La Sécu

Hey yall,

Today has been quite the eventful day.

First I got up, ran, and then went to visit my second school, école Victor Hugo. This one is right outside of Lille in Lambersart, but it's only one metro stop from my other school, so it's not bad at all. The school is beautiful and super French. It doesn't look anything like the other school. I unfortunately didn't take any pictures, but will for sure take some next week. The director was extremely nice, but very chatty. He took me to about 5 or 6 classes and introduced me to the kids, which was pretty fun. I never thought I'd be intimidated by twenty 7-year old kids, but it definitely happened.

He finalized my schedule with my other schools, and I'm working full days on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. Primary schools don't have classes on Wednesdays, and they gave me Fridays off! I'm pretty excited about that. It should be a really good work schedule.

I came back from that and then went to the bank with Emily to drop off our lease. Then we went to enroll in Sécurité Sociale Française (or la Sécu)! Socialism for the win. We were expecting that to take a really long time, but it really only took 10 minutes once we got into the office. I had pictured it to be something like what an immigration office would be like in the US, but there was only one other person in there besides us. So facile. I'm supposed to get my new social security number and card by Tuesday in the mail. Can't wait. Although hopefully I won't be needing it too much this year.

Last night we knocked on the door of the girls that live below us just to say hey. We were a bit worried that this was a super American thing to do (saying howdy neighbor), and that they wouldn't like it, but they were super nice. We talked to them about wifi and we're going to split wifi for the two apartments, so everyone gets to save money. They're both actually 21 and in Master's programs here in Lille. We really liked them and they even invited us to dinner tonight! At least that's what we think happened. It was unclear as to whether or not we'd be eating at their apartment or going out. So many things get lost in translation here, it's not even funny. Just kidding, it's actually hilarious. Regardless, we're looking forward to whatever this evening/dinner entails.

Speaking of things getting lost in translation. We went to a touristy shop today, and I bought a couple things, and when I was checking out, the cashier asked me something, and I thought he had asked me if I wanted to buy any "cartes postales" (postcards). I thought about it for a sec, and then decided against it, saying "ummm, non merci". He looked at me really funny, which I just attributed to him really wanting to sell me some postcards. We left the store, and I commented to Emily about how weird that was and she cleared up the confusion. Apparently, he had asked for my "code postale" (zip code), and I   had simply responded, "ummm, non merci". Oh life.

Anyways, I hope all is well at home.

Miss yall.

Luv,
Sarah

legit

Hey y'all.

This is about to be a rather long post. I won't be offended if you don't read everything.

So the last time I left off, I was going to the kayaking club at school. Oh goodness, the children are a bit wild. I was completely at celeb status though. As soon as Sarah told them I was an American and would be in their class until April/May, everyone wanted to chat me up. One student asked Sarah how to say "bonjour" in English and then came up to me and said "HALLO!" Super precious. I ended up not kayaking, because apparently you get really wet and I was very unprepared for that. Anyways, it was fun watching the kids. They seemed to really enjoy it. They did it at the kayak club of Lille which was about a ten minute walk from the school. There were a ton of school groups out there. Very neat.

I've gotten into a running routine and found a really great place to run. My watch works now so I can track my mileage. It feels good to be out running again. Plus, unlike in Paris, no one looks at me funny when they see me out running. That's definitely a perk of living in a college town. There was a race there yesterday that I stood and took creepy pictures of. 

Yesterday (Wednesday), Emily and I were fretting because the money wire was taking so long to go through for our apartment and we really didn't know what to do. Our only option was to wait, which we obviously hated doing. Anyways, at about 3pm yesterday, we got an email from the agency saying that the money had gone through and that we could come sign the lease at 5:30! So so exciting. We made our way over to the agency, had some down time and so we drank a celebratory coffee. I took an artsy picture. Just call me Ansel.

The signing of the lease was quite the ordeal. I've never signed a lease in the US, so I didn't have anything to compare it to, but it was definitely interesting. It was just me, Emily and the notary of the agency and he went through all the terms of the contract and we signed about 20 papers. He was really nice and spoke slow just to make sure we knew all the terms, which we both really appreciated. It was funny, apparently in France, when signing a lease, it's required by law that the company informs you of all possible natural disasters that could occur. Apparently there's a very small risk that it could flood. They also had to inform us that there's some type of factory, I didn't catch what kind, outside of Lille, and there's always the risk of explosion. Fortunately, we're not in the explosion radius, so we'd be safe, but they had to inform us anyways. The notary said the French want to have a plan for anything that could possibly ever happen. He even told us how our area measured on the seismic scale. Pretty interesting. All in all, we're safe. There won't be any issues. Just protocol.

So, we signed the lease and we are all set! We have keys and everything. We're going to move in later this afternoon. I took some pictures earlier today.

This is the front door. There are three locks on the door, so it seems almost impossible that someone could break in. I don't hate it.

We live on the 3rd floor. There are two college kids that live below us. Our landlord says that they're "très sérieuses", so that's good. No wild kids in the apartment.

These are the doors going into our apartment.

Here's the view of the doors from the inside. Really pretty. Apparently she had them repainted this summer. They look really nice.

Here's a picture of the kitchen with our little table and two chairs.

More kitchen

The bathroom/shower comes off of the kitchen. There's a shower to the right that you can't see in the picture.

Here's Emily's room. Very purple.

Here's the living room. A bit sparse, but it'll be fine. 

Here's my bedroom. Smaller than Emily's, but I like it because I can see out onto the street.

This is a 19th century armoire in my room. 

Here's the view from my bedroom window.

On a side note, last night we went to see a band that was playing near where we're staying. They're called "Chapel Hill". Apparently they're from North Carolina and are doing a French tour. Emily saw this advertisement in the newspaper so we decided to go.

I'd never heard of them, so I don't think they're very famous. It was pretty neat though. It was just two men. One on guitar and the other on drums/bass guitar. Pretty entertaining. Plus it was free, and you know I'm all about free things. There were about ten of us at the concert. Fortunately it was a small venue so it wasn't awkward. We were for sure the only Americans there. The other people there seemed to love it though. 

Anyways, I'm going to my other school tomorrow. Ecole Victor Hugo. Will report back. 

Luv,
Sarah

Active day

Hey y'all.

So yesterday was a good day. We met our landlord who was super friendly, albeit extremely chatty - I didn't think we'd ever get away. Phew. She seems a tad OCD, and she took us through the whole apartment, showing us every single piece of furniture, lighting fixture, armoire, etc. It was called an "État des lieux", a paper that details the state of the apartment, although I assume she went into much more detail than most landlords. The apartment is beautiful though. It's part of a house built in the 1870s! Super neat, and a lot of the furniture is really old.

Emily and I decided who's going to be in which room. I picked the smaller room on the street and she has the one facing the courtyard. As soon as the wire goes through, we'll get our keys. Just waiting on that. Hopefully that'll happen tomorrow at the latest. Emily's mom left yesterday, so she's crashing at Sarah's with me. Sarah's so great and accommodating, I really think we'll be good friends.

Also, for the record, it is COLD here. Yesterday was really windy and rainy and I just about froze. Eek. This quick café was much needed.

 So this morning, I got up and went for my first run in Lille! I got lost, but fortunately carried a map with me. I was eventually able to get over to La Citadelle which is the remains of an old fortification of the city. It's really neat and there were a ton of runners and walkers out at 8am, so that was comforting. My watch froze so I don't know the distance. I'll get it working asap. Hopefully that'll be my new running spot.

There's a half marathon in Brussels on October 7 that I'm DYING to go run - 14 euro train ticket one way! I don't have anywhere to stay, so if you know if anyone living in Brussels, please please please let me know. I want to knock that one off of my bucket list - international half marathon, which is right before international marathon.

Sarah invited me to go supervise the kayaking club at school today. There's a canal next to the school and apparently the club goes kayaking out there every Tuesday. This will for sure be an adventure. I'm currently googling kayaking vocabulary. Oh boy.

Luv,
Sarah

School visit

So the highlight of Saturday was that I got to go visit one of my schools. Ecole Desbordes Valmore. It's the one Sarah works at, so she went over there with me. The commute was about 15-20 minutes. Probably a ten minute metro ride and a five minute walk from there. Not bad at all. The neighborhood is good, but nothing special. The school, however, is so pretty.

There are 15 classrooms and about 300 students. Sarah said it's considered to be a really big school. I also got to meet one of the other French English teachers, Virginie, who invited us back to her apartment for lunch. She was super friendly and she and her boyfriend cooked lunch for us. They were really nice and wanted to practice their English, so we spoke in English. Apparently, it's very French to put honey on chèvre (goat cheese), so they got me to try that and it was actually pretty good. We also had some kind of sweet potato purée which was delicious.

Virginie was performing in the center of the city with her Brazilian drum group and invited me to go watch. I was a little unsure as to what it was going to be like, but it was actually really cool. They did it in one of the big squares in the center of Lille and tons of people stood and watched them. They were sponsored by a local music store, so after the show in the square, they did a smaller show in front of the store. Virginie is the blonde in the middle.

For dinner, Sarah and I went to the bar next door, where her good friend, the owner, was making couscous. He apparently does it once a month for free and feeds anyone who's there. He's Algerian so he for real knows how to make couscous, and it was absolutely delicious. I hadn't had couscous since I visited Laura in Morocco. So great.

I'm really ready to be in our apartment. I'm excited to be able to cook my own food and to be able to get into a routine. Hopefully we'll be in on wednesday at the latest! 

No real plans for today. There's a market outside so I'll probably go walk around that for a bit.

Luv,

Sarah 

So much good.

Hey y'all.

Today has been an extremely stressful day, but it's really been a great day.

Another picture of Lille for your viewing pleasure. Just check out those Lillois. How fun is that? People from Lille are called Lillois. So I'm Sarah the Lilloise (pronounced leel-waaaaz.) And while we're talking about pronunciation, when I'm at places like the bank, rental agency, phone store, etc, I've noticed that I've started pronouncing my name differently so they'll have a better chance of spelling it correctly. I normally go with something like Son-tair. I'm embarrassed.

Things I accomplished today
1. Opened a French bank account.
2. Bought a sim card for my sweet French flip phone. Y'all don't even know.
3. Got my luggage.
4. FOUND A HOME.

First things first, opening a French bank account was super facile. Took about 20 minutes. Not stressful at all. The sim card was super easy as well.

So we went to the  agency that had the apartment we really wanted and here is the best news I've had in some time: As soon as our rent money is wired to their account, they'll give us the keys! So theoretically, we could be moving in on Tuesday or Wednesday! SO SO excited to have a home. I was dreading finding/paying for/living in a hotel room for three weeks, just so I could move my luggage AGAIN. We paid our deposit and agency fee, so it seems like we're all set. Cannot wait to move in and actually get into a semi-routine. Here's a street view:

This afternoon I walked to the post office about 1/2 a mile from my house to pick up my luggage. They had tried to deliver it the day before but neither of us were here. So I went to get it and then take it back to Sarah's apartment. The lady at the post office brought my suitcase out from the back, and oddly enough, they had wrapped it in plastic. So I got to wheel this puppy down a major street in Lille. That was fun.

I for sure blended in with the locals. But guess who now has a coat and more than one sweater to wear. Me.

Also on the list of great things I did today - got to talk on the phone with my dad. Made my day. First verbal communication I've had with the fam since I've been here.

Walked around a little tonight and found a cathedral. Pretty cool. I'm sure I'll go back and go inside sometime.

Here's a picture I took tonight of Vieux Lille, the older part of the city. It's so neat and full of small little cobblestone streets. I'll take better pictures soon with something other than my iphone.

Well, it's 10:10pm here on a Friday night. Still can't shake my exhaustion. Time for sleep.

Luv,
Sarah

Homeless in Lille

So today I got up and met Emily and her mom in the center of Lille to go visit an apartment. They're both really nice and chill, so I think it'll really work out. We went and it was in a great location and seemed really nice, it just wasn't furnished. The rent was low enough that it'd be ok to purchase some furniture for it. It was pretty small, had a back bedroom, and then a mezzanine type bedroom over the living room area. So we headed back to the hotel to start getting the paperwork together for the application. We were frantically gathering about 7 different documents each, because we'd been told that they were showing the apartment to someone else this afternoon. We filled out everything we could and sent all the paperwork in, but haven't heard back.

This afternoon, we received an email from an agency that Emily had spoken with earlier in the week and they said that we could go visit another apartment. This apartment was absolutely incredible. It was huge and beautiful. The architecture and the decor were both so French. It's completely furnished and located right next to a lycée (high school), so it's a pretty calm street. It was much less studio-esque than the first, in that it had two really big separate bedrooms, a kitchen, bathroom, and living room. We really liked it, but the only problem is, the lady said that we can't move in until the 13th of October. So really, what are we supposed to do for the next three and a half weeks? We're going again to the agency tomorrow to talk to them some more and beg for them to let us in earlier. It's such a great apartment in a really young and lively area. Very tough to turn down.

I got to explore Lille some more today and really like it. It has a lot of Flemish influences and reminds me a lot of Belgium.

The center of the older part of the city is really pretty. Here's a shot.

There's also a really pretty tower that I'll have to go back and check out.

I'm meeting Emily and her mom tomorrow morning so I can go open a French bank account and then we'll go to the agency to talk about this last apartment.

I haven't done so well with food since I've been here. For lunch, I had a tartiflette which was described as a cheese and potato gratin. Sounds delish, right? Well, they forgot to write the part about the jambon, so there was ham all up in that tartiflette. Fortunately, I could pick around it. More strugs. Dinner wasn't bad though. I had a hot chèvre salad, which was actually pretty good. I tried a beer because apparently that's even more popular than wine in this region. I went for the Leffe, which is a light beer from Belgium. Not too bad. I'd get it again.

Took a picture of this sign for all of my Bethune family members. Representin' in Lille.

Well, it's 9:45 and I am exhausted. Time for sleep.

Luv,
Sarah

Murphy's Law

"Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."

I think it's safe to say that just about everything that could've possibly gone wrong, did go wrong.

1. Flight from RDU to JFK delayed because of weather, so I was going to miss my flight from JFK to Paris.
2. Rebooked my flight from JFK to Paris to a later time so I'd still be able to make it.
3. Turns out, the huge storm in NY would've probably delayed my flight even more, so I was advised to change my flight and instead go from RDU to London to Paris.
4. Plane made weird noises as we were leaving Raleigh, so we went back to the gate for 45 minutes while they checked it out.
5. Made it to London with 35 minutes to get to my connecting flight to Paris.
6. I literally sprinted through the airport, along with 4 other people who I'd been with since RDU trying to get to Paris.
7. I made it, just as they were closing the gate.
8. My suitcase didn't.
9. While en route to Paris, I spilled creamer on the British man in a suit sitting next to me. Awkward.
10. Got to Paris, was told I should wait for an hour until my bag could come in on the next flight. Aight. So I walked to the train station to buy my train ticket during my downtime.
11. Walked back, and my bags still weren't there.
12. They said they'd ship my bag, but then I realized I didn't know an address for them to get the bag to me. British Airways woman took pity on me and called the girl I was going to be staying with and got her address.
13. Walked back to catch my train.
14. Saw my train and then heard in French "the train for Lille Europe is now leaving, doors closing."
15. Sprinted. Missed my train.
16. Waited an hour and a half, got on the train, and got to Lille.

Oh. my. goodness. What a rough day. Thank goodness that journey is over. Such a pain.

However, thank goodness I've traveled by myself a lot and so I was able to handle the adversity a little better. Don't get me wrong though, when I saw that train leaving, I just stood there in shock and contemplated curling up in a ball. But I didn't.

That being said, every single person I came in contact with today while my stress levels were through the roof was really nice to me. The person leading the sprinting cavalcade to our connection in London, the British Airways baggage lady, and the train station man who exchanged my train ticket (an hour after I'd bought the first train ticket from him...and then missed the train.) Things could've definitely been a lot worse. And hey, I was terrified about having to get on the train with my two suitcases by myself...guess British Airways solved that problem for me.

Anyways, the girl I'm staying with, Sarah, met me at the train station and brought me back to her apt. Rode the metro and everything. Aww yeah. She let me take a nap because I think she could tell I just wanted to curl into a ball. Napped for three hours. Oops. So about 7:30pm, we walked to the grocery store and she did some grocery shopping while I just sort of followed her around. Then we stopped at a bar next to her apartment to grab a drink with a few of her friends. They were all so nice and super friendly. Lille was playing someone in soccer so we sat and watched that. We left at halftime when Lille was down 3-0..womp womp womp. All of her friends were pretty sad that Lille was down so much. Fanhood. I respect that.

Now we're back at her apartment. I had bought a sandwich at the grocery store for dinner that I thought was tomato mozzarella. Turns out, it was ham with tomato and mozzarella. Totally misread that one. #vegetarianstrugs

Tomorrow morning I'm meeting up with Emily and her mom so we can go look at some apartments. I'm looking forward to getting out and seeing more of the city. I'll take pictures and put some up as soon as I can.

First impressions of Lille:
1. Very small metro. Only two lines.
2. So many young people.
3. Everyone is dressed so casual.
4. People are so friendly.

Basically, this ain't Paris, y'all.


Luv,
Sarah

A jet plane and a big idea

Hi everyone!

It is finally September 18 and I am leaving for France. It's so weird that it's finally here and that I'm actually leaving. For the past 5 months, September has seemed so far off and now I can't believe it's time to go. My parents threw me the sweetest surprise going away dinner on Sunday night and I got to say goodbye to all of my best friends once last time. I loved it. Stephen, Boots, David, Lindsey, and CC all spent the weekend at home so I got to hang out with them one last time.

A little over three years ago, I spent 7 weeks in the Loire Valley in Tours, France. Two years ago, I spent 3 1/2 months in Paris. My trips seem to keep getting longer and longer. I'm contracted from October 1 to April 30 in Lille, where I will be an English teaching assistant in two primary schools - Ecole Victor Hugo and Ecole Desbordes Valmore. I'm currently sitting at RDU waiting on my flight to JFK, where I'll catch a connecting flight to Paris. I should be arriving in Paris at about 1am North Carolina time. From Paris, I'll take a train to Lille. I haven't bought a train ticket yet, but there are trains to Lille at least every half hour, so I'm not worried.

Where am I going to live? I haven't the slightest clue. I do know that I'm going to be living with Emily, another assistant who will be working in the Lille area, but other than that, I really don't know. She and her mom have been in Lille for a couple days now and have been on the apartment search, but haven't found anything yet. We don't start working until October 1, so we have plenty of time to figure things out.

Lille is in the département Nord (North), which you can see in red on the map above. I'm leaving the South to go to the North. Too funny. I'll be about as far north as you can go in France, so about 45 minutes from Paris, an hour and some change from London, and about an hour from Brussels. It's a really great location, so hopefully I can scrounge up enough money on my ETA salary to do some traveling. Regardless, I'll be living in France, so I think that's definitely cool enough for now.

Here's a map so you can see Lille in relation to all the other countries around it. It's realllllly close to the Belgian border. My roommate's school is outside of Lille on the western side and is about a 10 minute walk from the Belgian border. Legit.

For the first few days or so while I'm in Lille, I'll be staying with one of the teachers at my school. She's the English teacher I'll be working with the most. She's super friendly and was so nice to offer to let me stay with her. Now I'm not just arriving in this big city that I've never been to before, by myself, and then walking to a hotel to stay...by myself. This definitely made me and my parents feel a lot better.

I think the weather is going to be a little colder in Lille than we're used to here in North Carolina, but apparently it rains, A LOT. No worries, I packed my rainboots. And don't worry, they're not obnoxious. Don't get me wrong. I love obnoxious rainboots, but I also love not getting immediately judged as "the foreigner." However, the weather looks nice for the next week. Here's a shot from my iphone weather app. Not too shabby. I'm ready for some fall weather sans rain.

Anyways, this is just a brief intro to my life for the next 8-9 months. I'm sure it'll be frustrating at times, but I'm really excited about everything. I'll keep y'all posted, but I hope you'll keep me posted on everything going on in y'all's lives.

"Since life is short and the world is wide, the sooner you start exploring it, the better."

Miss and love you all.

Sarah

P.S. I'll be back to the US for Christmas break on December 22.