Day 1 – Arrival in Lille, Sightseeing and Dinner. Vienna VIB Erdberg – our journey to the spring meeting, which takes place from 17th till 19th of March –  started here. We, that’s Christoph, Michaela and Julia. After several stops seeing the skyline of Frankfurt by night, Brussels and some other smaller cities in Belgium, we arrived in Lille the next day at 2.30 pm after a 18 hours bus ride.

Christoph immediately headed to the EDHEC campus to join Anna and the others at the legislative meeting to present himself as a candidate for the oikos international presidency. Meanwhile, we headed to the hostel to check-in, register for the workshops and meet the other participants.

 

Almost 100 participant from all over the world found their way to Lille. After waiting for everyone to arrive, we headed off to the centre of Lille to do some sightseeing with the oikos Lille Team. We walked through the beautiful old city centre with its decorative brick houses, ornate “Vieille Bourse” and pavement “braseries” around the foundation of the “Déesé” – where Lille was besieged by Austria in 1792. The “grande place” is a very busy area with a lot of people hanging around and enjoying their time. Lille with its narrow streets is very beautiful and a great place to grab a coffee at a local cosy coffee shop or “patisseries”, where you can get some delicious macrons.

 

For dinner we finally met the rest of the participants – including the presidents and executive board members – at the restaurant “Flames”. This was the official start of the spring meeting 2016. We got some really delicious “Flamekueche” in all possible variations – with bacon, cheese, veggies – even sweet with chocolate and banana.

After dinner some of us went back to the hostel and some (including us) decided to check out the local bar scene – it was St. Patrick’s Day so we decided to go to a pub in the city centre. We  tried some really strong French beer – making us tipsy after the first sip :D. However,  we found our way home to the hostel not too late and to join the others in the hostel for a good night chat before going to bed.

click here to continue reading about DAY 2

by Michaela & Julia S.