my thoughts are somewhere else.