Okay, so here I go again. This time I’m going to write it in Word and paste it into LJ so LJ can’t eat it like it did last time. Bear with me. Since I didn’t get my blog up the other day, this is going to be a long one.
So, I’ve been here almost a week now. This time last week I was hustling to get everything into my brother’s car to head to the airport. My two brothers, my sister, and my mother took me to the airport. It was definitely a bittersweet experience. My family was being as crazy as usual and had me laughing most of the way. My sister and mother were cutting up in the back seat, and my brother Elijah was saying “All right. I’m turning this car around now.” Lol…
We got to the airport, and my luggage was overweight—both of them. Word to the wise: take 25-inch bags if you pack compact. Even if you’re taking stuff that isn’t all that heavy, if you fill a 29-inch suitcase (even without the extenders being used), it WILL be overweight. We ended up having to move some of the stuff from one back into another so as only to have one overweight bag.
I got checked in, and I exchanged some money at a travel agency in the airport. My mother had to get a picture of the “French money” (the Euro), but my mother was taking pictures of everything, as usual. I haven’t seen those pics yet, so I guess I need to get her to email them to me. She took more pictures when we said goodbye, I cried, my sister cried, and there were hugs all around.
I had not been through security since before 9/11, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. It was actually very simple. All I had to take out of my bag was my computer, and I put everything else through the scanner and walked through.
The first flight I took was United Express from Nashville to Washington, Dulles. I was on a Canadair. I was lucky to be on the left side of the plane, which is only one seat. I did need an extender, but at least I didn’t have to worry about having anyone next to me. I was worried about the planes, honestly, since I’ve gained weight. It turned out not to be an issue, since the second flight was a Boeing 777, and I neither needed an extender on it nor had anyone next to me the whole flight. I got pretty lucky in that respect. Still, sleeping on the plane proved to be next to impossible, so I was only able to doze a little and was dead tired when I arrived. One of the things that struck me as we arrived, though, was how green everything we were flying over was.
Customs was pretty simple. I didn’t even have to answer any questions. They looked at my passport, stamped it, and I went through. The luggage carrousel was a madhouse, but thanks to the pretty second-hand scarf I had cut in half and tied around the handles of each, I had not trouble spotting mine.
Sébastien picked me up at the airport, and we went to his place. He fixed me lunch, and I spent much of the next 18 hours sleeping off the jet lag. He drove me to Lille the next day. He did most of the talking, so that made checking in a lot easier. I think if I had had to come straight to Lille from the plane and handle check-in all by myself, I might have been a little stressed and maybe even been a little hesitant to venture back out again. As it was, I was able to get up the nerve to go ahead and head to the grocery for a few things before they closed that day.
The grocery was a Lidl. I don’t think we have those in the U.S., but we may. The shopping experience there was much like an Aldi, for those of you who have been to Aldi in the U.S. My card didn’t work there, but I had cash, so it was okay. I’m going to have to keep a little more cash on me than I’m used to because some stores have scanners that you slide the card into the bottom, and the American cards don’t work in them. They also don’t work in the phone booths. Many places have alternate scanners as well, but I’m trying to keep cash on hand just in case.
The next day I went back to Lidl for a few more things then went out again, and this time I walked from my dorm all the way to Fives. The metro stop is there, so I was glad to know where that was, as was the post office and a variety of little shops and restaurants. I got a thing of photo I.D.s made and bought a Cosmo, then headed back to the dorm. I had planned to buy a pre-paid cell phone, but I couldn’t find one, and I had wanted a télécarte as well, but couldn’t determine which one I needed. I stopped at another little store along the way back and got some kitchen utensils.
I went back to Fives that afternoon, after looking at the public phones in the lobby and seeing a recommendation on them to get télécartes at the post office. I went to the post office and managed to find both the phone card and a pre-paid cell phone there. I came back, got the cell phone set up, and was then able to get my internet connection set up.
That evening I met some other American students that I had been in touch with through Facebook before arriving as well as a student from Manchester, England. We talked for quite a while. I was relieved to find out I wasn’t the only one nervous about my level of French.
The next day I and the other two American students, Kevin and Christa, went down to Fives again. We did some looking around and a little shopping. We found some discount stores and passed more restaurants. Later that day we took the Metro (first time on a subway for me) to the city center and went to a bookstore there, where I was able to get a French dictionary (I had left ALL of my French books behind) and some maps. Later, we went to leclerc, which is a little like a super Wal-Mart but on a very small scale and with more grocery than other stuff.
Friday we went back to the center of town to meet Kevin’s friend Cécile and her boyfriend. She was really nice. They had their dog with them, who was adorable. We all went to eat at a restaurant called Les 3 Brasseurs. The food was good. We walked around the downtown area for a while then went back to Cécile’s boyfriend’s place for a while and munched on cookies while making plans for the next day.
Yesterday the Braderie began. La Braderie is a huge flea market that stretches over pretty much the entire downtown area of Lille. Some of the local shops have sales at the same time. I bought a few things from vendors at the Braderie and a few light, cropped sweaters at Tati—a large discount clothing store. We walked around for a very long time, taking in all the sights and stopping here and there. We ate burgers at one of the stands, and we walked some more. After we’d had our fill of shopping for the day, we wanted to go back to the dorm, but one of the metro lines was down. We had to walk around for quite a while to find one that was open that we wouldn’t have to go through the crush at the very center of town again to get to (I do, quite literally, mean “crush” as we got crammed through rather than walked). We finally managed to find one, and by the time we returned to the dorm, none of us wanted to go back out again.
Okay, so that’s the description of events, but I guess I should describe my impressions as well, so that is what I’ll wrap up with. First, the people in Lille and the surrounding area have been very nice so far—very nice and very patient. My French is far from perfect, but I’m managing to get along okay and to get the things I need. Shopping was an interesting experience as you must bring your own bags or buy them—they are not supplied. I’m having my mother ship my reusable bags to me.
Milk and eggs are sold on the shelves (though I knew that before arriving), and the milk tastes a little different. Hamburger patties taste different as well, and I can’t say I cared for the one in my sandwich yesterday, though the bread it was in was good. They have these things they sell at some places called “Americains”, and we were all wondering what those were. We asked yesterday, and it’s a sandwich with the fries ON it. I have no idea why they call those Americans, as I’ve never had anything like that in America, but I’m sure we call plenty of things by country names that have little resemblance to those countries.
Chocolate and cheese seem to be food groups in themselves. The cheese isle at the grocery is the size of an entire dairy isle at home, Quik is sold in boxes the size you would get at Sam’s Club, and half of the cereals have chocolate in them. I bought a box of cereal that was chocolate shavings and bran cereal. (Quite good, actually.)
I had read that the French love dogs and that the evidence was everywhere. It is. Watch your step.
What else? It’s very beautiful here, and the people are nice (I know I said that, but it’s worth saying again). I’m still getting the hang of the language, but I think I’m going to be fine.
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