"FOREIGN" COUNTRY?

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I have a million things to say about my trip to Italy. I’ll start, though, by an observation not ABOUT Italy, but rather, provoked BY Italy. I’ve just spent a week in a foreign country. I know little about Italian history, politics, and culture. I know how to greet, compliment, and insult someone in Italian, as well as ask a few basic questions, mainly thanks to my limited Spanish, movies and songs, and my newfound ability to make a fool of myself when it comes to speaking a language and not care. This said, I am lost most of the time when natives are speaking Italian amongst themselves. I have learned to pick apart the (beautiful) cadence of the sentences enough to hear most of the individual words… it’s just that I don’t KNOW the individual words.

I have told you all this to tell you something very important that I have realized: I do not live in a foreign country. True, I do not live in the country marked on my passport, and true, the language that I speak now in grocery stores and restaurants and social situations is not my native language. However, Lille, France, is my HOME. I am not LIVING ABROAD; I am living in France. The French language is not a foreign language that I have studied, but a second language that I speak. I am able to pass for French through my speech and social/cultural behavior. I now get (admittedly limited) cultural and political references, idiomatic expressions, slang. I am able to interpret and produce French humor, whether light-hearted or dripping with irony. I have learned the inflection patterns for all ranges tones and undertones. Plays on words are no longer automatically over my head, though clearly I do not catch them all.

Now I find it normal that businesses are closed for two hours for lunch every day as well as being closed all day Sunday and sometimes even Monday. I would think it strange to buy my bread where I buy my meat or my meat where I buy coffee and garbage bags. I do not think twice when I see cars parked on sidewalks. Dogs in restaurants do not faze me.

And Lille… Lille is not where I am staying. Lille is where I live, and it has become in part where I am FROM. I know its streets and buildings and businesses by heart. I am used to the friendliness of people from the Nord, and I can now understand some of the Ch’ti patois - hell, I have even picked of the Lille accent. Names of things and places are now loaded with emotions and memories and associations.

You say Gambetta? I see the overcrowded street with loitering young people and discount shops and papers stewn here and there on the street and my friend Carly’s house.

You say Rue de Paris? I see the Place de la Vieille Bourse (my favorite building in Lille), where it begins. I see the proud little road leading straight south, past the four-star Hermitage Gantois Hotel, past the little pizza shop that opened last spring that I frequented with MC, past the oh-so-Flemish mairie (City Hall) with its tall belfry adding yet another set of vertical lines to its architecture, to the Porte de Paris, one of several remaining gates from when Lille was a fortified city. I see the park Jean-Baptiste Lebas encased in a tall, elegant red fence. I think “home” from last year, when my apartment gave me that wonderful park as a view from my bedroom window.

You say Roubaix? I think Anatole France, my main school. I think shopping and the metro and a lower-income population. I think to avoid the metro Epeule-Montesquieu at night.

You say Citadel? I think of the countless hours I’ve spent walking there on warm days, stopping to lie in the grass whenever I felt like it. I see dogs playing and Frisbees being thrown and strollers being pushed. I see walkers and runners and bikers and couples and kids.

You say Solférino? I think of its nickname, Rue de la Soif (“Road of Thirst”). I wonder how many gallons of delectable Belgian beer I have consumed at Scotland Fire, which has since been renamed O’Scotland. I blurrily remember drinking, laughing, singing, dancing, walking home. I see Le Queen and Scotland Fire and think of MC and James, respectively.

You say Lille Flandres and I see the regal, symmetrical, yet simple façade and the 16 platforms hidden behind it. I think L’Express, home to the best fries in Lille, and Café Euphrate, home to the best galette in Lille (white sauce on the galette, Andalouse sauce for the fries, Schweppes Agrumes to drink). A little further is Résidence Béthanie, the place I called home for five-and-some months when I first arrived in Lille.

You say Vieux Lille? Here we go: the teeny, ancient alleys off Rue de la Monnaie that are filled with artists painting while people pass around them, crowding local jewelers and artists who are selling their crafts on overfilled tables on Saturday afternoons… everything from bracelets made of spoons to locally-made potjeveelsch (a regional specialty - jellied meat) to sketches of Lille to hand-crafted mini-sculptures. I see myself standing at the beginning of Avenue du Peuple Belge, my back to the Australian Bar, and absorbing one of my favorite views of Lille. A lush, green space stretches out about 50 feet, separating the two lanes of cobblestone road. Just after the far lane, a beautiful building of stones dyed in blacks, deep reds, and mustard yellows, in the same style as the Vieille Bourse. The building contains a few boutiques and a patio. To the right of the patio, another green space. To the right of that, the Hospice Comptesse. Formerly a hospice, it is now a museum devoted to regional art, history, and artifacts. The building provides a stark contrast to the spring green grass surrounding it. It is BRIGHT orange with black accents and a white wall surrounding part of it. Coming back to the middle, beyond the green space, across Rue de la Monnaie, and beyond the row of shops on its far side, an old, dingy, gray cathedral rises. Above all that (if you’re lucky), the sun lights up a brilliant blue sky, adding yet another color into the mix.

Turning my back on this view, straight ahead (if slightly to the right) lies the Rue de Gand. A humble, one-way cobblestone street, Rue de Gand is home to several of my “favorites.” First, there is Soficcino, my favorite little café. I discovered it last year because they offer free WiFi. The first time I entered, I knew it suited me. First, they offer a wide array of coffee drinks - mochas, cappuccinos, and much more - which is perfect for me, since I LOVE coffee but usually need the sugar/cream/something extra. Second, the music was mainly jazz/blues/big band from the 20s/30s/40s/50s. Most importantly, there is an upstairs, where you would find me… seated up on a tall chair at a counter overlooking Rue de la Monnaie. Also located on Rue de Gand is my favorite pizza place in Lille, Verre Y Table (a play on words - sounds like the French word “veritable” - and on language, being a mix of French and Spanish). I always get the one they pour flaming Calvados liqueur onto. Mmm. HUGE pizzas that, to look at, you couldn’t imagine finishing, but they are so good and so thin and so light while still being rich that you end up finishing it, no problem. Finally, Rue de Gand is home to my favorite bar, Coming Out. Owned and run by good friends of mine, a man and a woman who have been friends nearly their entire lives, you’ll find a great mix of people here… male and female, old and young, straight and not, preppy and hippie, Lille natives and visitors… a little of everyone. My favorite thing about this bar is its ambiance. It is very much “Come As You Are.” Differences are celebrated as easily as common points, and Virginie and Alain, the owners, create a warm and welcoming environment. It is easy to tell that they love their job, as they go about making cocktails and conversation with smiles and engaging eyes. They go out of their way to make everyone feel welcome, even if the person is only passing through. I now go there not just to have a drink, but to hang out. It is a great place.

…I got a little sidetracked. The point is, there is nothing “foreign” to me about France; Lille is my hometown.

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