Une Période d'Ajustement

Our first week here has been a period of adjustment. Adjusting to the culture, the food, the language and most of all the time change. The first couple nights here we didn't fall asleep until well after 1am, and then slept until at least 2 in the afternoon. It was rough, but I think we have finally moved past that part of the trip. Everything is now going very smooth. That was not the case for our first weekend here. One advantage we had was that our English hosts had a wedding to attend back in Ireland or Scotland so we had the house to ourselves. It sounds better than it actually was since I have just now gotten over the worst sickness I have had in at least a year. I guess we both saw it coming, and I blame it entirely on this little old American lady coughing her lungs out right behind us in the customs line once we entered Paris. It was Paris so of course the line was incredibly long, and we were waiting about an hour before we actually got let into the country (I hope they put her in quarantine). The entire time she did not stop coughing, and did she cover her mouth? OF COURSE NOT!!! So for the last 3 days we both have had sore throats, and I got a fever for 2 days. It was awful, especially having to subdue the excitement of being in a new city to stay in bed, drink hot tea and try to recover. Thankfully the R&R worked and we're both feeling much better as of today.

Ok, I just had to get that off my chest. Since we were all by ourselves we decided to improvise our own French living. By that I mean we went to the store and bought the most French groceries we could find to eat. As you can see it included a Baguette, paté, some cheese, Orangina and red wine. This has been more or less our dinner for the last couple nights. Simple but delicious, nothing compared to what my father has been cooking these past 3 weeks but still good, and French.

.

Saturday and Sunday, as I said, were spent mostly resting, but we did find a little time to go out and explore our area a little more. By Sunday my fever had broke, and the sun was shining so we went for an afternoon stroll. (Afternoon because we couldn't wake up before 1pm) Apparently when I compared our village (Wasquehal) to Skokie it was because we had only walked down the street to the right of our house. Sunday we ventured out left, and after only one block the homes disappeared and there was nothing to see for kilometers other than farmland. I guess a more accurate comparison would be Batavia. After a couple kilometers of walking we came upon a little village that finally started to resemble a French country town. It was very nice, and we would have liked to stop for a café but could not. Why? Because it was Sunday, and not a single establishment in the entire country is open on Sunday's.

.

Since we had walked so far we were not exactly sure the correct route to get back home so we just picked a direction we knew was generally towards the Centre-Ville. After 20min or so we emerged back onto the Grand Boulevarde which runs from the center of Lille all the way out into the country possibly to Roubaix or farther. However, on this day the street was blocked off and was lined on both sides by French families. Apparently Sunday was the 100 year anniversaire of the Grand Boulevarde, and they were celebrating with a parade. The procession consisted of cars and vespas/motorcycles dating from 1909-2009 (but the youngest car we saw was a '69 Barracuda convertible.) We walked the rest of the way back to the house down the Boulevarde stopping occasionally to wave back at the passing motorists.

.

Yesterday we did a little culinary exploration of Lille. Starting with croissants at a little patisserie près de la gare, and culminated with a meal of steak-frites at un petite brasserie on a little rue just off the Place de Thêatre in the Centre-Ville de Lille. Surprisingly the only places that are open on Monday's are cafés and restaurants. Everything else, shops, marchés etc... are closed. So Monday was not too eventful, but still fun.

.

Today we decided to take the tram into the center of Lille, then trust my cartography skills to walk to the school I will be working at, Lycée Baggio, in the southern quarter of Lille. Everything started off normal until we reached the main station Gare Lille-Flandres. The Transpole agents decided today would be the day they checked, individually, every one's billet to make sure you not only purchased one, but also composter'd your ticket. (Composter means to validate) So I walk up to the guy, hand him my ticket and start to walk past when all of a sudden he stops me and says: "excusé-moi, c'est pour le 28th." Apparently I had accidentally given him my ticket from the day before. I reached back into my pocket, found another ticket, gave it to him and...got the same response. After pulling everything out of my pockets and trying 3 different tickets I finally found the one that I had bought today and he let me pass. Lesson learned: throw away your tickets from previous days or potentially risk a 200euro fine.

.

Anyway...we began our journey to Baggio by stopping back by the Tunisian restaurant we ate at our first day in the city to get another kebab. The owners were incredibly nice, the kebab was delicious and when they found out we were Americans their response: "Oh American! hooray Obama!" We loved that! Other than that, and telling Kathryn she was beautiful, I think it was the only English they spoke, but it was a great start to our trek. Once we were sufficiently stuffed we began walking south. Now, reading a map has never been my forté. Maybe it's because the last map I tried to navigate was written completely in Greek, but on this trip, without getting lost once, we arrived at Lycée Baggio after only 45min or so.

.

The pictures here do not really do the school justice, and I do not mean that in a good way. First of all it's big, really big, with multiple campus' and buildings all enclosed in a security gate/6ft. high cement wall accessible through very sporadic openings monitored by guards. The school rests right between the elevated metro line on one side, and the freeway on the opposite. The closest I could compare it to while standing in the "yard" outside the main building would be Shawshank Federal Penitentiary from The Shawshank Redemption.

.

After sweet-talking the guard at the front to let us on the grounds, and then explaining to the lady working at the help desk that I was soon to be working there as an English assistant; she directed us towards a large building at the rear (or possibly the front) of the complex. From what we picked up from her very fast French was that we were supposed to go in one of the doors and up to the premiere étage (which a combined 16 years of French classes taught us was the 2nd floor), and there we would find the English department. To get there we had to go a half block towards the freeway, down some stairs and across the street, through a dark hallway and across the "courtyard" (large, asphalt, parking-lot looking area) and finally into the main building. However, even though we followed the lady's instructions to a "T" we ended up in a largely unmarked hallway peeking into different classrooms, some with students some without. I'm guessing the vacant rooms were supposed to have students in them, but the kids were probably dressed up like skanky prostitutes (the boys as well) parading, singing and dancing around in the center of Lille (Oh, did I forget to mention the protest/demonstration we saw today/everyday since we arrived?)

.

So we were never able to actually meet any of the English professors at Baggio, but I do have a much better idea of the layout of the school for my first day on Oct. 1. After we left the school our plan was to take the metro back to Lille, and get on the train to go back to Wasquehal. Unfortunately the ticket machine was broken. Even though a very nice Lilloisian woman tried to help us, and called the attendant to get things fixed (no one ever answered her call...c'est français) we were unable to buy a ticket, and were forced to walk back. It was a gorgeous day, and we still had the kebab's sitting heavy on our stomach's so we weren't complaining. Once back in the Centre-Ville we stopped at a little café, for a little pick-me-up before taking the tram back home.

.

We really accomplished a lot these last couple days, but did so in a very relaxed manner. We both enjoy the laid back atmosphere and attitude of the French, and are looking forward to beginning our terms as English Assistants in the Lille school system. I start on October 1st and Kathryn starts October 7th. The next couple days will be filled with opening up a bank account and trying to fill out all the necessary paperwork to get social security, health care and an advance on our first paycheck. C'est la vie.

.

Caio,

.

Jor and Kathryn

Nous Sommes Arrivées

WE HAVE ARRIVED!!!

We got in yesterday and everything went pretty smooth. The only problem we had was trying to figure out how to buy a TGV ticket to get from the airport to Lille. We asked about 3-4 people, and got a couple different answers. Finally we asked the information desk in English (the other attempts were made in French and that didn't work out so well) and we were able to find it. Apparently we needed to take the airport shuttle to Terminal 2. All the French answers just said goto Terminal 2 and there wasnt really any indication anywhere that we needed to take a shuttle. The long flight from Chicago to Dublin went by pretty quick and they had movies and tv shows and things in each individual seat to help pass the time. The only problem was they left the cabin lights on for the entire flight so I wasn't able to sleep. Kathryn brought a sleep-mask so she passed out easy (also we were in the middle row and the plane wasn't full so we had the whole row to our selves. After we finally bought our train tickets we called Fiona who is the English lady that is letting us stay with her. She is very very nice, as is the rest of her family (she has 5 kids, all but 2 of them are grown up so we only met her youngest son(16) and daughter(19))

She picked us up from the train and took us back to the house which was only a short drive from the center of Lille. The place is amazing, it looks like a 19th century stone home, and we have our own room relatively separate from the rest of the house. Last night we were really tired, but I dragged Kathryn out for a little walk around the neighborhood which is actually named Wasquehal. It does not resemble the 1066 old time France I expected. It's more of a suburb, and aside from the houses there is a huge shopping mall and some restaurants, but it more resembles Skokie or Downers Grove more than what you picture France. Luckily the tram is only about a 2 block walk from the house (it is a little confusing when you get into downtown Lille because there is a tram, metro and TGV/SNCF, and they are all in the same place so it's important to read all the signs.)

Last night we went to a restaurant called Amarine which was just a short walk down the street, for a quick bite to eat. Kathryn wasn't hungry so I talked her into getting a soupe de poisson so I could try it, and I got the moulles-frites in a garlic cream sauce. The mussels were amazing and the sauce was typical french, tons of butter and cream. The soupe was pretty forgettable. (or memorable if only to avoid it next time.) After dinner we walked back to the house and went to sleep. Even though it was only 9pm here we had been up for over 24hours so we crashed hard. Both of us were pretty wide awake at 6am but with the help of a Tylonol PM we got back to sleep, and it worked because the next time we woke up it was 2pm.

Today was so much fun. After finally getting up and ready to go we walked to the tram and took it to the Centre Ville de Lille. It only took about 15-20min to get to the main train station Lille/Flandres. First we just walked around to check out some of the different squares, and shops and buildings. Lille itself IS what you would picture a city established in 1066, with huge decorated facades on the buildings, and grand squares that are all connected by large walk-ways with very little room for cars. After a little bit of wandering we found the main square which is the Grand Place; it was very beautiful and, of course, had a student protest going on. The demonstration wasn't huge, but the students were all wearing their bathing suites ( French bananna hammoks/tight boy-shorts) and had their faces painted blue so they looked like smurfs. We couldn't tell what they were protesting but at one point all the guys got up on this statue in the middle of the square, and turned around and mooned everyone watching. It was very odd.

Next we found a little cafe and got an espresso and just sat and people watched for a while. Next we wandered some more and I got a croissant which was delicious and we went and ate it in this big square that we later realized was right in front of the Musee des Beaux Arts. It was already kind of late so we decided to save that for another date but at least we know where it is now. Then we tried to find our way back to the train station, and on the way stopped at a little Tunisian restaurant and got a Kabab which again was delicious. The place was around the corner from the train stations but we ended up circling the block twice then got lost in a big mall before we finally found our tram home. So now we're just back in our room relaxing and Joe (Fiona's son) is cooking up some dinner. It is really beautiful in the city and we both decided that even though it is so great living here with this amazing family we want the experience of living downtown so we can go get a cafe and croissant in the morning, and just hang out in the squares whenever we want. So we will probably be here for a month or so while we try and find our own place. So that was our first full day here.

Tomorrow we plan on trying to find the Bettinay apartment place Kathryn had contacted before and see if we can get on a waiting list or something to secure a room. Also we were thinking of trying to set up a bank account and finding our schools to take a little tour or at least find the quickest/easiest route to get there.

À Bientot,

Jor