Lunch Break = Exploring Between Classes

Mercredi
2 Juillet

First full day of classes!! I got up at 7 to Skype the fambam before they went to bed and before I went to get breakfast.*coughgooddaughterpointscough* We had croissants and tea/coffee/ hot cocoa for breakfast which is provided every weekday morning. Score! Dad's prediction of a France 15 might be correct.

I felt so official catching the bus to campus and being all spiffy. This mornings class was much easier than the one at 1:30 pm. The oh so appropriately named Project Management class is pretty much learning how to manage people to get something productive done without hurting anyone's feelings. Sounds like project management non? We made up a fake project, designated positions (You're lookin' at the professional project manager for a fake music festival!), and had a mock meeting in front of the class. Boom easy. Also, the professor is a homie and showed us where the instant espresso vending machine was. Yeah. Instant. Espresso. Vending Machine. For 50 euro cents we all got ourselves a little cup of cafe au lait avec sucre. We had just found our Starbucks replacement.

Between classes, a couple of us went exploring the parts of Lille near campus. We saw tons of cute shops, some a little questionable, but otherwise picture-worthy.

One of the main streets we were walking down

We found a Patisserie! We drooled for a couple minutes before deciding what to get.

Some more treats from the Patesserie

They have jalebis in France!!! I didn't try one, but there is still time.

I took a while to decide what I wanted. Can you blame me?

The meeeeeat! The owner was a hoot and tolerated me attempting to translate for Josh.

I thoroughly enjoyed my tarte (glazed fig included) at a local park where some guys were playing soccer.

After classes were done I went shopping by myself to get groceries and to look around. I loved reading all of the labels aloud while trying to remember what they meant, or tried to figure out what they were. I got a couple of confused looks from other shoppers, but nothing too out of the ordinary. I definitely got into a mesmerized groove of it until I started saying things like "taquitos" and "chow mein". Turns out, there are "International Aisles" in France. This is precisely where all the Hawai'ians stocked up on rice. However, I stocked up on some classic Twinings Jasmine tea. Typical Rianna nighttime tea.

Université Catholique de Lille - The Early Days

Mardi
1 Juillet

I woke up at 8 am in complete darkness thinking I had woken up way too early. Little did I realize that I had pulled my curtains shut the night before and when I did draw them,  it was bright enough to make me think that I had missed the whole morning. Here in Lille, the sun rises a little before 6 am and a little after 10 pm. I absolutely love the extra daylight for exploring. Since I'm only here for 4 weeks, I'll take all the time I can get, and today we spent it at school.

Everyone in the program is split into 3 dorms. Our dorm is the farthest away from campus so we all had to take a 10-15 minute bus ride to meet up with everyone else for the welcome orientation at Université Catholique de Lille (Yes, Lille Catholic University. See French isn't so hard).

The main building of Lille Catholic University

When we got there we were seated in a large lecture hall with more room to move around than an American college lecture hall. The ESP team introduced themselves and what we were getting ourselves into. They were all so loving, funny and especially welcoming. Some were from France who spoke English and some were from America who spoke French. Although my favorite was a lady who reminded me of a sassy McGonagall who insisted that she was "British, not English". She told us the stats: 140 kids in the program, 20 different countries and a handful of people to help up out along the way. I've already met people from Iran, Malaysia, Taiwan, China, Australia, Hawai'i, Italy, Argentina and Spain. The lust for travel and knowledge definitely brings people together.

From there, we went on a campus tour to see where our classes would be and where the main buildings are. Honestly, if I were to walk past the gorgeous main building I wouldn't know it was a university. Most of the buildings are spread out between streets and next to sandwich shops. I even mistook our engineering building for an office building.

Across the street from the school

After the tour we each got an envelope with our meal pass, student ID, and purple bus card. It was a little overwhelming having a bus card and knowing that I could go anywhere in the dense, knotted and confusing streets of Lille. Luckily, I only need one bus to go from school to the dorms and back. Bus 12 is my best friend. I'll tackle the other routes eventually. This feeling of being overwhelmed and excited is so addicting, much like traveling. It's probably an addiction to feeding the mind, which doesn't sound so bad.

We then went over to our first class of the program called Current Practices in Renewable Energy. We were all so stoked and ready to learn something new, and learn we did. We soon remembered that sometimes engineering is tough, and to get to the good stuff, you've gotta get through the rough stuff. One of our teachers for this class read over slides about graphs and figures of energy use worldwide, a review on thermodynamics, and criteria for our project for 3 hours. Definitely not all sunshine and daisies. However, we perked up a bit when he told us that we would be taking field trips to see renewable energy generation sites including behind the scenes work at Lille's Metro Station. Needless to say, we were all still thrilled to be done with the first day of class.

When 6 o'clock rolled by, we headed to the main hall for a meet and greet including booze and bit sized desserts. Everyone was being so friendly and laughing, probably due to the language barriers and drinks. Let's just say that all of us upped our charades game from occasionally needing to act out what we were trying to say.

Meet and Greet yummies

An hour and a half later, we were kicked out of the hall because they needed to close up. We managed to catch bus 12 back to EuroLille, the city's huge mall and the closest stop to our dorms. Yes mall, yes the souvenirs will be coming!

US-Belgium game. Heartbreak. I thought I would be hearing the French driving around as if they had nothing better to do except super-glue their hand to the horn  and yell with their heads out the windows. I guess neighbor Belgium isn't that important. It's, how you say, quite loud at night when France plays in the Cup, and even louder when they win. We'll see how Friday turns out.

Charles de Gaulle, You Scoundrel!

Lundi
30 Juin

Our plane landed in Charles de Gaulle Airport at noon on Monday only two hours off schedule. Needless to say, that didn't matter because I needed to get to Lille by 5 pm.

Easy. Not quite. Stressful. Yes, quite.

I felt like I was plopped into a dream world and it didn't help that my body was wondering what the heck I was doing walking around at three in the morning (Santa Rosa time) with still half a day to go. I found my way off the plane, got through customs *sigh of relief*, got my baggage *bigger sigh of relief*, hopped on the shuttle and went to buy a ticket for the train. All the trains were at least 20 minutes behind so I think France and I will get along just fine; we can both be a little late to things and no one really cares.

The train was empty for the most part so I sat in the window seat with the most leg space (11 hour flights do a restless girl no good) while being careful not to wake up the sleeping, scraggly, French kid across from me. The ride was an hour long and within 10 minutes the sky went from blue to cloudy to overcast.

The train station at Charles de Gaulle

Lille welcomed me with a grey sky and a light sprinkle. Almost like good ol' SF. I found my group, said a couple hellos, and was escorted to my dorm to unpack (12th floor what what!) and then headed downstairs to meet the group.

My room for the next month.

The program consists of students from all over the world, most not knowing French. Some students that came from Taiwan only knew a little French and some understandable yet choppy English.  My close group consists of 5 other girls, all from around the US and out of the six, three of us are in the engineering program here. Pauline, our pseudo-mom/older sister, gave us all the tips and tricks for getting around Lille: how to be safe, what fun things to explore, who to call (and how), and just to enjoy the trip. We walked to dinner and quickly realized that the cobblestone sidewalks were no match for anything but good shoes or sandals. Yet somehow a few ladies of Lille were managing to effortlessly walk around in heels. I think we had found the meaning of "marry your heels".  At dinner, after we were done stuffing our faces (not literally stuffing our faces, Mom), we got to know each other and realized that we weren't alone in thinking "Will I even make it to Lille??", "I can't tell if the guys here are gay or just dress nice"and the most urgent "I haven't seen one Starbucks. What the heck?!". After bonding over the cliché (but true) "This is going to be awesome", we bustled our way back through the Lille-ians (?), over the stones,  past the large Fontaine de la Gare de Lille Flandres (Fountain in front of the Lille Flandres train station) and back to our rooms for some desperately needed sleep.

View from my window at 10 pm (still light out!)