bienvenue à lille!

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so i've been here less than a week and so far i love it. i've just been hanging out and making friends and exploring lille. my room is becoming more and more personalized, i've started to the decorate the walls. oh, if you think of it...send me more pictures to put on my walls! address is:

Caitlin Hoffmann B407
Résidence Universitaire "Robespierre"
1 Rue Lavoisier, Mons en Baroeul 59370
France

my intensive french classes start tomorrow and go until friday. 9am to 1pm. im a little nervous, but mostly just excited. there's this really neat thing at my school called the international café. and its this guy who arranges a bunch of school trips and activities so that the international students at the school can integrate with the french students. it's way cool. i'm going to paris on sept. 27th for a day trip, should be fun.

let's see....what else can i write about. i'm starting to really get used to living here. i'm spending a lot of money though because the school hasn't given me my stipend for room and board yet, so i've been paying that with my own money. and also there are the necessities you need to buy at first like toilet paper (they don't have any in the bathrooms!!) and a cell phone, and internet, a few pots and pans. but hopefully i'll be spending a lot less soon. i love my little room i have, it's on the fourth floor which is a lot of stairs especially since in france the 1st foor is really the second, so it's 5 flights of stairs, but its good because i haven't discovered some place i can go running yet. my room has two little hot plates and a fridge so i can make my own food. it's quite comfortable, except my bed is so tiny!

the nearest metro stop (fives) is about 15 minute walk from my residence and then from there it's only like 5 minutes to le centre ville. which is absolutely gorgeous. and the weather has been surprisingly nice (considering the fact that it's supposed to be raining all the time here).

hmmm...im not too sure what else i can say.........so for now i'll leave it at this. i've added some pictures of what the city and my room look like.

à bientôt

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Photos

lille!
this is the view of the city as soon as you step out of gare lille flandres, the largest metro stop in lille.

la grande place
this is like the timesquare of lille. i haven't spent a lot of time in it actually, but i hear they decorate it nicely right around christmas

encore
again la grande place

big ben of lille
near la grande place

ma chambre!
this is the view as soon as you step into the room. there's a wardrobe thingy just to the right where i can keep all my clothes!

my kitchenette
my tiny space for cooking and preparing food. it's really nice though, underneath is a fridge.

lavabo
my own personal sink for washing my face and brushing my teeth before bed. it's pretty cool

my desk
it's pretty bare so far, but it's nice. i put a big map of lille above so that i can know where im going if i take the metro.

my bed!
by far my favorite thing in my entire room. my shelf has things that remind me of home and whenever i sit in bed i can look of the window and look at my pictures. the bed itself? not so comfortable, but with cuddles on it it's 5x better.

view
this is the view from my room. it's a big window which is nice. it happens to be a gorgeous day outside today, but i know i shouldn't get used to it.