24: Settling in

I’m getting really behind on these posts, so this may be erratic as I try to catch up:
I’m almost done with my third week of work. The first two weeks I had to just observe classes, but a lot of teachers ignored that and had me answer questions from the kids or participate in activities (thank god). For those unaware, I’m a language assistant for the English department at Noordover High School in Grande Synthe, a community right next to Dunkirk.

My job is basically just to speak English, which is a funny thing to move to France for. Here’s the school:

I only work three days a week, which is convenient because the commute takes a while. I bike 10 min down to the trainstation (Lille has an awesome bikeshare system), grab the 30 min direct train in the morning (hour back in the afternoon), then take the bus 20 min from Dunkirk to Grande Synthe (I may start biking–the Dunkirk bikeshare only cost me 5 Euros for the year, and the whole town is under tons of construction which makes the bus suuuuuper slow). It’s kinda fun to be up before sunrise, and the commute gives me lots of productive time to practice languages, read, and get work done.

I also went to two 7-hour training sessions in Lille for all the region’s English language assistants, which were so long and so worthless. Good times.

Lille is still awesome. We checked out the natural history museum, tried more great restaurants, and explored the citadel park (where the Zoo is) some more. The citadel was closed when we tried to explore it, but there are some beautiful trails, a cute children’s park, and a monument to pigeons. We had a lovely picnic under a huge sycamore tree next to the canal.

We’ve started going to a great morning market in Vieux Lille on Wedn, Fri, & Sunday. We’re trying to do most of our grocery shopping there, which is super fun.

Exploring restaurants & cafes has been a blast, but so has cooking more in our apartment. We found a place to move into come December–it’s a better location, cheaper, and has everything we need–but it won’t be furnished and has less stuff in the kitchen… so there’s been lot’s of chef-ing going on here on Rue du Béguinage! As I write this, my stomach is bursting from chorizo quiche (it took me forever to make, and Blaire had to work late so I waited to eat till 9:30, then stuffed myself to discomfort [made her a separate quiche with peas]). Here’s one of her masterpieces:

Blaire and I grabbed coffee with a lovely franco-British couple, and she’s begun babysitting their adorable kids several days a week. We also went to a writing group / book club organized by another teaching assistant.

Aaaaand that pretty much catches you up! Thank you, friends of the blog, for your interest in my life here in France.