On Monday, there was a nice informal welcome event for all
the residents of my dorm. It turns out that there are two main RAs (or responsables de residence, as they’re
called in French), and then four or so other people who are in charge of other
specific things in the residence, such as entertainment, equipment, and events.
So everyone gathered in the breakfast room to hear a talk from the main RA, and
then there was free food to go around (so that people would actually come, of
course). We even talked about the end of the semester concert, where anyone who
plays an instrument or sings gets together and puts on a concert for the rest
of the residence (I volunteered to sing!). It was good to see at least a few
more of the 90 people living in my residence, and it was a nice event. Of
course, after that, I had to go get the washing machine unlocked and my laundry
out… Life goes on.
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| A bunch of us in the breakfast room sharing in the free food after hearing the talk from the RAs. |
“Franglish” was the name of the game on Tuesday night! I had
a couple of classes during the day, and then in the evening, at a pub that’s
about 5 minutes walking distance from my residence, there was a French-English
exchange event called Franglish, which occurs weekly. The event was like speed
dating in the format – one-on-one conversations, moving tables every few
minutes – except that the focus of the event wasn’t dating, but getting to
speak in English and French. So, we had seven minutes to talk in French and
then seven minutes to talk in English, and then onto the next person. I met
around five people in total, and we talked about everything from French and
American stereotypes to how to get around Paris and good places to eat in
Belgium. It ended up being a really cool event, and I want to take some friends
with me to future events!
Wednesday and Thursday ended up being pretty low-key… I got
everything in for the October 1st deadline for study abroad applications on
Wednesday, so I should be all set to go to Spain next semester, at least for
this first part. Next comes getting my Spanish visa from the consulate in
Paris… woohoo! Both days, I had classes (Thursday is a heavy class day for me),
but I got to hang out with friends and talk about traveling and make plans in
between, so I ended up getting through alright. (For the record, I still
absolutely love my French class that ends at 7pm on Thursday nights!)
My free day was Friday, no classes, and so I ran for just
over 7km in the morning (longest distance yet!) and got a little bit of
homework done (and enjoyed the actually functioning wifi in my residence). I
also stopped in at school to meet up with some friends, and while I had wifi, I
tried again to order my French SIM card – and it actually worked this time! So
now I’m getting it in the mail by next Friday! J Then, in the
afternoon, I met up with my friend Corrinne and had some lovely coffee in a
Notting Hill Café (that’s apparently the Starbucks of Lille), and we sat down
and discussed travel plans. We discovered that neither of us had much planned
for the semester, and so we started a great discussion on where we want to
travel during the semester. On the top of the list are the Amalfi Coast and
Cinque Terre in Italy, and Montpellier in southern France, where we both have
friends studying abroad through the University of Minnesota. (What a small
world!) Then, and the most important part of the day, we booked train tickets
to Bruges and Ghent in Belgium for Sunday!
On Saturday I had my Teaching French as a Foreign Language
class in the morning, which was not ideal, but at least interesting enough to
keep me awake (yes I actually did get to class on a Saturday morning, haha).
After class, one of the French girls in my class was nice enough to get lunch
with me and explain what I hadn’t quite understood from another literature
class that she’s in as well, and we had a really nice time outside on the lawn.
Then, on Saturday night, I went to a birthday party for Susie, a friend of mine
who is Canadian but whose parents are Czech and Slovak, and we partied the
night away and had an amazing time! (And it was my first time in a club –
really fun!)
Sunday was the biggest day of the week in terms of travel –
I went to Bruges and Ghent on a day trip with Corrinne, and it was marvelous!
Since I had stayed up quite late on Saturday night, it was difficult to roll
out of bed to get ready and catch a 9am train on Sunday morning, but I managed
to get to a Paul café right by the Grand’Place by 8:10am, and then after each
of us had had our small “breakfasts” of a double espresso and huge Speculoos
macaroon, we got on the train and headed to Bruges.
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| A great way to start off the day - in a Paul café. :) |
One of the first things that I noticed about Belgium aside
from the sights of Bruges was that everything was in Dutch instead of French,
and I thought that was interesting because I had been used to seeing everything
in French, or at least being able to get around with French. This was the first
experience I had in a while where I was out of my element in terms of language.
After we arrived in Bruges, we decided to follow the water, so that we could
try to take a boat tour of the city. We navigated our way around the main
square and found lunch before too long at an amazing place called Lizzie’s
Waffels. If you ever have a chance, I would highly recommend going there, as
their waffles are extra-large but really light and delicious! To top off our
experience in Bruges, we got some frozen yogurt in delicious flavors
afterwards, and then we made our way back to the train station to get to Ghent.
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| First moment in Bruges! What a charming place it was already turning out to be. |
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| In the main square in Bruges. These buildings are all so magnificently historic! |
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| THE BEST WAFFLE I HAVE EVER HAD IN MY LIFE. So good!! |
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| Frozen yogurt in Bruges (and our last stop before leaving): After Eight (mint chocolate) and Macaroon. Yummy! |
We didn’t realize how much time it would take us to get back
to the train station, and we made a wrong turn, and so we missed our original
2pm train, but we just hopped on the next one and everything went well. When we
got to Ghent, we knew that the first thing we wanted to do was take a boat
tour, so we navigated our way toward the water and found the place to get on
the boat, thanks to Corrinne’s excellent navigation instincts. J
The tour guide on the boat was friendly and funny, and we learned lots of
interesting things during the tour about the culture and history of Ghent.
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| Gravensteen castle, as seen from the boat. Impressive! |
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| An angel warning us to take care of the earth (hence the gas mask). |
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| Ghent's replica of London's famous Big Ben, aptly named Little Ben. |
One of the coolest parts of this trip was meeting another
person who is actually from Wisconsin! We got talking with a girl on the boat
tour who had an American accent, and when we proceeded to ask her where she
came from, we found out that she actually comes from a town not too far from my
hometown of Waukesha – Pewaukee!
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| It's so nice to meet another Wisconsinite and Packer fan! |
After we said our goodbyes to our new friend, we looked for
different things to do in Ghent, which of course included trying to find some
good Belgian chocolate to take back to Lille. Normally in France and Belgium
not many stores are even open on Sundays, but apparently this weekend there was
a special shopping event where more stores than normal stayed open until 10pm
on Sunday – which meant that Corrinne and I got to do some shopping! After we
made our purchases, we grabbed a quick dinner at EXKi, a nice (but not too
expensive) organic restaurant, and then we made our way to the train station to
grab three different trains home. All in all, it was a great day – and we
certainly did our fair share of walking!
All in all, this week has been pretty cool. Classes went
pretty well, I’ve been traveling a little bit already, and it’s been really fun
hanging out with friends and even making some new ones. I’ve been talking about
future travel plans with friends, and of course I’ve been getting excited to go
to Disney next weekend! I will also be staying in Paris for Saturday night, and
meeting Corrinne and making our way around Paris for the day – Eiffel Tower,
here we come! J
I can’t wait to see Paris for the first time. Until next week – à bientôt!
P.S. Check out the rest of my pictures from Belgium on Facebook!
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