Finalement...l'escalade!!

Even though the weather was nasty in Lille this weekend, I still managed to do a lot of really fun things!

On Friday night I went to the Fanfarlow concert with Sadie and Angela at Le Grand Mix in Tourcoing. I didn't know anything about the band--apart from the fact that they are British--but they were really good! Before I wasn't sure if I wanted to do anything at all that night, but I was really glad I went. They had kind of a weird opener though. They were called Morningstar Pop Choir, also British, but strange. It was mostly one guy who was trying REALLY hard, plus some back up people and a choir. When the choir left, I actually enjoyed them a little, but the choir was just god awful. I won't lie.

Saturday was supposed to be a day for haning around Lille and exploring, but it was cold and rainy, so Mandi, Emily, and I went to a random museum in Roubaix instead. It was called La Piscine because the building was an old pool house in the early 1900s, but had been since converted into an art museum. Very cool! The collections were great and the pool was stunning. There were two big art-deco stained glass windows on either end of the hall and incredible marble statues lining the sides of the pool. Most of the old showers are also still intact and some of them house some of the art collections. Just a really neat place for an art museum. After the museum, we stopped at a coffee shop and then hopped on the subway back home. I really wasn't feeling well by the time I got back due to a massive headache and motion sickness, so I just chilled the rest of the night. We had a pleasant surprise at dinner though when one of the Polish girls offered us homemade pierogies. Yum!

Sunday was a low-key morning, followed by a fantastic afternoon! Meghan teaches english at the Franco-American Club here on Wednesday nights (similar to the Alliance Française in MKE), and they held a "Country Danse" this weekend that we went to. It was so fun! It was nice to go somewhere where the people openly accept Americans and their culture...what a relief! The people there were incredibly kind and really fun. The whole evening consisted of assorted country-esque music ranging from Shania Twain to celtic tunes and a lot of Frenchies doing some hardcore line dancing. They even played the Electric Slide and we got to show off a few of our moves. It was really funny how surprised some of them were that we didn't know the line dances or the songs. I seriously felt like I could have been in the South! Hilarious. After the Country Danse, we all went out for chinese for dinner, which was actually pretty delicious. Definitely a good choice.

Today I had class at 2 and then I FINALLY (drumroll..........) got to go climbing! I honestly woke up antsy this morning because I was so excited to go. It was a fairly successful venture. I gathered two partners and headed to the gym in Wambrechies. We got a little lost due to my fault map reading skills...but that was resolved relatively quickly. We finally made it to the gym and I went up to the counter and asked for three day passes, to which the woman said, "well, the gym is closed right now...we don't open until 6 on Mondays." FOILED! She was very kind though, and let us hang out there until the gym technically opened. We ventured out for food to kill some time, but there wasn't much open, so we stopped in a boulangerie and headed back. 6 o'clock finally arrived and we were able to climb. It wasn't my most productive day ever, but I taught them how to belay and tie a figure 8, so at least we got that all figured out for the future. I did maybe four routes, but nothing harder than a 5c (5.8). I was a little nervous about falling on a fresh belayer. Good news is we're going back on Friday! Can't wait!

Cette semaine...

This week was more or less of the same. We went to Wazemmes again on Sunday, but it was better this time. Much less overwhelming and we actually bought stuff! :-) Mandi and I got a rotisserie chicken and potatoes for lunch which was really good. The weather was great and I had one of those little, "I love France" moments. I was in the market with all these people, vendors yelling in french, gypsies playing accordions, and I just felt happy to be there and take it all in. Monday was really fun. John Brunner from MU/GV was in town so we got dinner with him, his friend who is teaching in Lille, Aude from GV, and Mikael from GV. Really fun! We went to Flam's, which I didn't realize serves flammenkuche, which is regional. It's a type of pizza that is made with really thin crust, crème fraiche, and cheese plus toppings. It was delicious! It was so good to see all of them and kind of amazing to travel over 4,000 miles and still have Marquette connections.

The rest of the week has been pretty low key. The homework is starting to hit...I have a lot of reading to do in the next couple weeks. In France, they expect that the students have read the books for Literature classes before the class begins. Kinda crazy...but the way the class works is really nice. Most of them focus on a couple books and the teacher gives an overview of the book and historical setting the first couple classes, then you go into detail and interpret. It's really focused, which I appreciate. My French class yesterday was a little overwhelming. We're talking about passive voice which we studied a little bit in my grammar class, but we're talking about extremely idiomatic forms that I look at and really can't understand how they mean what they mean. For anyone who has some french background, check out this for an explanation...kind of. Really bizarre stuff.

Last night I went to the grocery store and decided to make a real dinner, so I made pork with mushrooms, onions, and red wine. I definitely made up the recipe, but it actually turned out pretty well! I think I would make a few modifications next time, but overall pretty good. This meal also included my first glass of Bordeaux, which I have to admit was quite good. It was cheap, so it was a little watery, but otherwise tasty. I also did some laundry last night, which doesn't sound exciting, but I have a point to make. Our basement literally looks like a horror movie could be filmed down there. The TV room is all fine and dandy, but then you go down the hall to the laundry room, and it's SCARY. There is an old kitchen down there that is all locked up and it looks all dilapidated and stuff...just creepy. I seriously don't think I could go down there alone. Especially at night. I'll get some pictures next time.

I really wanted to go climbing today, but my prospective partners bailed on me. I'm seriously itching to go. Most mornings I wake up dreaming about climbing, which makes me really anxious. I hope I can round up some people to go with me after class on Monday seeing as most Internationals have minimal classes on Fridays and Mondays. If that doesn't work...I'll just figure it out myself! I can't wait much longer!

Some observations about France/Lille:
1) It smells like cigarettes and leather all the time.
2) It's really easy to interpret French people negatively because of cultural differences--this can cause problems. They aren't actually mean, just not super open to those who aren't already one of the friends.
3) Americans are poorly educated. I have never felt so stupid in my life!
4) "Rules" here are relative. Nothing is set in stone. For example: my responsable said that there is a rule that you can't smoke in your dorm, but it was actually, "try not to smoke in your dorm if possible, and if you do, open your window." The same kind of thing goes for alcohol in the residence.
5) People are CRAZY drivers.
6) People really don't like Americans, so it's better not to bring attention to the fact that you are one.


I'll add some more as I think of them.

Bisous à tous!!

Bruxelles!

Saturday was our day trip to Brussels! How awesome is it that we can just go to another country on a whim?? It's literally about 20 minutes to the border by train. Very cool. First stop when we arrived: the Atomium! I was really excited. It's thid huge structure that was built for the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels. Basically, it's a giant atom--I believe an iron atom blown up to 165 billion times its size. Either 4 or 5 of the 9 spheres are open to the public and the top gets you some cool views of the fair grounds and Brussels. Very cool! 

After our Atomium visit, we went into the main part of the city and saw Grande Place. So amazing! This was the first point in my Europe trip so far that I really felt like I was in Europe. I walked into Grande Place and saw all the ornate gothic buildings, gold gilding and cobblestones...I finally hit the honeymoon stage. :-)

After admiring Grande Place, we went into a coffee and waffle house and finally had gaufres! Wow. Most delicious thing I've ever eaten. The whole time was basically a party in my mouth. No words to even describe the amazingness.

After our gaufres, we went over to the Chocolate Museum where we saw how Belgians make such delicious chocolate and even got some free samples! Seriously, those Belgians know what's up when it comes to chocolate. Completely amazing.

Next up was a brisk walk through the expensive shops in les Galeries Royals. Very pretty, but waaay too expensive. Nice to walk through though. :-) Then we went by Rue des Bouchers, which is a tiny little street loaded with restaurants that we ended up eating dinner on. Past this point was a race against the clock...a little more hectic that I would have hoped for. We basically ran around Brussels looking at lots of buildings and stuff, but I found it kind of hard to appreciate all of it. We saw the EU Building, which was actually pretty cool, but it's not open to the public. We walked up towards the Grande Palais, but unfortunately it was closed. By this point it had also started to rain quite a bit, so it was getting pretty interesting. We walked through les Jardins Cinquantenaire, which would have been a lot nicer had it been better weather and not so treacherously icy on the paths. We wandered down by la Musée de l'Armée through the arch, then headed back to Rue des Bouchers for dinner. I was happy to order moules et frites with a beer for what might be the most Belgian meal conceivable.

After dinner we hopped over to a huge café for a coffee before running to make our train back to Lille. My cappuccino was delicious, and so was the Belgian butter wafer that came with it...mmm. Overall, it was a very successful day and I'm glad we were able to go! Here's a link to all of my pictures from Brussels.

Un petit monde

Wow...a whole school week to catch up on. I'm a little behind! I'll try to just hit the highlights from this week. :-)

Monday

     I had my Thème class, which is translation from English to French. I think this class will prove to be just as helpful as my Version class, but a little easier. Only problems I will run into involve not knowing french vocabulary. Crazily enough, I found out my professor for the class is American and spent a good chunk of his childhood/adolescence in Wauwautosa...shrinking the world by about a million degrees. Never thought one of my professors in Lille, France would have roots that come from 15 minutes away from my own! After class, Angela, Mandi, and I went out to find a café for some mid-afternoon coffee. We stopped at some little place that was kind of mediocre...didn't have the charm I was looking for, but man...the french know how to make a darn good pastry. Even though the place we went was pretty sub-par, the pain au chocolat was flaky, buttery, melt-in-your-mouth chocolatey glory! Delicious. Dear USA: take some notes!

Tuesday and Wednesday

     Mostly just lots of long classes these couple of days. Wednesday night was super fun, though! We were starving after a long day of class, so we went down a little before 7 to start making dinner in the kitchen. We were cooking and chatting for quite a while, and waited down there until the welcome meeting for our residence, which was interesting...we've been having some prime conversations as of late. After the meeting, we celebrated the Feast of the Three Kings in traditional French fashion...with a galette des rois, which is a cake that gets baked with a little porcelain figure or a bean inside it. Whoever get the figure/bean in their piece becomes "king" for the day, so you see a ton of little kids running around wearing paper crowns this time of year. Very cute!

Thursday

     We had a monumental discovery on Thursday. We found the elusive crêperie for lunch!! Serious deliciousness for dining hall food...or any food for that matter! For a meal ticket you get a drink, a lunch crêpe, a salad, and a dessert crêpe. Yum:

Also monumental: a sunny afternoon in Lille! It's been super overcast the entire time I've been here except for the first couple of days and Thursday. Nothing like a little vitamin D to perk you up and make Lille look even better. :-) That afternoon I had my French class...of which I tested into the highest level. How this happened...I have no clue! It was a little intimidating at first, but I think it will be good. It's definitely not over my head. We actually spent the majority of the class introducing ourselves...haha. Thursday night almost all of the international kids went to a bar called Le Zeppelin, which was...overwhelming. The atmosphere was just kind of intense for me...techno music, super mod, and WAY too many flashing lights. Oye. I also ended up going to my first dance club as to avoid not getting left walking home or at the bar alone. It was kind of fun, but I was glad to leave after about 10 minutes. Again...too intense for my liking. Definitely not a club kind of girl.

          

Friday

     Friday was our first Geography class. It's an international student class, so the teacher spoke EXTRA slowly...bordering on boring, but it was overall pretty interesting. We were talking about the physical geography of Europe and at the end of the class, he basically was like, "so, as you see, france is the best situated country out of all the countries in the entire world." Hilarious. Don't think I'll come out of that class without a bias... Friday afternoon we chilled out for a while then went shopping for a bit. Pretty fun--went through the Gallaries Lafayettes, which was pretty cool. Still a little cher for me! We also went to the bookstore in centre ville called Le Furet (?), which is ENORMOUS! I need to get back there to check all of it out. We got kebab after shopping, which was delicious as usual. When we got back from dinner, there was an explosion of OIE (Office of International Education) drama, which resulted in an hour long phone call to their office. So frustrated with them right now...got an e-mail on Monday telling us we owe OIE some random $1000 tout de suite for housing fees they paid for us and I should be getting an e-mail soon telling me the credit ratio is changing from 5 ECTS equals 3 MU to 2 ECTS equals 1 MU. Awesome...just because MU hasn't started doesn't mean I haven't, and we've already passed the add date! Thanks for that one OIE. Besides frustration from that, I was feeling really upset about the French students because I really feel like they don't like us. In fact, I got yelled at twice by the same girl yesterday for being too loud, when I really wasn't doing anything wrong. After the second time I went up to my room and started sobbing out of sheer frustration and stress. Definitely hit a low point in my adjustment to France. Hopefully that means it can only get better??

Today was my trip to Brussels, but I'll save that story for tomorrow!

Ma chambre et la catho!

Not too much today. Lazy morning...then we finally got motivated enough to go to Carrefour (France's equivalent of Wal-Mart) and IKEA. EXHAUSTING! I got some stuff for my dorm...like general life necessities and a few things to make life a little more pleasant (like a 2 euro rug and some tea lights). :-) After making dinner, we watched Garden State with Sadie (from NC State) and Monica (Monika?) and Anna (the two polish girls). Good times! A bunch of us are going to the market at Wazemmes tomorrow morning, so I'm going to bed pretty soon! Thought I would share some pictures of my dorm room (sans latest purchases, but no huge differences) and La Catho (the building where I go to school).

La porte:

L'entrée et mon bureau:

Mon placard et mon lavabo:

Le bureau et mon lit (où je reste le plus quand je suis dans ma chambre):

La Catho:

Pas d’Internet!!

Our Internet is out right now! Sad day. :-( Really hoping that gets fixed soon…but it was out last night through this morning…and it’s France…so I can’t really count on it. Well, the good news is, if I’m posting this blog entry, the Internet has finally returned!

Anywho, Thursday…my English Lit class should be fine. Seems like Madame Bray is a good teacher. It was funny thought because most of the kids in the class are French kids that are English majors and we were asked to brainstorm about what a “thriller” entails. The first thing I said was “fast paced” and when I went to write it down, I wrote “fact passed.” Right…I speak English as my maternal language… I got lunch from one of the dining halls (sandwich, drink, and dessert >3€!) and then came back to Notre Dame for some Skype calls. I actually had my semi-first taste of gaufre (waffle), too. For my dessert with my lunch I got a packaged gaufre that had like…marzipan filling and one side covered in chocolate…yum! I still want a real gaufre, but this was not a bad start. At 4 we had our French placement test and we took the bus to school, so we learned how that system works. Super easy and convenient for when I’m feeling lazy. I really don’t mind the walk except for when I’m cold. The test was…harder than I expected. I feel like I royally screwed up the listening comprehension. It wasn’t what I’m used to, so I found it really difficult. Basically, it was some French guy spewing off random facts about vacations French people take really really rapidly and we had to answer questions about what he said. I think if it had been slower I would have been okay, but alas. I kind of made some stuff up...or rather guessed, but oh well. There was a list of idiomatic phrases we had to define from the listening too, but I think I actually got all of those! I was proud. The rest of the test was better, although I’m sure I still did some things wrong. Honestly though, I would have been screwed had it not been for M. Taylor’s grammar class. Everything I knew about how to fill-in those blanks came from him! After the test, Angela, Tom, and I stopped by the grocery store to pick up some things to make dinner and then ate. It was fun observing all of the frenchies in the kitchen. :-)

Yesterday…well, we weren’t sure if we had our Geography class or not because we hadn’t written down the dates…so we resolved to be good students and wake up in time to check the board and go to class. Ughh…we got there and realized, sure enough…no class. So…we decided to go to the bank so Angela and I could get our paperwork in for our accounts and Mandi and Tom could hopefully pick up theirs. Tom’s was the only one that was ready though. The banker was SUPER nice. He even recognized Tom! We got that all set up, came back to the res and relaxed for a while/took naps. Around 1, Mandi, Angela, and I decided to go get lunch and we had our first taste of Kebab.

Holy delicious! There’s even a place that’s really close to our res, so that’s nice. It was literally the best thing I’ve eaten since I’ve been here. Still on the list of things to eat: (1) a real gaufre and (2) moules (mussles), which are a regional specialty. We came back and lazed around again for a while, and eventually went out for pizza with the NC State kids and a ton of the Canadian kids. It was really fun! We hung out for a bit afterwards and just chatted at Foyer (the international dorm), and then took the metro home. I should probably get ready for the day though…it’s already 11:14! A tout a l’heure!

PS: Internet fixed! :-)

Les cours

Okay, first things first, I DO NOT hate Lille. At all. I’m having some pretty interesting experiences and sometimes feel like I’m on an emotional roller coaster, but I think a lot of that is just due to the stress of everything happening so fast. We keep saying that our moods depend a lot on our levels of stress, hunger, warmth, and energy! It’s definitely true. Last night was particularly interesting. We ventured out to find food for dinner after spending the day signing up for classes and attending orientation. We eventually found a pizza place and were impressed by our ability to get through all of meal using French with the waiters without any communication problems or them speaking English to us, but we spend a good hour extra at the restaurant trying to figure out how in the world we were supposed to pay. We had no idea whether it was more normal for the waiter to bring the bill, to ask for the bill, or to just walk up to the cash register. Good thing by now we are starting to laugh at these misunderstandings rather than being frustrated by them. Things got even crazier when we got back to our residence and we were locked out. No joke! The key would not work! Needless to say, it was time for creative problem solving. We all tried the door, started pushing buttons on the buzzer system, opened the next door over, couldn’t find any other doors our keys worked on, then Tom and Mandi FINALLY found the back door where the people who park their bikes come in, and let Angela and I in. Whew!!

Today was the first day of classes, and overall, they went really well. I really like my Madame de Lafayette class. The professor, Monsieur Godo seems really nice and really good. He’s also really accommodating to Internationals, which is helpful. I felt really good about being able to listen and understand almost everything he was talking about. I had a relaxing afternoon and then went to my Vérsion class, which is translation from English to French. Way cool class. I was super interested in taking the translation courses, so I’m excited about it! The teacher, Monsieur Roger, also seems nice. Funny thing: we found out we missed a class today. In France and other European schools, whenever they change the classroom for classes, they put the new schedule on these bulletin boards in a hallway of FLSH (Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines). Last night, we checked the boards for our rooms and saw that our History of France class was going to be on Thursday, NOT Wednesday like we originally thought. Turns out, Emily—one of the Canadian girls—stops by our floor tonight and tells Tom, Angela, and I that we missed our class. AH! While not a disaster, we were wrong because we were trying to be diligent students by CHECKING the boards. Oh, the irony… At any rate, classes tomorrow should be fine. I have an English Lit class as well as my French placement test, but I’m not too worried. :-) But for now, it’s bedtime!

La première journée

 I am feeling much better about life today. I got a lot of stress taken care of between paying my rent, filling out the forms for my student ID, paying for medical insurance, getting a phone, and moving in to my residence. I can’t even explain how good it feels to have some place to call home here!! I didn’t sleep very well last night because of all the stress, but I hope tonight will be much better. :-) I also finally got Internet today so I spent most of the afternoon unpacking and skyping with my parents and JJ. What a relief! I also used a lot more French today than yesterday, so I feel at least marginally more comfortable with the language issue, but it will still take some time. The five of us went out for dinner at Flam’s tonight—a pizza place. Quite delicious! The pizza here, while different, is just as good as Italy. (But don’t tell the Italians I said that!) After dinner we scoured over the course offerings to figure out what we should take because we sign up for courses tomorrow morning.

Observation About France #1: They are SUPER energy conscious. The AEU gets fined if things aren’t properly recycled in the residences. The lights in the halls turn off unless you push a button (like in Italy). It’s FREEEEZING everywhere! You could crank the heat to the max and still be wrapped in five blankets. Note to self: must get five blankets. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing AT ALL, but it does make things rather interesting when you’re in the shower trying to hold the shower head in one hand, shampoo in the other, and press the button every 30 seconds to make it turn on. And no, I’m not exaggerating.

I think it’s time for me to wrap it up and go to bed though, because I need to wake up early to pick classes and take care of some other official stuff and then go to on orientation lecture in the afternoon.

Feel free to Skype me at: lauren.goods

L'arrive

Well, here I am in Lille. I have to say this was a much less enchanting arrival than Cagli. Or perhaps I just don’t remember it clearly enough? The journey was relatively smooth—only the flight from Frankfurt to Paris was delayed and we had problems meeting up with Mandi in CDG, but we all arrived at the train stations in Lille this afternoon safely. What more can you ask for? Meghan took us to her residence hall to drop off our bags and she very kindly made us lunch. I was starved! After lunch, we took a little tour of Lille. Although it’s not huge by any means, right now it seems rather daunting. It’s not as comfortable as Cagli seemed to be—big group of students, faculty leaders, small town, etc. I saw the same people every day and by the end of my time could recognize pretty much everyone from the town. I’m not sure it’s going to be that way here, but only time will tell. One thing was really exciting though: the ferris wheel in the middle of town that is up at Christmas was still up when we got here, so we decided to take a ride and got some amazing views of Lille! We also walked around the Musée des Beaux-Arts for a bit. I just don’t feel as amazed as I have been every other time I’ve been to Europe. Maybe it’ll kick in after a few days? Right now I just feel stressed out and unsettled. I think I’ll be going to sleep in the not too distant future, and then the real fun starts—paying rent, getting medical insurance, moving to my new dorm…sounds exciting, right? Hopefully the rest of the day will bring more fun.