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