At last, a photographic return...

Apologies to all! I have been absent now for about a month. I am sure I have been too busy/lazy to keep up to date. Before I write another essay, however, I shall give you an insight into how the month has passed with a few photos! Watch this space.

Bikes in Paris

Paris Metro

One of the beautiful, city wise buildings - tall and thin

Outside Shakespeare&Co.: a quirky, jam-packed English book shop

Sacre Coeur

Paris Metro - all I could think of was the scene from Paris Je T'aime, where the American gets beaten up for staring too much!

The Louvre - one of my favourites

Bruxelles, in the Grand Place

Statues of soldiers above the city

City scape

An autumnal park we stumbled across

The Lille Christmas Market and Ferris Wheel

Christmas Market

A wintry canal on our trip to Brugge

The Belfry in the Grote Markt

Lit up for Christmas

And, just for laughs, some chocolate Mannekin Pis in Bruxelles. He was everywhere!

Expect a written update asap!

I think it's about time I uploaded some photos, just so you know what I'm on about:



Place Rihour, Georgie and Katie.




Me and some huge pot plants :)




Buildings in the Grand Place




Opera de Lille




Palais des Beaux Arts, and me and Georgie.




An amazing light fixture in the Palais des Beaux Arts.




Tarte au framboises et chocolat chaud from Paul: delish!




Gare Lille Flandres




Jardin des fleurs, Lille has lots of lovely (small) city gardens like this.



Roses, very nice :)



Jardin des fleurs, just so you can see it all!



In the rose garden, with Katie, Georgie and Stephanie.

I realise that I say it always rains here, and it does! It's just I only take pictures when it's nice. But I'll put some us, just to show you. Because when it rains, it POURS!

Prêt pour la fête?

So as you may have realised, much of my life here is spent socialising. Now, please don’t judge, on ERASMUS we like to think of this as cultural experience rather than ‘socialising’... I have to say that actually, I think this is an accurate description. I thought I’d give you a little insight into why:

·         Tacos and a Sunday Roast with Americans

So our American friends decided that they were going to prepare for us (Georgie, Katie and I) some traditional Yankee fare, utilising our kitchen and dining room facilities. This consisted of tacos, fried beans, spicy chicken, tortilla crisps, guacamole, salsa, cheese... everything you can think of.  was all very tasty, and I’m sure I ate more than anyone else! It also consisted of about 8 people trying to cook in our relatively small kitchen, whilst not knowing how anything works. Not the calmest of events, albeit very amusing! We drank through the craziness. Yes, we are leading ‘underage’ Americans astray. I find it odd that they are allowed to vote, fight for a country and drive at 18, and yet drinking is a big no-no until 21. Sure, take everyone else’s life into your hands, but not your own! They also think this is an odd thing, but it sure makes them a cheap date, so I’m not going to complain too much. Anyway, the Americans think we’re quite quaint and in turn we find them fascinating, there is a mutual interest in that we all seem incredibly similarly, but totally different. Their education for example: the U.K. and the U.S. systems seem to be completely separate, even at college/university level. Both, however, seem to be more structured than the French system, and we all agreed on that! What a wonderful night of madness!

We confirmed our quaintness when we invited some of them (Christine, Rosalind, Colleen) over for a Sunday Roast. After Rosalind’s birthday breakfast, we headed to the Wazemmes market to buy a chicken. We brought it back and whipped up a feast, including roast potatoes and veg. In wonder, they opened their eyes to the delights of parsnips. It was a beautiful moment for everyone, they are converted.

·         Dinner (very late) and drinks (lots) with Italians

Friday night has become our night with the Italians, Virginia, Mathieu and Maurizio (when he turns up...). So the three of us rock on out of the metro about half 8 and head to Virginia and Mathieu’s flat, where we hear the wonderful vocals of Edith Piaf and are welcomed by a table covered in wine, cheese, bread and salad. Very European, I’m sure. We sit down and speak in our terrible French about literature and music whilst Virginia whips up a carbonara – very delicious. The conversation of women and beauty comes up, and it is incredibly refreshing to hear men talk appreciatively of real women, and beauty as something that is increased by character. After dinner Mathieu got out his guitar and the only reason we left was because the last metro was about to leave, and we had finished all the beer...

The next week was our turn. Eliza, a lovely English girl who we have just met, also came round. Maurizio was in Belgium, but French was still the language of choice for the evening. Katie made a very nice coq au vin, and I made a slightly disastrous lemon meringue pie (looked terrible, tasted good!). Not as good as my tarte au chocolat... Anyway, the night was similarly philosophical, jazz in the background (we even played some Pavarotti, very cultured) but I did have to go out in the rain to buy more beer as we managed to get through the first 3 bottles of red and 2 big bottles of beer. Slightly sloshed by the end of the night, but I think it only improves my French, so we can’t judge. Again the metro ended our night early, but it was probably a good thing because I didn’t know where I could find more wine at that time of night!

·         English Lessons with the French

As I have said before, the French like their paperwork. So when Katie, Georgie and I decide to go to the CAF to fill out student funding forms, we really jumped right into the deep end. We ended up sat on our table in hysterics because we had absolutely no idea what we were supposed to be doing. However, a lovely French girl called Laurene obviously took pity and decided to help us out. Apparently, Laurene is learning English, and she meets once a month with other people learning English, and would we like to come along? Sure, why not. So on Wednesday we get the metro out to the middle of nowhere, and Laurene meets us at the station. Then we walk to her flat – through a very dark, very deserted block of flats, then behind a dark stadium... until we reach her front door, and actually it was very nice (inside!) I left behind my slight panic and wandered in to be greeted with kisses by lots of people. It was all very chilled out. Some of their English was better than others, but they all spoke better English than our French. Generally, we tried to reply in French, so we were all practising. It seems the French impression of the English (particularly the students) is that we like to drink and party. Probably relatively accurate. It was all going very well, they said I had a good accent and spoke nice and fast. Although on leaving, we were saying ‘merci beaucoup’ and everyone started to laugh. Apparently, our pronunciation meant we had just told them ‘thank you, nice arse’. Great way to end the night, don’t you think?

·         Vodka with the French

Laila, our flatmate, had a birthday party at our house on Saturday. It was her birthday the Monday before, but because of work she had the party at the weekend. Now, I don’t really do parties at my own house because I’m too lazy to clean up after everyone, but what the heck, it’s about time I met some more real French people, and a party seems a fine way to do it. I spoke lots of French, but I’m sure they were all very entertained by it. I avoided saying ‘merci beaucoup’ after Wednesday. A few of them spoke good English, so were helping us out. I think they enjoy practising English as much as we want to learn French, and we had lots of conversation about why the English are terrible at learning languages, and why we should learn from a younger age. Tell you what though, they can drink! Lots and lots of vodka, and beer, and cigarettes. I think I had to spend most of the night outside to speak with them! By the time 4am came around, they were all dancing in our living room and doing tequila shots. I do enjoy their dancing; they all just do it and don’t care what they look like. I was twirled and whirled, sang happy birthday, and by 6am I eventually managed to go to bed and most of them managed to get the first metro of the day home. Absolutely crazy, but it was good fun. Lots of language practice!! That, of course, is the aim of the game.

So each group, in their own way, has treated me to some wonderful evenings of entertainment. I’m learning a lot about so many different places, not just France, and that is one of the best things about being here.

Bisous!

Timetable: 10am, History. 2.30pm, The Art of Sales.

10am: History

OK. So I’m not actually taking any history classes. But have been very historically cultured: on the weekend of the 18^th/19^th Lille celebrated its history with “Les Journées Européennes du Patrimoine”. It’s a huge event that takes place the third weekend of September and everything in the city opens for free, from the museums to the theatres, even the Chamber of Commerce. Of course, having had an intensive week of French classes, Georgie, Katie and I woke up at a just about respectable time (10.30am). I had a wander down to the patisserie and brought back the usual order, 2 pain au chocolat and 2 croissants. After a very leisurely petit dejeuner, we hopped onto the metro into town. First stop was the Theatre du Nord, which until this point I had never actually seen open; I have been keeping an eye on it, thespian that I am, and it appears that they do a fantastic deal for students. You pay 15€ for a card, and then can see any of the shows for only 3€. AMAZING. Also the theatre is huge, a fantastic stage space so I may have to make that a regular trip. After that, a wander through the Vielle Bourse (a beautiful old building which now houses a small book market) to look at some kitsch French films, books and posters, and onward to the Opera de Lille. Where we got unceremoniously turned away by the security guard, as it was lunchtime, so we forced ourselves to go to a restaurant to eat moules frites. I, however, ordered a steak. I am missing meat, because I am living with vegetarians, and so thought that this was the opportune moment to get a nice, rare, French steak. Apart from the fact that I am obviously English, so my ‘medium rare’ turns up very well done... Still, I can’t complain, I’m a student in France eating a steak at a lovely restaurant in the Grand Place.

I’ll take a moment here to talk about the French waiters. I have a love/hate relationship with them. They either ignore you from the moment you sit down, or serve you whilst looking terribly harassed, or they are absolutely fantastic. Luckily, I have generally experienced the latter: they have put up with my terrible French, waited whilst I count out Euros into my hand, even taken pictures for me. They also attempt to speak English to me, which is lovely, although I am supposed to be practising my French... But I have to say that there is no one quite like a waiter in France.

After our lengthy dejeuner, we headed onto the Palais des Beaux Arts. This place is stunning. I can’t say much for the art – the sculptures are beautiful, but in my opinion the art is, shall we say, a little heavy. As in, lots of Jesus. Dying for our sins. Rooms and rooms of it. Not that I mind a bit of religious art, often it’s very passionate, only I can’t quite stomach too much of it... However, the architecture of the building definitely made it worthwhile. High ceilings, stunning marble floors, huge stained glass windows. I am a fan. There is a fantastic fountain outside too. I will have to upload some pictures: Katie affectionately thinks of me as her stalker, as I am forever wandering around with a camera and taking surreptitious ‘action’ shots, which she generally doesn’t appreciate. Although, might I add that they are not specifically of her!

We also popped into a church which was open in the town centre. There are lots of churches about, and I quite enjoy this because I do like churches. I’m not a religious person, but there is something about the church building that fills me, if not with a faith in any God, with a faith in humanity. I figure if we could build something that huge and that beautiful over generations of men for reasons of faith, then we must still have something of that in us as human beings. I think that’s why this weekend is such a great idea – everything of any importance to the city, small or big, opens up and it fills one with a sense of heritage, tradition and culture. The things that tie us to the past and take us into the future.

2.30pm: The Art of Sales

Again, I haven’t been attending educational sales meetings. But Lille has taught me a thing or two about selling things. The very first weekend that I was here was the weekend of the Braderie, which in English is a car boot sale. Lille hosts the biggest braderie in Europe in the first weekend of September. Now until this point, every time I had been into the centre of town things had been relatively quiet, the students weren’t back yet, nobody was really about. But on Saturday 4^th September, Georgie and I walked out of the very busy metro station into a different world. There were people everywhere. All I could see was a bobbing sea of heads. The street was lined up and down with stalls selling anything and everything – from professional shops slashing their prices just for the weekend, to home owners selling off their old stove. On the Sunday, I met with my parents and we braved the streets, elbowing our way through. Although, actually, it was all very civilised – everyone was very patient, all walking on the right, and surprisingly no one had managed to drink their way to drunkenness (as they may have done in England, considering the amount of alcohol for sale). We even got invited into someone’s house: my father, the eccentric that he is, stopped at an odd looking stall and saw a very old, very rusty hand drill. The man behind the stall, holding coffee and cigarette, says, “Quelle nationalité?”, and I reply “Anglaise”, at which point he jumps up with an exclamation of “I used to live in South Africa!” We then had a fantastic conversation about drills, and how it is only the Dutch and the English who ever buy anything odd, and would we like to look in his house? Turns out that the ground floor of his house is basically storage for all the rubbish he has collected over the years: books, pianos, ovens, doors... Honestly, totally crazy, but good fun. Onward to Vieux Lille (old town) where I spot a HUGE pile of mussel shells, which means it must be lunchtime. ‘Moules frites’ is an institution here. There is a competition for the braderie weekend over which restaurant can build the biggest pile of mussel shells: great fun, but it doesn’t smell so fab... A bottle of wine, a beer and lots of moules later we wandered off again into the streets of Lille, where I practiced lots of French and was tempted to buy all sorts of odd things from all sorts of odd people. PS, people of France, your taste in music is really very terrible.

Markets are a fantastic thing in France. Laila, my French housemate, took the three of us Anglophones to the Wazemmes market, a big food/clothes/general market that is on every Sunday. I am very glad she was with us. She knew exactly where to get the best olives, fish, fruit, all at brilliant prices, and even took us to this brilliant little Chinese fast food van where we all had spring rolls wrapped in lettuce and dipped in sweet chilli sauce. Délicieux! We have braved it two times since then, and my true Yorkshire comes out, where I shout French loudly until I get served and/or a cheaper price. It’s all good fun, and excellent practice. I think they might even understand me now.

But one thing I must say about all these events is that when they do something here, they really do it well. It may be totally chaotic, full of people and absolutely confusing, but everyone loves every minute of it and everyone gets so involved. And each event is totally adored by the locals and by visitors: there is a huge sense of welcoming. Bienvenue à Lille!

Je suis en retard... But better late than never

So I've decided to hop on the band wagon. A blog, it seems, is a 'must have' part of an ERASMUS year, or so my American friends tell me. I don't know whether to write a blog seems entirely self involved, but as I can claim to be one of the MySpace/Facebook age, perhaps it is just a way of life.

Now, I realise that having been here in Lille for nearly 4 weeks, I have pretty much missed out on writing about those initial feelings towards my time here. But I'm sure that hindsight can only be a good thing for the reader in this case, as it may lessen the foreboding that naturally comes with pre departure nerves.

And I was TERRIFIED. At many points the only thing stopping me from deciding not to go was that I would look like an absolute coward to the rest of the world, particularly as 'the rest of the world' seemed to regard the whole thing as "wonderfully exciting...such an opportunity"! However in my mind it was finally dawning upon me that, actually, yes, I was going to be living in a foreign country. Where I don't speak the language. For a year. And actually France doesn't have the friendliest history with the Brits. So all those feelings from when I signed up: of excitement for a new country, new people, a second language, great food, wine... well they all sort of evaporated. They were still there somewhere, and I kept reminding myself of them, but the nerves had a tendency to take over in my mind. Particularly in the face of attempting to organise somewhere to live, in another language, without a French bank account.

On that note, let me tell you a little bit about French administration. This is something I have come to terms with over the last 4 weeks of being here. In England, we have utilised something that we like to call THE WORLD WIDE WEB. Supposedly, this invention allows people all over the world to be connected instantaneously, and to share lots and lots of information at the click of a button. In France, not so much. Now they may refer you to certain websites to aid you in your attempts to do things like look at your course description, email a professor, but often when you reach these pages they say something like “Cette page n'a pas encore été écrite”. Very useful, I’m sure. Instead, the French love official bits of paper. You have to have copious amounts of official bits of paper to get anything done here. And, actually, even when you have managed to find someone who can tell you what you need to get what you require, and you have taken those required goods to an official sounding person, it is not as though anything will happen. Take, for example, my student card. Which I still don’t have, despite having been a student at Lille 3 for 3 weeks: I registered, I gave in lots of forms and filled out another couple, I have waited 2 weeks... nada. Zip. I will inform you when things start to look up.

But, actually, despite all this, I have managed to find a rather lovely house in Fives with Georgie and Katie, two other English degree girls from Leeds. None of us really knew each other before (although we knew people who knew people who knew each other, as is always the way in a university), and I have to say I can’t have found two better people to be living in a foreign country with. We are all totally different, but I think that’s a great thing. It provides for excellent conversation anyhow. We are also living with a French girl called Laila, who works in centre ville, and she speaks absolutely no English but is fantastic, and puts up very well with us Anglophones. I arrived with Georgie to move into the house, and I was terrified that our landlady wouldn’t turn up, but she did, and gave us keys, and it was such a relief to be in a house. Having somewhere to go back to, that isn’t a hotel room, was fantastic, and meant we could start to explore properly. Katie and I did nearly lock ourselves out on Katie’s first night in France, but it was OK, we got back in without having to climb through a window so with hindsight I can laugh at it. Wasn’t so funny at the time, I thought I was going to have to call the French police to explain that I had locked myself out of my new house, then explain to my landlady that I had smashed a window on my first night. Not that I knew the French police number, or had even taken a mobile phone with me for that matter. Note to self: MOBILE phone.

We have all even managed, somehow, to get ourselves French bank accounts. Now I’ll just remind you that my knowledge of the French language consists of “merci”, “bonjour”, “au revoir”, the back of wine labels and an AS Level presentation on immigration in France. None of the above, not even a French AS Level, can help you in getting a bank account. Except maybe “merci”, always helps to be polite. Wonder of wonders, however, we did it. A very helpful (and slow speaking) bank manager at Société Générale helped us through it all, and she even went into her lunch.

This was the most miraculous thing to me. As anyone who has ever been to the country will know, France closes at lunchtime. Without fail, for at least two hours, you will be able to find nothing to do in France except eat and drink. Personally, I am a big fan of this. I think it is the most civilised thing in the world. When you try to explain to a Frenchman that in England, we work from 9 to 5, normally with one 30-45 minute break, in shifts so we eat on our own (often at our desk), he will look either perplexed or highly offended by the idea. Granted, this is in my terrible Franglais, so he could just have misunderstood. But on this one, I think we Brits have it wrong. OK, so a longer lunch break means they have longer days. But a long lunch means there is a 2 hour pause in every day to socialise, relax, enjoy food. It must mean a happier working environment. Work is not life: work fits around life, and I think that is a fantastic thing.

I have to say, though, that the food is worth stopping for. Not only the food itself, but it is great to sit down to a meal in any restaurant, cafe, bistro, and to see the French attitude towards their food. They LOVE it. Katie, Georgie and I went for lunch in a little restaurant by the central metro station, and we happened to be sat at a table next to a mother and her two very young daughters. Mum was sat there with a glass of red wine, and the two girls on their own seats. When their food arrived, the two girls were sharing a huge, adult sized plate of sausage and chips. And they polished it off, this whole plate between them! At other times we have seen big groups of work colleagues sat at long tables outside, all having a beer or glass of wine. I went to a creperie with my parents when they visited in my first week, and we sat next to a table of 4 elderly ladies, who managed to have 2 big bottles of cider between them and 3 courses each. They were there when we arrived and left well after us, I’m sure. Food is a love affair, a hugely social event, and everything is good quality. Even the 2€ baguettes (which are HUGE by the way) that we get from the cafes by the university are delicious. There are no classes between 12.30pm and 2.30pm, so all the staff and students are around eating together. I love my food too, and so I feel like France and I have something in common.

On the food front, I am doing well. We are leading a very social life and lots of it seems to revolve around food and drink. Katie, Georgie and I sit down together every dinner time and most lunches, and have had some excellent meals. Chicken curry, creamy courgette lasagne, filo pastry tarts... The Americans, who are all brilliant and from the most random places, came round to our house and cooked us tacos, and that was really fun. Sarah, Christine, Colleen, Brian, Jeremiah, Lauren (a Canadian). Jeremiah made his “wondrous” cakes that he has been bigging up for weeks – they were very delicious chocolate fondants, but he must have spent an absolute fortune on them! We also had dinner with the Italians, Virginia, Matthieu and Maurizio, and they made us spaghetti carbonara. Laila also made us an amazing salmon tagine. Every meal comes with fresh bread from the boulangerie and a big green salad and a cheese plate. Oh, and a good bottle of red. Today was Rosalind’s birthday, so some of us went for a French breakfast at 9.30am, despite the pouring rain and it being a Sunday, and then they came to ours for an English roast dinner! I have even made a Victoria sponge (a little bit of England), peshwari naans (from scratch) and today made a tarte au chocolat, pastry and all. My mother would be proud. The three of us in our house have started a tradition of walking to the patisserie every morning to get a selection of pastries. Katie puts on the coffee, we put out the orange juice and jam and yoghurts, and I have to say it’s all very civilised and a fantastic start to the mornings! We also have a tradition of going once a week to the most wonderful patisserie/boulangerie, Paul. I am addicted to the éclair au chocolat. I hope the French would be proud. I personally think I should get extra credits for really immersing myself in the French culture. Honestly, it’s better than a language course.

So there is a little (!) idea of my French lifestyle. All those nerves have disappeared now that I’m here and I’m having an amazing time, and it is such a great experience to be immersing yourself totally into a new culture. I realise it sounds like a lot of eating and drinking. But next instalment, I will update you on university life, the Braderie, the weekend patrimoine and attempting to buy things at the Wazemmes market every Sunday... Very cultured and educational, I promise. And shorter.