Things That I Love About Lille

It's Sunday night and I'm exhausted from a happy weekend with Maggie Hustead, a friend from NC State who's studying in Germany. She was supposed to stay on my couch, but Jose has occupied it every night so we got to have pillow-talk in my bed. We went to a party with the Spanish internationals and danced like there was definitely a tomorrow and then showed Maggie all around Lille on the following day. Showing someone else "my city" made me think about all the things I love about Lille, which are the following.

-Late night kebab stands - they're restaurants set up like a chain pizza store. You go in, you order, you sit in a tiny waiting area and try not to make eye contact with strangers, then you eat a delicious kebab. 

-Dog Sandwich- it's a sandwich shop that's open for 3 hours a day and sells 40 kinds of sandwiches on narrow baguettes. Weirdest one I've had so far? Fried onions, honey, and smoked ham. (My favorite.)

-Narrow streets- they're meant for horses and carriages, so cars/people/sidewalks have a different set of social rules. 

-Cobblestones- pretty on the eyes, hard on the feet.

-Mismatched architecture- the old and the 'not quite as old' live side by side. Sometimes I find streets that look like beautiful brick and stone boxes stacked by a child. 

-Open air markets- there's not a lot of racism toward black people, but Muslims, and almost no French go to their Wazemmes market on Sundays. But I do, and the food is amazing. 

-Gypsies- Disney lied. But calm gypsies that beg on the street are much better than drunken hobos that live in the KFC parking lot.

-Balconies in the heart of the city- take the boxes I talked about earlier and add ornate balconies and pretty glass windows.

-Learning French- it's exhausting, but I'm getting better. Except I've started to forget some English words like 'Balcony.'

I've got a huge calendar of social events today (lunch at noon, but it's with a French person, so I feel like I'm a brave social butterfly) so I'm signing off!

I'll Soon Be Dreaming in French

My dad sent me an e-mail titled, 'Your blog sux' recently, so I figured it was time to crack my knuckles over the keyboard again. Although I'm only doing this because I don't want to clean my room.

I don't have a dryer, so I hang washed clothes from most surfaces.
And by that, I mean crumple them up on my table.

France is still great, but it's getting tough to appreciate. The strange signs and blabbering that met me around every corner were fascinating at first, and I found delight in everything new and French. But now, the glamour that comes with all things new has been dulled by the realization that I need to understand their blabber to survive. 

This happened for a happy three minutes yesterday when I was lost on the subway. I had wandered around the station for a bit and tried to look thoughtfully at the metro maps on the wall while I gathered the courage to ask for help. After I stood in front of the red and green squiggles for an appropriate amount of time, I courageously approached two mall cops and asked, 

"Comment je peux aller à la Université Catholique de Lille?"

To which they replied,

"Sacrebleu! You are so brave! Here, have a piece of cake. You must be tired from being lost in this cold, have my jacket. Please, take a seat on my chair, I'll flag down the train and speak to the conductor. He'll take you wherever you need to go."

And that's what it felt like when they told me to take the next train and get off at Carmeille, then take a left onto Vaubaun and I'd be right there. Those two darling men spoke to me, and I understood! I felt like I was on top of the world. So, riding on the glory of my proficiency, I thanked them and started to head toward the tracks. Before I could take a few steps, one of them asked where I was from and I had to backtrack awkwardly while my brain scrambled for the appropriate words. I replied, and instead of politely nodding and bidding me a 'Bonjour,' they actually spoke a few sentences to me about having family in Texas and wasn't it cold outside? I said something to the effect of agreement and asked if they had family elsewhere in the world. This continued for a solid three minutes before my boarding call came and I bid them 'Adieu,' with a chest was so puffed up with pride, I could have floated onto the train. 

Authors note- I was ridiculously late for class.

I also gathered the courage to go to the outdoor 'Wazemmes' market on Sunday morning and bought a bundle of flowers and a plant. All of the plants mom gave me for Christmas died on my windowsill, so wanted something that wouldn't let me kill it. Because Voldermort wasn't available, I settled for a cactus.

Me and cactus being pathetic together.

I've got a million more stories, but I've got to translate some basic English into broken French. 

À tout a l'heure!

Week One

I've only had a week of classes and I've already been to two countries and saw a naked man. France is crazy. My classes are incredibly taxing and after an hour or two of relentless mental translation, I leave exhausted and irritable. I never realized just how much I rely on verbal communication to understand what people are talking about. Luckily, I've got a slew of easy reading material for homework and I get to write a poem in English (thank God) for my British Pop Culture class. All we do in there is listen to the Beatles and look at pictures of Kate Middleton's hats. But my other classes aren't quite as informative. I've got a European literature class where we're reading the French translation of Don Juan, a public speaking class taught by a German professor where we learn how to bang our fists on tables, and two classes where I translate text from English into French and then turn back around and translate the French into English. Hopefully, I'll get the hang of the language well enough that classes won't be so wearing.

After class one day, my French Maman (the lady with empty nest syndrome who I'm renting from) knocked on my door and asked if I wanted to go to Belgium. I replied "When, tomorrow? What should I pack?" and she gave me a strange look and told me to get in the car, we're leaving in 5. So I hopped in the car and we drove to Belgium for the sole purpose of buying a cake to have as dessert that night. In 20 minutes, I had crossed the border to another country! It's less than 10 miles from Lille, but the culture is from another world. The language is entirely different, the architecture is bizarre in comparison with what I've seen in France, and the people all dress and carry themselves in a way that is far happier than the French style. I was shocked to find these separate existences living side by side, yet refusing to contact each other. Although I suppose people didn't travel very far outside their initial city or village up until a couple hundred years ago, and given the age of both the countries, they may have fallen into an old habit that's hard to break out of. My French Maman and Tony stopped at everything I 'Oooh'd' and 'Ahh'd' at and took my picture in front of landmarks to send back home to my parents. They've been incredibly kind. We went to an old abbey type collection of houses called a Begynhof where women who weren't quite nuns lived in this community under the shadow of the steeple so they could be close to their house of worship. It was a beautiful maze of white houses and narrow, winding cobblestones paths. Then we went to two stone column fortresses that flank the head of the canal into the city. I felt like I was in a Lord of the Rings movie. After we sight-saw, we went to a little village and French Maman bought a cake while Tony took pictures of me questioning the chocolatier of a real live Belgium chocolate shop! It was delicious.

Then I ran across the street, bought some sugar and raisin brioche, and was home half an hour later.

Lord of the Rings fortress. I tried to climb the crumbling stone steps that led into the bottom, but the entrance was pretty heavily fortified.

Church that towers over the Begynhof and makes you feel insignificant.

Beautiful and quaint Begynhof. It was incredibly extensive, but pictures can't do it justice.

Inside the church. Notice the intricately carved wooden pulpit in the background. It's a common feature in Northern European churches. 

As for the naked man, I had finished looking at France's muddy idea of a zoo in the park when I passed by a series of shops and residents. I was casually window shopping as I strolled along the sidewalk when I passed by a man in what I assume to be his living room putting on a shirt. Just a shirt. At first, my brain didn't understand what was happening, but a few steps later at the next window, I realized. So I gave a little scream, turned to my friends and looked into equally shocked faces. Oh, France.

À tout à l'heure!

I'm Internationally Domestic!

I made it to Lille! I haven't been kidnapped for my organs, tricked by a gypsy, or been the victim of religious or economic persecution. So it's pretty much been the exact opposite of what I expected. Although everyone here does smell to high heaven and walks around with their shoulders hunched and their noses in the air. A masseuse could make a killing in France.

When I got off the train, my friend Jowanny let me collapse into his arms in exhaustion and walked me to his home a couple blocks away. I thought we would be going to a small apartment or a stereotypical French farmhouse, but instead we went to the center of Old Lille, opened these giant blue doors, and stepped off the cobblestone street into a fairy tale. The first thing I saw was a wide courtyard with moss growing between the stones that made the pavement. And towering over it was an old style French chateau complete with blue wrought iron outlining the windows and a beautiful glass entryway in lieu of a front porch. When I walked into what looked like the set of 'The Great Gatsby,' I was greeted at the front stairs by an American flag and two smiling French parents. They happily shoved the flag into my hands and snapped pictures of me while Jowanny made apologetic expressions behind their backs. Then they whisked me off to the kitchen, piled a plate with baguette, nutella, and cheese, and started correcting my pronunciation of the few French words I was trying to mumble through all the food in my mouth.

After a few minutes of polite nodding on my part and rapid French on theirs, I was finally allowed to go to the sink and wash the airplane smell off all my exposed skin and examine just how much travel acne I had acquired. Then Jowanny knocked on the door and told me they were taking me to see the dorm I was supposed to stay in and I better hurry or his Mom would make me eat something again. So I quickly got in the car and we drove through the most beautiful city I have ever seen. If there was a space, something was in it. Every nook had another door that led to more crannies, which created more windows, that had more architectural detailing than anything I've ever witnessed in the States. It's beautiful. Unfortunately as we kept driving, we left the beautiful old city behind and entered into the suburb of 'Haubourdin,' which used to house factory workers during the industrial age and now houses unsuspecting American students who don't know which dorm to choose. After playing with the metal blinds that cover the windows at the push of a button to protect you from French serial killers, I decided that I'd rather stay at the pretty chateau in the middle of Lille. Luckily, Jowanny's parents rent out rooms in their home for a few students and a couple of working young women. They showed me all the beautiful places I could stay within the house, and then they brought me across the courtyard to their renovated stables. Long story in a nutshell, I now live in a 400 year old horses stable complete with kitchen, bathroom, a lofted bed where they used to keep the hay, and incredible stone water troughs spanning one side of the room. It's wonderful! And I get to put my elbows wherever I want when I eat.

A very tired me with my French Maman on the left and an apologetic Jowanny on the right.

Stone troughs that I have yet to find a use for and a hay rack where I currently hang my clothes.

A ladder up to my bed and an old fashioned radiator where I occasionally put my socks.

My kitchen with a window that looks out onto a pretty street when I open my enormous shutters.

Now, I'm just waiting for classes to start on Tuesday and for my inevitable bucket loads of French friends to start pouring in.

À bientôt!

Smiles Are the Currency of the South

I'm writing on the train to Lille after being en route to Paris for 18 hours. The past day is a blur. I can't remember when I've last eaten; all I know is it was a gross pepperoni covered pretzel that I had to buy to get change for the pay phone. I remember sleeping in the Iceland airport for a few hours and dreamed about missing my flight.

When I finally arrived in Paris, I collected all my belongings and set out to find the train with the weight of my world on my shoulders. I couldn't think about the next six months, or the past 18 hours. Only where I was at the present moment and how to get to Lille. I had underestimated just how difficult and wearing it would be to navigate in a foreign place. Something as simple as using a pay phone to call my friend Jowanny was now as likely as going to the moon. I didn't have the right money, the right language, or the right disposition. (Smiling and pleasantries are not a universal language.)

After wandering frustrated around the same two floors for 3 hours, I finally lost 5 euros in what I mistakenly thought was a pay phone, had my credit card rejected at 4 different places, exchanged travelers' checks for usable money, and bought a train ticket to Lille. Once I asked everyone around me how to read my ticket assignment, I found my seat and watched France go by my window.

Ps- Didn't cry once today. Welcome to the gun show.