Week 2: Time flies when you're having fun!

What a jam-packed week! From going to class, to more exploring the city, to getting lost in the wonders and crowds of the braderie on Saturday and Sunday, these past six or seven days have been one wild whirlwind.

In between going to class and going to sleep, I did manage to explore the the city a little more. Some of my exploring consisted of getting lost on the way to the grocery store or the Grand'Place, but I'm slowly getting used to the city and the different ways to get to places. It is a very different experience for me, having to get around everywhere on foot in an unfamiliar city with lots of narrow streets with names that change all the time. compared to what I'm used to, which is driving around Waukesha or walking around a more navigable De Pere, having to follow an actual paper map (because I can't get internet on my phone barely at all, even with (sketchy) wifi in my dorm) is a new and often frustrating experience, especially when I'm on a schedule. Hopefully with time and practice (and maybe once I actually get internet on my phone), I'll be able to actually walk somewhere in the time Google says I will. :)

The Grand'Place in Lille. If I can find my way here, I can find my way home. Source here.

Registration for classes on Thursday was a stressful and intense process. Unfortunately at my school (Lille Catholic University), there is no opportunity to register online for classes, and so all the international students crowded into a few different rooms to look at time tables and sign up. I had my pre-semester class starting at 8:00am and then registration at 9:00am, so there was a little bit of a time crunch. Thankfully I had already mapped out in advance at least most of what I would need, along with some extra courses if times conflicted. With some incompatible times preventing me from taking courses I wanted, I managed to squeeze into a schedule that will hopefully work out for all the credit I need. I still have to send my courses to the registrar at SNC to see if everything will work out, so I'm crossing my fingers that I can get credit for all the requirements I need.

My pre-semester intensive French course finished on Friday, which was a relief. It was a great class, and I'm definitely glad to have taken it before the placement test for my French class for the semester, but seven hours of French per day can get really exhausting (even with a two-hour lunch break in between!). After seven days of class work and a couple of grades, I had an oral presentation and then the final exam on Friday. The class was a great experience; I ended up meeting ten other international students, and I got a good revision of at least a few topics in French after not having taken French for an entire year. It was good to finally end the week full of work.

Finally, there was the Grande Braderie de Lille starting on Saturday with a half-marathon and 10K race, and ending low-key on Sunday evening. The word braderie comes from the verb brader, which means to sell something for cheap, so the braderie is basically a huge market (and garage sale). There's not only plenty of vendors on every street, but also people bring items down from their attics to sell on their little bit of sidewalk, restaurants put out tents to have more seating available, there's plenty of alcohol to go around (mojitos seem to be very popular here), and there are even plenty of amusement park-type rides and such in the Citadel park, which is not too far from the city center. I did end up buying a few scarves, a nice top or two, a rug, a big soup mug with spoon for 1€, and of course some souvenirs for family and friends.

A couple of my new friends were crazy enough to run the 10K even though they weren't officially signed up, and they actually finished in just over an hour! Congrats Rob and Walker!

Some of my spoils from the braderie: a few scarves and a nice rug. It was definitely an experience to remember!

The traditional dish in Lille is called moles frites, which means mussels and fries. I did get to try some, and they weren't too bad. Part of the tradition is that each restaurant collects the shells from the mussels and makes a gigantic pile on the street, and whichever restaurant has the biggest pile at the end of the night gets bragging rights for the year. This is one such pile outside one of the restaurants in the heart of the city.

The braderie in Lille is the biggest event of its kind in Europe, with over 100 kilometers of vendors and shops participating, and it sure was packed with people; more than a few times, my friends and I got stuck in a sea of people that was not moving. This was definitely the most people I have ever been around at one time in my entire life - what a crowd!

A shot of the sea of people. There were a few times when we couldn't move at all through the crowd!

After having a late FaceTime with my family the previous night and a full day at the braderie, I was exhausted, and so Saturday night was an early night, followed by sleeping in on Sunday morning. (I will make it to Mass one of these days...) Sunday consisted of a relatively short walk through the braderie to get to lunch in the city center, and then playing soccer in a local park and then ping long later on with friends.

The highlight of this week was definitely the braderie. It was a long day full of walking in endless crowds of people, but it was an amazing cultural experience, and I did end up getting some souvenirs and items I wanted. After going to class all week, which meant not being able to get errands like grocery shopping done during normal business hours, it was nice to be able to buy just about anything I wanted and to get out and experience the culture at the braderie. The week on the whole was another week of getting used to life in Lille, and I'm learning more as I go along - not just about French culture (and grammar), but also about how to live life independently.

One of the greatest things I'm hoping to gain from studying abroad (besides a lot of life experience in general) is the ability to be independent and face the world on my own, and from where I stand it looks like I'm gradually on my way there. As I confront more problems and overcome more obstacles, I'm becoming more confident as a young adult preparing to face real life (whatever that might mean) in a couple years. Here's hoping (and praying!) for the best in that endeavor. On that note, I have lots more little challenges to triumph over just waiting for me in the next few days to come, so I'm off to it. Classes start tomorrow and I have many more errands to run in the next few days (which include getting a French SIM card for my phone), so I should have some interesting news in a few days. Have a great week, and I'll write again on Sunday!