Nancy
It has been a hectic past four days since I’ve arrived in Lille but I wanted to write a quick rundown of my séjour in Nancy :)
During the first night in Nancy Chloe cooked us a yummy lamb (steak?) dinner and we ate together on her ironing board table whilst feeling kind of stunned by the amount of questions we had for each other! It was always our dream to go to France for study and we used to talk about how we could totally meet up in France… 3 years on and it’s a reality :D
The next day we basically went walking about the streets of Nancy, visited the huge park as well as visited the Musée des Beaux-Arts – aka the museum of fine arts. It was my first trip to a museum in my adult life that wasn’t part of a school excursion or something like that and I have to say that I loved it!!! I’m not a particularly arty farty person – and yes sometimes my eyes glazed over when viewing some of the French paintings from the 18th century or so. However when we hit the glassware/glass art section I was thrilled :D But the overall effect of this first trip made me appreciate art and exhibitions! God… maybe I really WAS so uncultured in Australia? :p Like I said – it’s not even because I consider myself relatively arty farty or not… Art history and knowledge of artists etc etc doesn’t really interest me – but I have suddenly found myself very very interested in visiting museums and other displays/exhibitions in Lille and the rest of Europe! I realised that I liked just LOOKING at things. The exercise doesn’t demand any more or any less than you just perusing and thinking “that looks pretty” or “god this painting is boring”.
I suppose the follow-on effect of my newfound enjoyment of museums and exhibitions has also made me realise that holidays aren’t just about shopping. Lame and materialistic – I know – but now I understand better how to get more out of a holiday experience. It’s not just about leaving a deficit in your bank account after buying lots of clothes and jewellery that you can essentially buy elsewhere in the world – it’s about soaking up the atmosphere and enjoying new sights :D
I started this exchange with the mindset that I would do bulk shopping… In Dubai/Annecy/Nancy however I was VERY reluctant to buy ANY article of clothing purely because I couldn’t bear the thought of making my suitcase any heavier before arriving in Lille. In those two and a half weeks of restraint – I sort of just… came to terms with not shopping. It was very easy. Also I am going to try to set up a relatively stringent budget – so I guess it was very good-timing that I’ve found so much fulfilment in arts and cultural activities that cost a fraction of the amount of shopping that I intended to do… I would just like to make it clear however that I do still intend to do SOME shopping hehe :p
Anywho. So Chloe and I had dinner that night at an AWESOME Italian restaurant!! Seriously – the restauration (a real word in French hehe) is amazing. Pretty much of all the restaurants I’ve visited offer great ‘formulas’ – aka meal deals where you get an entrée, main, dessert and a drink for some special price. It’s seriously better value than what one usually receives in Australia. Also the food is good quality :D This Italian place is Nancy was not expensive (unfortunately I can’t remember exact prices) but reaaaaalllly yummy. Yummy :D
Oooh as a side note – the French say “hummmm” to indicate yumminess – much in the same way English speakers use “mmmmm” :p
That night we visited Chloe’s friend Alison who’s an artist and had an exhibition on in a gallery. We ended up staying the whole night just chatting and eventually helped her pack up her gallery. In this time we also ducked out to catch the Nancy lightshow (which is btw AAMZINGLY cool J). Spending all night in a gallery with a local artist displaying her work is something I probably would have never done in Perth… You’ve gotta love just going with the flow!
The final full day in Nancy involved ducking into the Musée des Beaux-Arts another time to catch all the stuff we missed from the day before and more walking around town J We finished off that Monday with a nightcap at a bar in Place Stanislas (main square of the city). What impressed me so much was that on a frikn Monday night in a small French city one could easily step out for a drink with a friend! It was seriously nice to be able to enjoy that kind of nightlife.
In short visiting Chloe in Nancy was awesome :D I had so much fun. There is something liberating about travel and just… rendezvous-ing with friends from home just because you can.
Lille
Lille in the past four days has been a crazy crockpot of happenings that seems to me will be hard to describe.
*To any possible Lille-exchange students out there reading this – if you need accommodation in the few days before you can move into uni residence/other permanent residence, I recommend booking with the Premiere Class Hotel http://www.premiere-classe-lille-centre.fr/fr/index.aspx in Lille’s centre. 19 PLACE DES REIGNAUX
59000 LILLE) I would say don’t bother with a hostel – they appear to be too far away from the train stations and Premiere’s rates are about the same as a hostel’s if you book early enough – 29euro. The advantages of this hotel is that it’s a stone’s throw away from Gare de Lille Flandres – in the street just opposite the station so it’s DEAD easy to find (which means less less less stress), it’s clean and secure and like I said – if you book early enough it’s as cheap as a hostel. The main drawback is that the reception lady was a bit… meh sometimes…*
59000 LILLE) I would say don’t bother with a hostel – they appear to be too far away from the train stations and Premiere’s rates are about the same as a hostel’s if you book early enough – 29euro. The advantages of this hotel is that it’s a stone’s throw away from Gare de Lille Flandres – in the street just opposite the station so it’s DEAD easy to find (which means less less less stress), it’s clean and secure and like I said – if you book early enough it’s as cheap as a hostel. The main drawback is that the reception lady was a bit… meh sometimes…*
Okay – so from my hotel in Lille where I stayed for a night – I contemplated taking the metro from the centre of Lille to my accommodation but eventually decided against it and ordered a taxi directly there. I am SO GLAD I forked out the 20euro for the 12 minute drive over to the residence. My friking suitcase was 27KG!!! Having walked around this area after I’ve unpacked and settled – I just knew for a fact I would’ve been completely lost, tired, stressed and ready to cry.
There’s a front desk at Residence Triolo – with another kind of deadpan meh kind of lady manning it (am I seeing a pattern with Lilloise receptionists?). After I filled out a short form – I was told to head over to the secretariat across the hall where I signed some more forms and paid my 227euro deposit and received my key.
After that the cleaner lady showed me to my room, to the small communal kitchen, the laundry room (where I am now waiting for my clothes to dry in the dryer) and where the big bins were located.
Overall I think the residence is pretty good. It’s clean and well-located to the shops and uni. I have a TINY fridge! It’s like a section of a fridge within a bar fridge! No freezer, no oven. It seems to be pretty quiet here though… I was hoping for there to be an awesome social scene like I know there can be in the residential colleges at UWA but I’ve read heaps of testimonies saying that Triolo can be pretty quiet and I think that I will encounter the same thing. I believe the difference between the UWA residential colleges and Triolo is that at UWA the colleges really foster a community spirit – with orientation for the students who live there and a communal meal plan. This does not seem to be the case in Triolo. It really just does seem like a room where I sleep and a kitchen where I cook… I feel… kind of alone! I received a sheaf of documents outlining the rules etc of life in Triolo but it was all in French so I only understood the general ideas. But… I didn’t (seem) to explicitly receive names and numbers of Triolo staff who I could call in case of emergency… If something happens to me (e.g., lose my keys or something) I’m kinda fucked til business hours the next week :S I guess this is contrasted with my knowledge that the residential colleges at UWA really seem to care for you – with assigned tutors each night who sort of ‘patrol’ the residence and are on call in case something goes wrong with the students or if someone needs aid.
I’ve visited two hypermarchés here in Lille, Carrefour in the city centre and Auchan here in the suburb of Villeneuve D’Ascq where the uni and residence is located. Auchan (and Carrefour) is HUGE. It’s a two-leveled super shop which is like a Coles/Woolies plus a Big W/Target/K-Mart combined!! *clears throat* Can anybody say economies of scale?? The price of stuff is pretty good here so I’ve managed to furnish most of my room within budget! I’ve had to buy a pillow, bed sheet, doona, floor mat, string for a washing line for my delicates that can’t be tumbled dried, plates, pot, cutlery, loo rolls etc etc. Thankfully Auchan is only a 7-8 minute walk from residence so it’s very convenient to buy stuff!!
The topic of Auchan segues into my next notation about life in France. These hypermarchés are SERIOUS about security. Usually in Australia the bored-out-of-their-brain staff does some half-arsed check of your backpack when you exit the store. In Auchan I had a security guard put a cable tie around the zips of my backpack in order to prevent me from hiding stuff in there! The cashier unzipped the container of my doona and dug around in its white depths to check that I hadn’t stashed anything … :/ I guess they just get stolen from a lot!!
THE UNIVERISTY. Don’t get me started about the university!! I am so confused!! Cyrielle Rohart and José Lagos Lama who work in the Relations Internationales office are nice and overall patient but I can see that they get a bit bored/stressed/slightly annoyed by the all the questions that students pose them - but I kind of think it’s their fault as the whole system of enrolment isn’t really that clear!! (Allowing leeway for the fact that I don’t fully understand everything they’re saying yet…) Like past students have noted – things in general just don’t seem as organised… They had a massive orientation-ish type presentation on Thursday but we all had to take notes by hand – why couldn’t thye have printed out all the info they gave us? (Which was on important stuff like how to enrol etc). I understand it kills a few trees but… when you’re a foreign student trying to get by … Notes with full info would help!
As far as I can tell, I literally ROCK UP to the units I want to take, write down the name and details of the class on a summary sheet and then hand that into the Relations Internationale Office…. It’s so bizarre, I’m used to pre-enrolling/signing up for classes where the teacher actually expects me :S Oh well – we’ll see how it goes!
My actual classes don’t actually start until the 19th of September – but I have twenty hours of intensive French starting from the 5th of September for a week – four hours a day. Sounds good! :D But I mean seriously – going back to the whole (relative) disorganisation of Lille 3 – why can’t they give us a timetable of events for foreign students?? Cause I had no idea I had to do the actual INTENSIVE course before the extensive course which is 2 hours per week! I’m so confused! It feels like the French way of doing things is just find out as you go… whereas I’m way more used to a university system where everything is planned out step by step. Hell UWA has their academic calendars out 2-3 years in advance! Lille only released theirs about 2 months before the new semester! Oh well – one learns in a new country! In my heart I believe things will work out.
One other thing I’ve noticed in France are that service workers – especially in supermarkets and hypermarchés do not give a toss about you. In Australia – generally staff are chipper and put your needs first. In France – I swear to god people will just ignore you if it conveniences them. I asked an Auchan worker where the soy milk was and she just looked frightened and shook her head! Wtf?? In Australia that person would’ve stopped what they were doing to either point/show you where the product was or they’d get someone else to help you. When in France – fend for yourself.
Language wise? It’s hard! I have a woefully pathetic vocabulary and when the situation gets stressful my French breaks down completely. I think during the course of my intensive French lessons next week I am going to have to literally look up a website that lists everyday verbs/vocab and learn it. It’s ridiculous trying to have a conversation with someone and stop frequently to gesture stupidly and say “comment dire?” (how to say) and “je sais pas le mot en français” (I don’t know the word in French). Expressions get me as well! I can’t think of any examples at the moment –but it can be SERIOUSLY difficult trying to express complex ideas such as enrolment and one’s feelings…
Anyway I think I should leave my blog here for now – it has been terribly long but there’s been so much happening gah!! Next time I blog I hope things will be more calm :)
A plus tard
Jessica
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