Jours Quinze, Seize, Dix-sept, et Dix-huit.

Jours Quinze, Seize, Dix-sept, et Dix-huit. 15/9/10, 16/9/10, 17/9/10, 18/9/10.

Hello again, dear readers.

Some exciting business happening, so I’ll try my best to be brief (since I’m lazy and sleepy) but detailed (because I know you’re hanging on my every word).

I’m pretty sure that on Wednesday, the only thing of importance that happened was that I did laundry and it was 5 euro. How ridiculous is that. Actually … maybe it was even Monday that I did laundry. Oops. I can’t even remember. :|

If I can’t remember, I guess it means I did nothing worthwhile. EXCEPT I think maybe that was the day I attempted to make a rice/chicken/onion/egg/soysauce concoction and then Rosalind stopped by to chat for part of the day. Sure. We’ll say that was my Wednesday.

Thursday, I did indeed have an interesting day. I grabbed some grapes at Auchan, hopped on the metro to meet Georgie, Katie, Laura, and Stephanie at Place Rihour so we could go for a trip out to the Citadelle, which is supposed to be a nice little area to walk/jog/wander and is also the location of the zoo! Well, I came up from the metro station and surprise, surprise! Il pleuvait. It wasn’t so bad, but we decided to try and wait it out. It only rained harder. Au lieu de going to the Citadelle, we turned around and headed back to Fives/Marbrerie where Georgie, Katie, and Laura live. We made a pretty makeshift but enjoyable lunch, where I learned about an English love for gherkin pickles, that the Germans use a really strange verb for “to bruise” that they also use for children playing in sandboxes (Yeah, even Stephanie was confused when she tried to explain it to us…), and told everyone that we have horse and buggy parking at the Walmarts in Lancaster County. Following tea, Stephanie and I left their house and went back to the metro. Thankfully, it had stopped raining by then, and I went right back into Lille to meet Rosalind.

Rosalind is a very likeable person. We get along great, and she’s a woman who likes to make a plan. (As I am about to summarize our adventures, I'd like to make you aware of her blog as well, as it might give some different, or, dare I admit, better information than my own: http://notlostjustwandering-rosalind.blogspot.com/). We followed her highlighted path on the map of Lille for a while, stopping at the Opera house to enquire about tickets, a few bookstores, Vieille Bourse, Meert, Lush, and l’Église Saint-Maurice, specifically.

(A street in Lille)

The opera house is a pretty intense looking building, if you ask me. I always want to take pictures of it when we pass by it. I grabbed some pamphlets with information about shows and tickets, but will admit I haven’t really looked at any of it. Yet.

(Opera et Chambre de Commerce et la tete de Rosalind)

The Vieille Bourse is this really cool, golden building with some historical information about Lille on the inside. Even better, it doubles as a neat little vending area for old books, some movies, postcards, and posters. I bought some old francs to use in my creation of some special souvenirs (Rosalind gave me the idea, I never would’ve come up with it on my own..) and then also bought what will probably be my best purchase in France: a full size Harry Potter et le Prince Sang-Mele poster. I’m not entirely sure how I’ll pack it to go home, and I did look a bit awkward and bizarre walking all around Lille with it, and then I even had to pawn it off to the care of Rosalind and Sarah later, as it started raining and I was (once more) sans parapluie..

(Vieille Bourse - on the right)

(Vieille Bourse)

The bookstores were interesting. Rosalind was on the hunt for some Nord-Pas-de-Calais cookbooks, and all the French books, although pleasing and exciting to see, kind of overwhelmed me. Reading books will be good practice for me, but it’s been such a long time since I sat down and read for pleasure that it intimidates me. I have Harry Potter et la Chambre des Secrets on the little shelf above my bed (Really, are you at all surprised?) and I’m slowly trying to read through it. Slowly. It will be really great to go back to the bookstores later in the year to buy things, though.

(A street in Lille)

Meert (www.meert.fr) is a completely beautiful, famous chocolaterie/superawesomedessert store. We walked inside, saw how delicious everything looked, and then I sort of regretted even going inside because I wanted to buy and eat everything.

We ended up in Lush, which is a really popular cosmetics/bath/body/stuff store (www.lush.com). Or at least, it’s a really popular store in the rest of the world. I think very few people in the US know of it, but Anne from Amsterdam works at a store, and there’s one right in Lille, so I’m planning to try some, despite how expensive it is. Solid bar shampoo+conditioner with fruity/interesting flavors sounds really neat.

On from Lush, we stopped at l’Église Saint-Maurice. Beautiful. It was beautiful. When we meandered around to the other side, we stopped to read some flyers posted on the door about free guided tours this weekend (Les Journées de Patrimoine). At this point, a very random, albeit friendly, old Frenchman came up to me and started asking me questions. I legitimately had difficulty understanding him, and kept blinking and repeating that I didn’t understand, at which point he sort of turned his attention to Rosalind. When we still didn’t get it, he instead whipped out a ring of keys and unlocked the door for us, motioning us to go inside. Why yes, yes, indeed. This man was opening up l’Église Saint-Maurice out of the kindness of his fast-talking, toothy French heart (what?) and showing us inside, letting the two of us wander through the church quickly to snap a few dark photos before exiting again. It took me about a minute to get over my panicked thought of “what if this strange man locks us inside the church and calls the police to tell them that two American tourists have broken into a breath-taking gothic church?!” once I saw a bit inside. It really did overwhelm me and take my breath away.

(l’Église Saint-Maurice)

(l’Église Saint-Maurice)

(l’Église Saint-Maurice)

(l’Église Saint-Maurice)

(l’Église Saint-Maurice)

Calm and completely safe, we left the church and headed for République Beaux Arts, where we were to meet the other ISEP students and my friend Clémence, stopping in a cd/dvd/videogame store (which was playing “It’s Raining Men” over the loudspeakers when we entered, by the way…) along the trek. We arrived a bit early and waited at the fountain.

(Palais des Beaux Arts. Encore.)

(Préfecture de Lille. Yep. I found out what it was..)

Clémence is a student from Lille 3 who spent the last year on an ISEP exchange to University of Kansas. I contacted her on facebook when I found out I would be coming here, and she’s been nothing but friendly, welcoming, and helpful. She brought along two of her friends to take us for drinks. After a quick detour to Subway for some hungry mouths, we shuffled along in the rain (Yep. Again.) to make it to a bar which had no room for us. So, we hopped next door to a “Canadian Bar” and stayed there for quite a while. More of Clémence’s friends joined us, including two American guys who had studied abroad in France and are now English TAs, one in a university in Valenciennes (a city nearby) and one in Lille 1 (the school for sciences, I think?). I had panaché, which is beer with lemonade, I suppose? It was pretty okay, but I tried Sarah’s cherry beer, and that was really, really good. All the beer makes me think of Dad, and how excited he’ll be to try it all.

After the drinks, we encountered several girls from Juniata College. That’s right. Juniata. Really, what are the odds of that? In any case, they were completely drunk, loud, rude, and practically stumbling all over one another. It turns out that Juniata College does indeed have a special program in Lille, a partnership with the Catholic university here. Right, well, let’s just say that I am wholly uninterested in meeting those girls again, after seeing them like that. It was really sort of disgusting, to be honest. If there was one thing that was pounded into my head by my peers and advisors before I left, it was to be sensible and careful, specifically of stereotypes people may have towards Americans or women (or American women) and to work to reverse them. These girls… I can’t even.. I was really upset by the way they were acting, basically shouting in English without a care in the world on a subway in a foreign country, full of locals who most probably don’t appreciate having their lives disrupted in such a way. I’m a foreigner in a foreign country and I don’t want my night ruined by loud drunks. Anyway, I think that’s a bit too much on the subject, but needless to say, we’re not really planning on seeking out their company…

Righto. On to Friday.

Friday morning, Raashnie, Rosalind and I headed over to the Lille 3 campus to search for the times and locations of our classes. Coincidentally, Clémence and her two friends are some sort of helpers to hand out planners, maps, and show people where they need to go. We successfully managed to take down the information we needed. Rosalind and I had an excellent little lunch in the café on campus, discussing everything from classes, to music, to politics, to pets, to growing up. I had to leave her, though, and rushed to the metro to meet Laura, Georgie, and Stephanie for the Citadelle. The Citadelle is super cool, and after walking around the perimeter with Georgie (Laura and Stephanie wanted to run. Gross.), we all headed into the zoo!

(Awesome tree trunk carving around the Citadelle)

(Citadelle)

(Oh haaaayyyyyy, guys! I'm in the Citadelle!)

(Hedwig. She's winking at me. She knows I really should have gone to Hogwarts..)

(The only thing I know about mongoose(mongeese?) are that they eat cobras. Yeah, Rikki Tikki Tavi, I'm talking about YOU.)

(Meerkats!)

(WHAT AN AWESOME EXHIBIT!!!!!!1)

(This giant tortoise was huge and lumbering and really, really old. We liked him a lot.)

(Pelicans are HUGE.)

(Rhino!)

(Some pretty houses on the walk to the Citadelle)

Taynà came over to watch Mulan with me (in French, of course). Partway through, we wanted some chocolat chaud. Down in the kitchen, we met Khalid and talked with him for a few minutes. The movie was, as expected, great, and afterwards we spent some time sitting on my bed chatting and looking up maps of Brazil, the US, and France. With Taynà, I have to speak French, so it’s good practice and she’s a really sweet girl. After she left, I ended up staying up too late and slept in until almost noon.

I declined all invitations of social fun today, and instead worked out my class schedule and relaxed. If all goes according to plan and I can manage to stay in Arabic 2, I’ll be finished with classes for the week by 10:30am on Wednesdays. Great news, as that should allow for more liberty with traveling. I studied a little French, a little Arabic, both of which are leaving me pretty self-conscious and discouraged, if you’d like for me to be completely honest. I am fighting a battle with myself to stay motivated about learning the languages, and the situation is turning into a constant mantra of “This will be easier in time. Things will come back to my memory in time. Give it time.”

En outreeeee, I did a teeny bit of research to make plans for my birthday. Hello, I’ll be 20 on Monday. No longer a teenager. I feel so old. Like, really old. Anyway, I have class until 8pm on Monday, so then I do believe we’ll be hitting a BAKED POTATO RESTAURANT (http://www.lapatatiere.com/restaurant-lille) for dinner to celebrate. James, lovely, Irish, silly James, asked me why I would go to a baked potato restaurant in France, and I suppose if you’re wondering the same thing, I’d just like to (re)inform you that my favorite food is potatoes and it is my birthday dinner…

Tomorrow, I have plans to go to the Wazemmes market with Rosalind, before heading back to l'Église Saint-Maurice for the free guided tour, and perhaps meandering up to Vieux Lille. Monday does begin class as I mentioned, so I’ll try and update soon with a recap/photos of tomorrow’s adventures, my birthday, etc. Oh, and this weekend is “Les Journées Européennes du Patrimoine”. I’m not entirely sure of the point or what it means, and I feel guilty for not investigating, but I’m too lazy. Basically, what I’ve gathered is that most monuments and museums are free or have things going on by reservation. Cool idea, had I really planned things better, but today was well deserved regardless.

Right so, this is really, really lengthy.

In parting, I’d like to leave a song that I constantly have to play over and over again on Youtube. I think the first link may not work in the US, so I’m hoping the second will, but please try both!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAdr5j1ztNQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1-Dg6qERhI

A la prochaine fois, mes amis.

Jours Treize et Quatorze.

Jours Treize et Quatorze. 13/9/10 et 14/9/10.




Et maintenant, les photos:


(Outside the crêperie, looking to Place Charles de Gaulle)

(McDonald's...)

(Place Charles de Gaulle)

(Me in Place Charles de Gaulle. I think my eyes might be closed..)

(Lauren looking absolutely adorable in Place Charles de Gaulle)
(Opéra de Lille)

(Can't remember what this is, but it's next to the Opéra)

(Nor do I have any idea what this is, but it's located across from the Musée Beaux Arts..)

(Sarah, Lauren, and me in front of the Musée Beaux Arts)





(Those nice gentlemen were singing songs... in English!)



Les Photos de vendredi, 10/9/10:

(Georgie, me, Rosalind, Katie, Sarah, Laura, Lauren, and Jeremiah)

(Laura, Georgie, Vikki, Brian, Anne, me, and Rosalind)


(P.S. Merci beaucoup pour les photos, Christine! ;] )

Jours Huit, Neuf, Dix, Onze, et Douze.

Jours Huit, Neuf, Dix, Onze, et Douze. 8/9/10, 9/9/10, 10/9/10, 11/9/10, et 12/9/10.

Bonjour, bonjour. Salut. Ça fait longtemps.

Life has been busy, I have been lazy. Those are really my only two excuses.

My French class has officially dropped down to 2 hours per week, chaque lundi, and I’m pretty happy about it. The course itself is difficult. My confidence in French has been shot down pretty hard and fast. We worked with headsets, complete with headphones and microphones, everyone looking super fine as we listened to our teacher give us two sentences which we then had to turn back into one sentence using the subjunctive. (“Il ne sais pas lire. C’est étonnant.” “C’est etonnant qu’il ne sache pas lire.”) The exercises passed far too quickly and were too difficult for me to even get out of my mouth, honestly. Really sort of a slap in the face, to be honest. We turned in a written résumé (summary) of an article we read, and Martine told me that mine was pretty good, but it feels like a small consolation. Listening comprehension, reading, and writing have always been strong suits of mine, so I guess I really haven’t changed much… Anyway, on the whole, the class is fairly discouraging and I feel as though all the other students have been studying longer or harder than I have. I just need to keep telling myself it’s alright, and things will be better in time. Un peu d’espoir, s’il vous plaît:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaPS1JPQ6jo

(Okay, so it's not quite the same subject matter, but the title is "A Bit of Hope"..)

I mentioned Ulysse last time, and I signed up to go on the day trip to Paris as well as the international student soirée. Exciting stuff. I’ve been meeting so many people from so many places; it’s hard to see everyone. We’ve made some pretty stable groups of friends, and I don’t want to end up neglecting some for others. Now we mainly go out in larger groups to shop or to explore or to go out and have drinks (Oh ho! It’s true! Read on, my dear…readers…), so I’m sort of looking forward to the coming comfort/ease in going out on my own after I’ve really gotten used to the area and when I don’t have classes at the same time as others. I still would love to have lunch with my friends, but I’m really looking forward to making French/Lillois friends, specifically because of the added bonus of having to speak French with them, even if I do sound like an idiot.

Speaking of speaking French (my writing skills seem to have gone downhill..), I received a phone call on Thursday night from none other than my lovely French penpal from Pau, Julien. It was kind of hilarious and I was mainly really embarrassed. I don’t think we’ve ever successfully managed to speak to each other via skype or MSN vocally, so talking on the phone was interesting. I tried to use my French, really, I did, but it ended pretty quickly and I used mostly English instead. Julien’s really great with English anyway, so it wasn’t a problem except for reinforcing my lack of courage in speaking French. I asked him if he’d send me a present for my birthday in French though, so I guess it wasn’t a complete loss. ;]

My cooking skills are on the rise, bien que mes talents à l’écrit baissent. I went to Auchan with Lauren and Raashnie, where we also ran into Victoria (one of my new English friends) and Anne (a new friend from Holland). I bought some rigatoni (read: pasta), canned sauce (there were so many kinds and I just sort of picked the cheapest), some dry soups (just add water? My kind of cooking!), ham and cheese (I don’t have anything witty to say about them), and an umbrella (they charged me an extra euro, but I didn’t want to go back and say something once I realized. Thursday evening, I sat down at my desk and pulled and pulled on the bag of dry pasta to no avail. I pulled some more and was met with (partial) success: my bag ripped completely open and shot pasta all over my room and my floor, but I had indeed opened it. After cleaning it up, torn between laughing at myself and wanting to hit my head on my desk, I marched down to my kitchen and started making my pasta, determined to make up for my embarrassing pasta-flying-all-over-my-room debacle minutes before. While down in my kitchen, I ran into Assim again, who told me to wait (“Attends!”) and then returned with a large bag of things for me to have, including a plastic container for leftovers, two adorable flower design plates, two mugs for coffee/tea/cocoa, a bunch of silverware, a towel, a whisk, cayenne pepper, salt, hot cocoa mix, and mushroom soy sauce. I haven’t really put much of it to use yet, but I have some big plans for that soy sauce (like just buying some rice). Anyway, my pasta endeavor was pretty darn successful, if I do say so myself! Tasty, tasty. And I was even able to use that plastic container to keep my leftovers. :) I really should’ve taken a picture, but I forgot. Oops. Friday night, I made myself a really delicious grilled ham and cheese sandwich, and this afternoon I cooked myself a perfect egg over easy with a slice of cheese melted on top. I’mma be giving Iron Chef Murimoto a run for his money (yen?) soon, you all just wait and see.

And indeed, Friday was an interesting evening. I don’t remember exactly what happened after class, but I did take a nap for a short while (Went to bed at 3:30. Woke up at 4. My alarm was set for 5. Did I go back to sleep? Yes. Did I wake up quite alarmed, sleepily, and angry at the world when the alarm went off at 5 and then regret my decision? Yes.) I tried to decide what to wear, and after Christine’s confirmation that my pink dress looked okay, I went for it and got dressed up in a dress for the first time in a very, very long time that I can remember. Like, I really can’t remember the last time I willingly wore a dress for something…

(Ma robe! Elle a des poches! :D! And yeah, that is a very blurry double thumbs up on the right.)

Right so, Christine, Lauren, Jeremiah, Sarah, Rosalind and I headed out to the Triolo metro to get to Gare Lille-Flandres. Happily full from my grilled ham and cheese, I chose to wait and be on the lookout for Laura, Katie, and Georgie to arrive while some of the others ate in a small sandwich café place. We moved on to Les Trois Brasseurs, a microbrewery and restaurant just across from the train station, after passing by Gaz (Gareth. English. “Tall boy with the stripey jumper.”), who had just gotten a bunch of McDonald’s and was heading back to his friend’s “flat” (haha) to eat before coming out to meet us. I had my first beer in Les Trois Brasseurs. Rosalind, Georgie, and Laura helped me pick out what to try. It was certainly interesting. For some reason, I hadn’t expected it to be carbonated (last night on Skype dad basically asked me what in the world I thought all the foamy stuff at the top was, and I realized I was an idiot). It was alright though. I tried some wine that Rosalind had, and Christine’s as well. Victoria and Anne showed up a bit later, as well as Brian. After Les Trois Brasseurs, we decided to move on to Rue Solferino, the apparent street full of bars. I forget which one we actually went into, but Brian promised it was a good one. It was a bit of a lose-lose situation, to be honest, as the outside patio area was full of smokers and the inside was disgustingly hot and sweaty. I managed anyway, tried some of Jeremiah’s kir, I think, and Christine’s chandy? I think that’s what it was. I really don’t remember. Gaz met up with us there, and brought along Kirsty, ma voisine in our intensive French course who is from Manchester in England, and another girl I still haven’t actually met. We split up shortly thereafter as the metro shuts down at 12:30am, and there was no way we were staying out until 5:30am to catch the metro when it started up again like Gaz suggested. Metro trip was a success and we learned not to go in the shady entrance to the République des Beaux Arts station. Upon arrival home, despite being extra super tired, I ended up staying up until nearly 2am talking with friends on skype and facebook. In all, it was an excellent night full of fun and conversation with our friends. :]

Saturday morning, I woke up, showered and dashed out to the Hôtel de Ville metro station to meet my penpal, Camille. We met probably a year ago almost on this penpal site (www.interpals.net) and had been sending some letters and things back and forth through the mail. We met with two of her Erasmus friends from her school, and found a Chinese restaurant back in the general area I had been the night before. France has this nifty thing called a “ménu” where you can order from a choice of appetizers, main courses, side dishes, and a dessert for a set price. For 6€, I had a beansprout omelette, black mushrooms and beef with Cantonese rice, and an almond cake. I took a few pictures of the city on our way back to Gare Lille-Flandres:

(Musée des Beaux Arts)

(Camille, Kayan, me, and Jennifer)

I decided to leave them and hit the huge Euralille mall next to the Gare Lille-Flandres, where Christine, Lauren, Laura, Jeremiah, Georgie, Raashnie, Sarah, and later Stephanie were all shopping. I mainly browsed and talked with everyone. I’m really trying to avoid spending money as much as possible so that I can afford to go to Israel for the summer, and I feel like every little bit will help. It was pretty enjoyable all the same, until we tried to take the metro back home. Something was blocking the paths, apparently, and we had to wait a decent amount of time before the trains were running again. Everyone was crammed together waiting, and then some employee people came to regulate the process of getting on and off the train itself. We all completely missed the first train, and as the second one came, we were determined to make it on. However, some little old French lady practically shoved me out of the way and while all my friends (Christine, Lauren, Laura, Georgie, and Sarah) made it onto the train, the old lady and I didn’t make it. :[ I got shoved into the next train without hitch, and mainly appreciated a cute boy in a black shirt + black cardigan combo until I got off at my stop. Donc, j’ai découvert l’écueil des transports publiques.

I reheated my leftover pasta for dinner, tried to do part of my homework for French class, skyped with my parents, watched Disney’s La Belle et La Bête (Beauty and the Beast) in French on youtube, talked to some friends, supported the Iowa Hawkeyes from afar (Go Hawks, Beat State! In the past tense, actually, since we did beat slaughter Iowa State..), and eventually went to sleep.

Today, I’ve done practically nothing. I saw Cindy, a German girl from my French class, downstairs in the kitchen as I made myself that delicious cheesey egg and jam on bread breakfast. I finished my French homework (tentatively). I’m planning on maybe trying to study some French (somehow) and Arabic (I really need to) or watching another Disney movie in French tonight as well. (La Petite Sirène? Je pense que oui.)

As an actual school/academic note, it turns out that basically none of the classes begin on the 13^th as I thought/was told. I’ll have just my French class on Monday for two hours. In order to actually find out the time and location of classes, it’s going to be necessary (Awehrawe, I really just started writing “Il est nécessaire que…”) to go to each department and ask the secretary for different time sheets and things. I don’t really know where the departments are, or to exactly which departments my courses belong. I think there are small meetings in different departments for the new students throughout the week, but I’m not sure if we’re obligated/supposed to go to them, as the communication here is pretty bad. I was warned, I know. I know I was told that the French are extremely bureaucratic, terrible with communication, inefficient, all those terrible things that I do not approve of as an extremely efficient, meticulous, fast-paced workaholic American… Oooh, also. I was going to audit Hebrew, but then I found out that I can actually take Farsi/Persian here! How awesome is that?! So I think I’ll audit Farsi instead, and just hope against hopes I can go to Israel and start Hebrew this summer. I’m pretty sure my Arabic professor back at Iowa specializes in Farsi in all actuality, so I think he’d be more than happy to help me continue to learn or give me some extra things to do once I’m back at Iowa.

Back at Iowa. So far away.

(Very nice hand-drawn additions, if I do say so myself..)

As much as I love Iowa and miss my friends and my school, I don’t want to think about going back. I don’t want to think about leaving.

So I won’t.

And in the meantime, until I post again, I’mma Be:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRVkLsCHlYw&feature=grec_index

<3