Day 1 - What a day, but what a wonderful trip!

It was a very early morning (05:00) - for some obviously hardly half-way through the night - when a enthusiastic group gathered at the Porter’s lodge. We boarded our coach which was swaying from side to side, perhaps in anticipation of a great trip. We barely filled half of the available seats. What followed was almost a competition about who finds a more creative position to sleep in using up to five seats per person. Around 9:00, we had a 45-minute stop so that the bus driver could take a bit of a break.  Though some stayed on the bus to sleep some more, most of us went into Starbucks for tea or coffee to wake us up a little bit and find out more about the other students from across many of the University’s departments and countries ranging from French, German, Bulgarian, English, Czech and as far away as Iraq and Hong Kong.

 After hours on the highway with our multi-cultural and multi-discipline group, driving through typically wet British weather, we arrived to the white cliffs of Dover. The coach boarded the Sea France ferry that was to take us across on to the Continent, and we spent the next hour and a half watching the sea, shopping and eating a bit of food. In reality, the food on the ferry was of poor quality, over-priced and of very little choice.  The dishes on offer all had posh sounding French names but, in the end they were: Fish and Chips, microwaved Cheese burger, and a green mixture called ‘leek and potato soup’.  Maybe it was our fatigue from a long journey, or maybe it was the bad weather that made us appreciate this fine cuisine so little.

    An hour and a half after landing in Calais, we reached our hotel in Lille. On the way, we have seen the outskirts of Dunkirk, vintage Porsches and Ferraris, and, finally, the beautiful green countryside with pretty villages here and there opened before us.

Finally, after a long travel, we are all resting and are soon going to have our first joint dinner together as a group. Beef Tartare, Moules Mariniere and Escargot; well, maybe not, but a beautiful glass of French red will surely be welcomed by all!

Igor Merheim-Eyre, Nicolas Boring & Jakub Lexa

(Photos to follow)