Out and About in Lille

With two and a half weeks of class under my belt, I feel like I am starting to settle into la vie Lillois. Classes are still in French (for the most part) but I understand more and more each day, and I also meet more new students everyday too! I have quickly bonded with several of the American students and was lucky enough to spend a Saturday away from Lille travelling with them and a several other international students this past weekend. Before telling about our great adventure to Arras this past weekend, I’ll give you a summary of what I’ve been up to for the past week (since it’s been a while since I’ve given an update with what I’ve done).

The Saturday before last (Jan. 16th) I went to the centre commercial close to where I live to check out the SOLDES! In France, the sales happen two times a year, in January and then again in June or July and they are called soldes. Many of the clothes are marked down in stores and there are usually a lot of good deals to be found. I headed to V2 (the shopping center about 10 minutes from my residence) on Saturday afternoon and found the mall to be packed, but I also found some really cute clothes on sale! It seems Saturday is the big shopping day in Lille as most people don’t work and all of the stores are closed Sunday.

After I got back to my residence, a group of American students decided to go into Lille’s city center for a nice dinner. It ended up being almost 8pm by the time we settled on a restaurant but it was worth the wait! Even thought this was my first nice dinner out in France, I ended up ordered the most American meal I could think of (probably not the best idea but it sounded soo good!). I had a cheeseburger and Coke for dinner. To my defense, the burger was still pretty classy because it had Roquefort cheese and caramelized onions on top and my Coke came in a glass bottle! We each splurged for dessert too, and I ate my first ice cream in France! I snapped a couple photos of the centre ville at night as we were walking back to the metro and the wonderful architecture of the old downtown area was light up for the night.

Hippopotamus - The "swancy" restuarant in the city center where we had dinner Satuday night

The Opera House in Lille by night

Through the week, classes went fairly well, all except for a second year art history course that was really tough. After trying to talk with the professor and not getting anywhere, I traded in Baroque and Romantic Painting taught in French for History of Art in Great Britain taught in English. And so far I am really glad that I did! In choosing Lille 3, I had intended to take some art history courses in English but couldn’t find any when I was first looking at my schedule. I am glad that I did finally find one course in English because I have understood and learned a lot more in the one week that I’ve had that class than in my other art history classes. I am also really enjoying my film studies class and translation, as much as I had dreaded taking it.

I have most of my evenings here free because there is very little homework to do for classes so this past week, several of the American students went down to the Irish pub that is just down the street from our residence and had a few beers after class. The pub is called Irish time, but when we were there this past week, it was definitely a mix of all sorts of cultures! I had been there with Sally, Bert, Sarah, Ashley (all Americans) and Ola (who is Polish) for a while when a large group of students from our residence walked in. Soon there were French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Greek, German, American and Polish students speaking so many different languages in an Irish pub in the French suburbs. The best part of it was that the music playing the in pub was a combination of U2 and Bruce Springsteen! We ended up staying until about 12:30am, even though Irish Time closes at 11pm, and this was one of the first times I truly felt at home in France because it was cool to be part of such a big group of students who were learning how much they had in common. I think that the owners must think we international students are crazy!

Kerstin, Ola and me at Irish Time

On Friday of this past week, I went with Marina and Kerstin, two German girls who are studying here, to take a tour of Lille by bus. I haven’t had much time to explore the city center or other parts of Lille, so this was a great way for us to get a general overview of the city and learn some history too. I even learned that General Charles de Gaulle was born in Lille! He’s is such a prominent figure in French history and his birthplace is only a few kilometers from where I live. I really enjoyed the city tour, which took about an hour, and would recommend it to anyone who wants to come visit Lille and northern France! Below are some of the pictures that I took of Lille on the tour.

Just outside of Gare Lille Flandres, the main train station in the city center

Lille's Tourism Office

Also outside Gare Lille Flandres - I love the architecture of the buildings!

After the afternoon tour, Marina, Kerstin and I had coffee, hot chocolate and pastries in a café downtown. We decided this might have to become one of our local haunts because the atmosphere was perfect for a Friday afternoon with friends.

Kerstin, Marina and me outside the coffee shop on Friday afternoon

Though it can be frustrating at times, I really do love the European lifestyle that is so much slower and calmer than in the US. I feel that people here enjoy each day more and take pride in their lifestyle. I still like to be very punctual for my classes and meetings, but it’s also nice to spend two hours in the afternoon chatting and drinking rich hot chocolate in a second story café while watching shoppers on the street below.

Hot Chocolate Calms Nerves and Tastes Delicious

Well it has been a few days since my last blog post and I am finding less and less time to write which I suppose is a good thing because it means that I’m getting busy and getting out and doing things! It also means that I have classes to keep me busy during the week now. That’s right, a week after classes started, I finally have some mine picked out! Here, most French students have a very strict set of courses that they have to take to earn their degree so they don’t have much choice in registering. Being an ISEP student, I have a lot of choice and don’t actually have to register until mid-February! It was really stressing me out at the beginning of the week not to know what I would be taking, especially because most classes here meet only once a week and the semester are only 13 weeks long. If you miss one class, you miss a lot more material than you would in a class at an American university. My schedule looks pretty good though. Monday is heavy on class but I don’t have anything on Friday which will make it that much more convenient to travel on the weekends! The classes that I am taking are as follows:



17th Century Painting – Baroque and Classicism 1.5 credits


French Paining between 1850 and 1914 – Impressionism and Post-Impressionism 1.5 credits


Painting and Transformation in the 20th Century 1.5 credits


Decorative Arts and Eclecticism in Design 1.5 credits


French Translation – English to French and French to English 3 credits


Intensive and Extensive French Language (I started the intensive part class last week and will continue with the extensive through the semester) 3 credits


Film Studies – Film Noir and Musical Comedy 1.5 credits (taught in English!)


Tandem 1.5 credits


I am most excited about the film studies class just because I have always wanted to take a film class and I don’t anticipate it being a lot of work. I’m also super pumped about Tandem, which is a program offered here at Lille for credit. It matches francophone students and anglophone students together in partners and the pairs meet for an hour and a half a week to speak in both French and English. I have heard great things about this program being a way to meet native French students and learn about the local culture. I’m pretty excited to meet my partner next week and have a class that meets on my own time!


Last week was a crazy whirlwind of new experiences and so much happened in so little time that I didn’t have too much time to think about missing home during the day but a couple of the evenings were rough for me. This past weekend the homesickness hit me full on. I felt very out of place here in France. I was pretty upset and even considered coming home and registering late for classes at ISU. I think that this is just part of culture shock, and I should have anticipated it knowing how much of a change living in France would be for me, but I wasn’t ready. The past few days have been so much better though! With a little (ok, a lot) of encouragement from my mom and some positive thinking, things have really turned around. I have connected with several of the other American students living in my residence hall, especially two mid-westerners, Bert who I had met last week, and Sally. We are all taking the same translation class and have been hanging out in the evenings which makes the time go so much faster! I think they will both become very good friends and travel buddies over the next few months.

Here is a picture of both Sally and Bert eating lunch this week at the DEFI café in the French Department. This is one of the hidden gems I have found on campus! It’s a café run by a student organization at Lille 3. The student org also plans trips on the weekends and organizes events throughout the semester like an International Soiree and Salsa Dancing Lessons. I am already planning out which trips I will go on and which days of the week I can have a ham and cheese baguette sandwich at the DEFI café between classes! They also have the BEST hot chocolate I have ever tasted! Overall, things are going pretty well on this side of the planet. I’m a bit nervous about having a three day weekend (I didn’t think I would ever say that) but I think it will be a lot easier to find things to do this weekend as I meet more and more people who know more and more people.

New Sights, Sounds and Smells

Here’s just a short summary of my first weekend experience in Lille. First thing on the agenda for Saturday, sleep. I didn’t even set an alarm Saturday morning so that I could catch up on the sleep that I had missed out on during the week and so my body would have some time to recoup. After sleeping in until 11 or so, I showered and got ready for the day, then decided to take the metro to the centre ville on my own and check out the Palais des Beaux Arts that I had seen when touring through Lille earlier in the week. After taking the metro (an experience in itself), I walked completely around the art museum before finding the entrance which was right where I had started. I was stunned by the size of the museum as soon as I walked in. The architecture inside was beautiful and there were several white marble statues right in the entryway. I felt at home instantly! I found out that the museum is free to students studying art history here in town and that I was able to walk through all of the galleries as well as the two exhibitions that the museum currently housed. I started with a few paintings on the first floor then looked through the museum’s impressive collection of local pottery and ceramics, some dating as far back as the 15th century. Next, I tried to go down to the basement to look through the archeological collections and one of the exhibitions, but decided to save that for another day with someone else as soon as I heard the eerie music coming from the stairwell and saw the dimmed lights. I hightailed it up the stairs with my heart beating out of my chest. I don’t know what is so terrifying about the basement of an art museum but I am definitely not going to try to go down there again by myself! Over the next couple hours, I looked through the museum’s collection of paintings, most of which are Flemish or French. I recognized several names and was quite impressed with the size of the collection. I have a feeling that I’ll be back to the museum fairly regularly throughout the semester, especially once I get into my art history classes.

I then walked up Rue de Béthune, which was packed on a Saturday afternoon. Rue de Béthune has a reputation here for being one of the fanciest shopping areas in Lille and it certainly was packed with people out an about on this particular afternoon. In France, there are only sales in stores twice a year, in January and then again in June. The sales, or SOLDES as they are called here, just started a few days ago so the stores are packed with people looking for good deals. Think Black Friday, toned down just a little, all day long, everyday for a month!

That evening I returned to my residence and made dinner with Bert in one of the kitchens in the building. Earlier in the week, I had found out that there was a theatre called Ciné Cité not too far from my residence so Bert and I went to see a movie because there wasn’t too much else going on at our residence. Not knowing too much about it, we picked Avatar and chose the showing in French. It was a good way to practice training my ear to listen in French, especially because the movie is nearly three hours long. Avatar was a good choice of movie because it was easy to follow the plot line without understanding all of the dialogue. I did understand a good bit of what the characters were saying though, definitely more than I would have when I first arrive.

As I found out last weekend, there is hardly anything open on Sundays in Lille, except the Marché de Wazemmes, an open air market that runs every Sunday morning all year long in a neighborhood just outside of the centre ville. Having heard that the neighborhood isn’t too nice, I brought Bert along to the market on Sunday morning because there wasn’t anything else to do that day and I was getting sick of watching movies in my room. The market wasn’t exactly what I had expected but I did find some pretty interesting things that I don’t think I could buy at a farmer’s market in the US, like leggings, a huge selection of boots, rotisserie chicken and AC power convertors, just to name a few things. I ended up buying a galette cake in a nearby bakery and a bundle of tulips to brighten up my room. The galette cake was delicious and the flowers still look wonderful. They add a lot to my drab dorm room. By the end of the market I think Bert and I were both pretty chilly but had had a good experience with all the sights and sounds of the market. I’ll have to go back, but might have to wait a while until the days warm up. The rest of Sunday was pretty lazy and filled with a couple more movies.

Well that wasn’t exactly short, or a summary, but there you have it, my first weekend in Lille. Not what I had imagined it to be, but still good none the less. I’m hoping that I will be able to find even more to do in the city over the next couple weekends and that I can take some weekend trips to nearby towns in the coming weeks as well.

First Glimpses of Lille

I’m still a few days behind with my blog posts but there is so much to share about my new experiences that I want to be sure not to miss anything! I’ll start now where I left off, on Monday morning, when I first experienced the university and the city that I’ll call home this spring. Leaving my residence around 9am Monday morning, I blindly took to the streets of Villeneuve d’Ascq (the “suburb” where I am living) with only vague directions given to me by the night watchman in the dark Saturday night when I checked on (no map!). He had pointed me down a wooded path and said walk straight, then make one right turn and walk straight a ways further until you get to the school. Those directions are fairly vague by my standards, especially when I still confuse the words for right and left in French. Needless to say, they didn’t instill a sense of hope in me but I did make it to the Bureau de Relations Internationales within 40 minutes, only stopping to ask for more directions twice! First item on the agenda was a language placement test for all incoming exchange students which determined which level classes we would be in. I ended up being placed in the first level of class, with approximately thirteen other students, one of whom, Bert, is American and has quickly become a friend. I left campus after the placement test with another acceptance letter from Lille 3 (I think…) and instructions to return at 9:00 am sharp the following morning to begin intensive French class. So far, I haven’t found any need for the letter but the intensive classes have been a great help in training my ear to better understand the French language.

Leaving campus, I walked and talked with Bert, who lives in the same residence as I, and he mentioned that he and a French friend were going to tour the centre ville of Lille and run some errands that afternoon. I was welcome to come along if I wanted. Definitely! I was a bit nervous about taking the metro to the city center by myself and I figured this would be a great way to spend the afternoon. We took the metro (Lille is just big enough to have a metro system) to the city center with Bert’s friend, Baptiste, in search of supplies for our rooms, access to the internet and French SIM cards or cell phones. Our first stop was the Euralille shopping center just outside of the old section of downtown Lille. This has to be the largest mall that I have ever seen! And it was definitely not what I was expecting to find in France. We found reasonably priced pay-as-you-go cell phones from a company called Bouygues Telecom in the mall and then headed to a small café for lunch. My first real meal in France consisted of a curry chicken baguette sandwich with lettuce and bacon. The sandwich was really good, though most anything would have tasted good to me at that point because I hadn’t had a real meal in a couple days.

We headed outside to the centre ville area near Euralille after lunch and Baptiste gave us a walking tour of the old downtown. Lille has a fairly large Christmas market each year and some of the decorations for it, including a large ferris wheel, were still up in the main square. We didn’t get to ride the ferris wheel, but I did get some good pictures of the beautiful architecture around the square. I will definitely need to return and spend some weekends here sketching the buildings and people watching!

Bert, Baptiste and I continued walking a bit further south to the Place de la République. This is a large open square just a few blocks from the centre ville and this is where you can find Lille’s Palais des Beaux Arts, or Fine Art Museum. The Palais des Beaux Arts is the second largest museum in France, following the Louvre and from what I have read, it seems like they have a pretty impressive collection, especially of Flemish paintings. I can already tell that I would be spending a lot of weekends here!

We walked around the city a bit more then returned to Euralille to pick up supplies for our rooms at Carrefour, which rivals Wal-Mart Supercenter in size and beats it in food selection. I picked up some pasta and spaghetti sauce so I can make some food for myself and also a few cooking supplies. Bert and I headed home on the metro after we had gotten everything we needed. I think that we were all pretty pooped from a long day of shopping and touring.

The following morning, I walked back to campus to start intensive language class. Madame Isabelle, our instructor, made it very clear that we were to arrive on time and be prepared to learn. I was surprised at how much of her French I was able to understand and how easy it was to respond. We began by talking with partners and presenting them to the class. My partner was named Stephania, and like the majority of students in our class, was from Italy. It turned out that over half the students in our class were Italian, but we had students from Germany, Spain, Greece and the US too. Throughout this week, the Italian students have proven that they are by far the most outgoing and enthusiastic in the class! They also happen to be the students who are always late, which makes Isabelle just a little frustrated and she chides each one of them as they walk in ten or twenty minutes after she has started her lesson in the morning. Our language classes go from 9am to noon and 1:30 to 3:30pm each day. Isabelle gives us a short break in the mornings, which helps to get the blood flowing after sitting in our chilly classroom and gives me a chance to think in English. Most of what we have gone over has been review, but it has still been helpful just to think and listen in French. The group conversations have been really interesting too, from talking about where we are living and how to find an apartment in Lille to discussions over the differences in our education systems and how our governments are handling H1N1. I hope that this continues throughout the semester and I will be able to have conversations like this with the friends that I make here as well. Our classes will continue next week once semester classes have started as extensive language class on Monday mornings.

Tuesday evening, I was able to get my internet working right after class and could finally talk to my family and Allen at home. It was such a relief to be able to let them know that I had arrived ok and was getting settled! I also enjoyed telling them about my adventures so far, and it made me realize that I have done a lot in the past couple days. Now that I am writing this, I have been in France for nine days and thinking back on it, I realize I have done a lot in that time. Some of the situations I have been in have been stressful and there have been a couple times when I have wanted to pack everything up and head home, but I know that this experience will be an awesome one and I need to let it happen. I’m trying to let myself relax and go with the French lifestyle. Classes start in tomorrow and I only have a vague idea of which courses I will be taking. I haven’t even started to think about registering for them, which I wouldn’t be able to do until tomorrow afternoon because I still don’t have a university ID. I’m trying to assume the mindset that the ISEP Coordinator, Isabelle, mentioned when I spoke with her Wednesday. She said more or less that she used to be worried about getting things done on time and is older now and realizes that its ok, this is France, and these things are not worth stressing over or rushing. With that in mind, I’m going to head off to bed. I’ll write again tomorrow night and let you all know about surviving my first weekend in Lille on my own!

Bienvenue à France!

Hello everyone! My first few days here in Europe have been a whirlwind experience, from Belgium gaufres in Brussels to granola bars in my residence room in Lille, these past few days have been a slightly insane, overwhelming but for the most part positive experience. Here’s a short synopsis of how I have spent the New Year thus far and some pictures to accompany.

Friday morning, only 5 hours and 48 minutes into 2010, our Jeep pulled out the snow-covered driveway headed for the Des Moines International Airport. Check in and security went smoothly in Des Moines and I was on the plane and headed down the runway before I even realized that I was seeing home for the last time until mid-June. My flight out of Des Moines was slightly delayed but that was the only problem I had on all three flights, Des Moines to Chicago, to Washington DC then on to Brussels, Belgium. We landed Brussels right on time Saturday morning and I had no trouble finding my luggage, even with the rush of people from the 777 crowded around the baggage claim. Customs was virtually non-existent, all I had to do was hand my passport to a man who stamped it and I was into the European Union! After a few minutes of panicking and wondering if I possibly missed customs, I was also able to find a small booth in the airport where I bought time on the internet to email my parents and the student from Lille who was going to pick me up from the train station later that afternoon. There, I happened to meet another American student, Dillon, from New England who was going to be studying in Lille also. He was trying to find out information about a phone card and angrily speaking English with a Belgium man who looked flustered and confused which was quite an amusing exchange to watch that made me glad I hadn’t promised to call my parents right when I arrived. Being the only two Americans and students around, Dillon and I became quick friends. After a very kind stranger lent Dillon his phone to call his parents long distance in the US, we the train from the bottom floor of the airport to Gare du Midi, one of the three large train stations in Brussels. What a busy place! This is the first train station I can remembering being and it was wonderfully hectic! People were running every which way speaking languages that I didn’t even recognize. 

After some trouble, Dillon and I stored my two large suitcases and backpack in the train station (very convenient!) and walked to the hostel where Dillon was planning to stay until Monday. Free of our luggage, we decided to explore the city together for a few hours before my train left from Gare du Midi to Lille. Taking the subway to the Bourse stop, we were able to see the Grand Place and Manneken Pis, two of the most famous sites in Brussels. The Grand Place was a wonderful square with beautiful architecture and the famous European feel!

We also walked through some of the neighboring streets and found a small shop that sold gaufers which are Belgium waffles. My waffle was one of the most heavenly things I have tasted! Here, the waffles are much denser than in the US and the batter contains sugar crystals that add a nice texture to the waffle. They are also covered with a sweet glaze, which would make them a great snack, even though ours served as a late Saturday breakfast.

After this, we also went in search of the famous Manneken Pis, a small bronze fountain which depicts a naked infant boy peeing. According to my Michelin Guide, the fountain was sculpted in 1619 by Jérôme Duquesony the Elder and used to provide the district’s water supply! He’s on a quiet (well, expect for the crowd of tourists with cameras) street corner a few blocks off the Grand Place and is now a well known tourist attraction.

After a little more exploring around the Grand Place, Dillon and I took the train back to Gare du Midi where I got my luggage and waited for the Eurostar train to Lille, a short 33 minute ride on the high speed train. After a long couple of days, I was asleep within a few minutes of leaving the station and missed my first views of France but woke up just in time to pull into the station at Lille and gather my bags. After much coordination and several emails from my dad, a French student, Emmanuel, was able to pick me up at the train station with all my luggage and kindly took me to his apartment to watch TV and rest until I was able to check into my residence room later that evening. We made small talk for two awkward, sleepy car rides but I am very grateful that he was able to pick me up because I would have struggled on the Metro with my luggage. It was also cool to see what a French student’s apartment looked like in comparison to an American’s, in general, everything was much more compact and the furniture resembled antique hand-me-downs rather than the old couch from the basement at home.

I checked into my room around 6:30pm and crashed shortly after a hot shower and unpacking my pj’s. Man, did a sleep well that night! I woke on Sunday around 1pm (whoops!) in need of food, an ethernet cable and a map of the city. Unfortunately, not much is open on Sunday in France. In fact, nothing is open. I eventually found some lunch at the Shell gas station down the road, but no ethernet cable and I completely forgot to look for the map. I spent most of the rest of Sunday watching the movies that I had brought from home and unpacking my suitcases. Lunch and dinner both consisted of Petit écolier cookies, Sour Cream & Onion Pringles, granola bars and a bottle of Sprite, which is far from the French cuisine that I had hoped for but a meal nonetheless when my choices so limited. I was able to sleep fairly well that night, but had started to miss home much more than I had expected. It was very easy for me to multiply the size of the smallest of cultural differences and find myself missing everything about Iowa but a good night’s sleep was the temporary cure to my homesickness and I woke up disoriented but ready for class Monday morning.


I’m going to stop here for tonight but I’ll continue with more tales of my week tomorrow night. It seems like things were looking pretty grim by Sunday night but they did turn around, I promise! Look for more tales of the Lille Metro, my first experience with Carrefour (a French version of Wal-Mart Supercenter), Madame Isabelle and beaucoup d’Italiens tomorrow.