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Published: October 4th 2009
our belfry
and look, blue sky! Well, I've been in my new French hometown for a week now. I am proud citizen of Douai, which is located in the département du Nord in the northernmost region in France, Nord-Pas-de-Calais (the French really love to divide things into lots of categories!). There are about 43,000 people here, and it's roughly one hour from Paris by TGV (high-speed train) and about 25 minutes from Lille.
I was a bit concerned about moving here after spending a week in Paris. I would excitedly tell people I was moving to Douai, and they'd make a terrible face and say something like "oh, you're SO unlucky" or "why ever would you want to go there?!" They said it was cold, ugly, rainy, the people were poor and uneducated, there was nothing to do there, I was going to hate it, etc. etc. Aude said she'd call me every month to see how many toes I had lost due to the cold. I started dreading going "en province" (a term that designates anything outside of Paris).
Well, it turns out that Parisians are wrong (and snobby). I'm only an hour north of their beautiful City of Lights...so the weather is not
Place d'Armes
our lovely town centre! that drastically different. Maybe a few degrees cooler with a bit more rain. Yes, my room is freezing cold, but that's because the school waits until the last minute to turn on the heat, and the nights are quite cold. If you're out walking around, the weather is just fine, and it's only cloudy about 80% of the time (so basically, it has the same weather as Pittsburgh).
As for ugly? Hardly. Douai has lots of character, and we have one of the most impressive belfries in the region. Take that, Eiffel Tower! The style of architecture is definitely different from places further south in France, and it feels a bit more like Germany, in my opinion. There is a nice square in the middle of town, and you can almost always see the belfry (which plays music every fifteen minutes). Oh, and we have a canal! La Scarpe (the name of the river) runs right past my window, and you can go for nice walks along it, and there are flowers and sculptures decorating it. And we have our very own family of giants! For the past few hundred years, they've brought out giants and paraded them through
the town once a year. I'm not quite sure why this is, but I'll get back to you when I figure it out.
As for the people, well, they are so nice! Everyone talks to us, asks about why we're here, and the employees in the post office, train station, and stores are so nice and helpful (which almost never happens in Paris). They seem genuinely surprised that we would be way up here in their small, unimportant town (my Lonely Planet guide doesn't even mention it), but once we explain what we're doing and that we actually like it here, they couldn't be happier. I can also tell that the socio-economic status is a bit different here than in Paris, but we can't all wear Versace and Dolce & Gabbana, now can we? I much prefer the simpler, more down-to-earth life here. Don't get me wrong, though, I still can't afford any of the clothing or shoes here...France is ridiculously expensive!
One thing the Parisians did get right is that there's not much to do here. Everything pretty much closes at 8pm (as well as closing from 12-2pm for lunch), and the town is deserted on weekend
Place d'Armes
with a view of our belfry nights. And forget about Sundays...everything's closed! We've gotten to know many of the students living in residence here with us by taking part in the local evening social scene: drinking coffee in someone's dorm room. Not terribly exciting, but at least we're getting to know people. We have friends from France, Romania, Morocco, India, and Turkey, so we have some interesting cultural exchanges. Also, I am going to the town activity centre tomorrow to see about yoga and scrapbooking classes, organized trips, and hopefully we can figure out a schedule to go swimming here.
And who is this "we" I keep talking about? I like to call us the anglo-gang. We are all English assistants living in the residence halls of the Ecole des Mines. There are two Americans (me and Katie, from Seattle), two Brits (Ellie from Surrey, and Lucy from Derby), a Canadian (Sarah from Toronto), and our lone boy, Brian from Dublin. It's an interesting assortment of accents and habits, but it works. We've been having tea every afternoon, and we have lots of cultural discussions. I think we'll all end up going home speaking an amalgamation of English. I've already noticed a difference in things
tourist office
apparently people other than us come to visit Douai I say and how I write emails.
Since we're all in the same boat, we've been helping each other through the difficult parts, like lack of internet and excessive paper work. You'd think I'm moving to France permanently from all the bureaucracy they are throwing at me. We have to submit paperwork to Immigration and Integration, Social Security, banks, phone companies, etc. We have to have medical visits, validate visas, sign our life and first born children away just to get an ATM card, and wait for days on end to get wireless internet. I think we've got most of it under control, for now at least.
Today was a giant braderie (flea market/rummage sale), which we were quite excited about. Turns out it was just a bunch of junk. I bought a duvet cover for my bed, but the size bed we are sleeping on is apparently only used by children, so my cover has pandas all over it. I contemplated the Very Important Princesse one for an instant, but I think the pandas are an overall better choice. Brian and I got some posters to make our walls seem a little less bare, and we ate
some delicious street food while vendors tried to sell us all sorts of scarves, CDs, and children's clothing.
So, yes, I'm waaay up north, but I quite like it. There is always someone to hang out with, and if I get really desperate, I can walk to McDonald's and get a mocha frappuccino and pretend I'm back home. There's also a huge movie theatre where we saw Le Petit Nicolas, but it also show lots of movies in English. Lucy and I can't wait to go see the new Twilight movie (I think dubbing it in French can only make it better, haha).
Tomorrow I'm sort of (not really) starting my job. I'm just observing classes for two weeks, so I guess I'm really just hanging out at school tomorrow afternoon. I might actually start teaching by February, haha.
Bisous!
Also, I will take more photos and post them soon. I haven't really had time to play photographer while waiting in line at Sécurité Sociale, etc.
Upcoming events:
10/10-10/11: trip out of Douai, probably St.-Quentin and/or Amiens
10/17: trip to Koln, Germany with the engineering students
10/24: Israel!
11/13-11/15:
trip to Switzerland with Elizabeth
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Karin
non-member comment
Your photos are beautiful. It certainly doesn't look like the West Virginia of France. Lucky for you. I was going to send you the soundtrack from Deliverance.