Blogs from Lille, Nord-Pas de Calais, France, Europe

Right so I have not 'blogged' (is that a verb?!) before but due to crushing boredness and a stubborn refusal to tidy the mess that is my bedroom I thought I'd give it a go. What I'd like to write about today is the casual sexism that is still so apparent not only in England, but in the rest of Europe. I am a student at university, and recently went to Lille, France with a housemate. What we encountered there was quite astounding. As young women, and myself as a blonde and extremely pale, green-eyed lady, we are quite used to attention abroad. In Portugal and Spain I've experienced a lot of unwanted comments and looks- due to my skin and hair. But in France it was so much worse. I've been to France several times ... read more

Today was the day we went to Lille, we decided to go out a little later than planned, because of the late night before. We left home at 10am, and had the idea of being in Lille at 2pm, but obviously many many cars decided they had to go to Lille today, so we got stuck in a traffic jam, the clock hands began to irritate me, when we were creeping closer to 2pm without being even close. when we finally arrived in Lille, we had to find the hotel. The only thing i remembered what something "Grand Palais" which we found easily, but turned out to be a huge center, but not a hotel. After looking it up, we found it and we had to rush to get dressed and ready, because this night was ... read more

Today our extremely brief journey through Germany comes to an end as we head for France, our final European destination and where the adventure began nearly four months ago. Germany put on a perfect day for our departure. Perhaps this was a special message inviting us back in the not too distant future. Once again we resorted to our friendly GPS unit to guide us through what seemed to be a very complicated network of roads. We were surprised to see the name Eindhoven appear as a destination but who are we to argue with such an intelligent force as Miss GPS. We have become accustomed to seeing wind turbines on our drive through Germany, but today the sight of a coal fired power station belching smoke into the atmosphere was not pleasant at all. Soon ... read more

Pour leur première épreuve, nos deux héros devaient être en mesure de survivre pendant 6 jours sans chauffage ni eau chaude, commodités prises beaucoup trop pour acquises de nos jours. Ayant surmontés cette première étape sans trop de difficulté, nos deux protagonistes passaient à la deuxième épreuve : l’administration scolaire communément appelée la maison des fous dont personne n’est jamais ressorti saint d’esprit. Trouver les horaires des cours, faire un choix parmi ceux-ci, s’assurer qu’ils n’entrent pas en conflit, s’inscrire officiellement, remplacer les cours qui ont été entre temps annulés, faire approuver leur choix de cours par l’UQAM, faire faire sa carte étudiante, s’inscrire aux activités sportives… toutes ces choses qui auraient, dans la réalité québécoise, prises au maximum un avant-midi, les aurons occupés pendant au moins de... read more

I hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving and ate lots of turkey and sweet potatoes for me. There wasn't even a hint of the holiday here, so it was a bit sad. Life here in Douai is far from exciting, but I suppose I can scrape together an update for you guys. School has been going okay, I guess, when I actually have classes to go to. I only have about eleven hours of class a week, and they keep getting cancelled for various reasons (teacher strikes, bike safety classes, storytellers, etc). It's often quite frustrating. The students are only required to have two forty-five minute classes a week (but obviously that's not even happening), and homework is never assigned. Not many people around here speak English, so it's not like their parents can help them, ... read more