Katie+D

May 4th (Thursday) Lille, France:
 * Katie DesRochers, 2010**

Some of the buildings here are terrible. Some of the buildings have graphiti and the brick walls of homes in some places are poorly built. The architecture is awful compared to that of America. Although, there are many buildings that have great looks and are beautiful sight-seeing attractions. A few examples are the Eiffle Tower and the Arch de Triumph, but I haven't seen them yet.

May 5th (Friday) Lille and Arras:

Lille has about 226,014 population. We set off this P.M. at 12 and went to the Jardin des Plantes de Lille, and the Jardin Botanique Nicolas Boulay. The coal has been a great natural resource still and is helping a lot of locals find jobs.

An interesting attraction that my group and I went to was the Vimy Ridge memorial. This area used to be a mess of a battleground but now it has been turned into a beautiful memorial to remember the war won by the Canadians.There is some farmland near the memorial where farmers are planting different crops. The soil is fertile in some parts of farmland.

There are houses, buildings, and roads being rebuilt. The architecture is O.K., except the workers are not taking the time to make it perfect, they are just trying to get it done. The jobs of rebuilding and refurbishing are giving jobs to many frenchmen, though.