[In order to make this somewhat massive update more digestible I’ve split it up into two parts. This is the first part.]
So…I’ve been here over a month and half and I have completely neglected this blog. Sorry? In my defense, for three of those weeks I didn’t really have a computer and/or internet access, but for the others…eh, no excuses. I will argue though, that you should be grateful that I didn’t update right away, at least. All the posts would have been stuff like how I opened a French bank account all by myself in a foreign language and how incredibly exciting that is. In fact, it’s not exciting at all. But it seemed super exciting at the time. Anyways, here’s the some-what short version of what I’ve been up to since I got here:
For those of you who may have forgotten/never knew at all, I’m living in a town of around 25,000 people about 15-20min by train outside of Lille (pop. 200,000), which is in the far north of France. I’m literally a stone’s throw away from Belgium. In fact, just today, when one of the teachers I’m working with was giving me a ride home after school, we stopped by Belgium on the way so he could pick up a pack of cigarettes. No joke. They’re cheaper Belgium. Who knew?
As a side note, if you want to know more about the north of France (and by that I mean French stereotypes about the north of their country), check out the film Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis.
As for my ‘home’, I live in a dormitory at a high school. Yep, that’s right, at a high school. I’ve got a single to myself and I share a “kitchen” with the other seven foreign language assistants living here. The assistants live in two short hallways away from student rooms (thank goodness) and each hallway has a shower room and a toilet room. The “kitchen” in located in a converted single in my hallway that has had the bed and desk replaced with several wooden chairs, two tables, a fridge (no freezer), and a microwave. With the aid of personal purchases and loans from teachers we have now outfitted the kitchen with a coffee maker, an espresso maker (this is France, espresso is a necessity), a toaster, and a water heater. Très luxe, right?
The internat (dorm) is quite cheap, and we’re also able to eat most of our meals during the week very cheaply at the high school’s cafeteria, but the living situation has it’s own share of problems. Simply stated, there’s been quite a bit of bad communication between the administration of the high school and us (the assistants), which has made living here more stressful and complicated than anticipated. I could complain for a very long time, but I’ll just skip over all that...
Moving on to happier thoughts, the other assistants here have been wonderful and have added a dimension to this experience that I really wasn’t expecting. There are three other American assistants: a fellow from Michigan, a girl from North Carolina, and another girl from Illinois. There are also two girls from Argentina and two girls from Germany. So I haven’t only been learning about France, but also a bit about Argentina and Germany, too! From what I’ve seen/heard at the English language assistant orientations, it’s sort of unusual for the assistants of different languages to be hanging out so much, so I’m really happy that that is not the case for us.
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