Strasbourg+Colmar: I love you, yeah, yeah, yeah

This weekend was spent in Strasbourg and Colmar (my favorite city in France thus far). We stayed with Herve's cousins, so those are the people in the pictures. It's my birthday now, so I don't have time to write :-), but here are some photos!

Around the World in 7 Days

Hello everyone and sorry for the extended delay in blogs! I've been having an amazing time in Lille since Herve arrived here last Thursday night and I've had little time to stop and write. Last Wednesday, as I mentioned, I visited beautiful Amiens (the birthplace of Jules Verne) and the Jules Verne University there. Friday I worked, as unbelievable as that sounds, before going out to "explore Lille." With Herve, however, that simple idea took a more interesting turn, and we ended up going to an orthodox synagogue service in Lille. We were unable to discover the time of the service on our own no matter how hard we searched on the internet or around the well-camouflaged synagouge, but we did find it after accosting a startled and slightly frightened orthodox Jewish man on the street to ask our question. The synagouge was not really a synagogue of any particular track of Judaism, as Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox are generally just considered observant or less observant; a woman was very surprised when I tried to ask what "type" of synagogue we were entering and there were men sporting suits, black hats, and paius alongside younger men in converse, jeans, and a tshirt. The service itself was very traditional and was essentially just chanted in the fasted Hebrew I've ever heard without any of the melodies I'm used to. As a woman, I was sent to the top level, where the very talkative and welcoming women seemed a caricature of the Jewish wives of decades and centuries ago. While the men below spoke of God, prayers, and morals, the women above knew no Hebrew and spent the whole service gossiping and catching up amongst themselves. After answering some questions and saying that I came with my boyfriend who really wanted to come to a Jewish service, I hear one of the women telling the others that I'm an American student with an internship in Lille (correct so far) and then going on to talk about my "red-head fiancé" below and the beautiful wedding that we're going to have! I corrected the woman, though it was hard to get a word in as she put even my own rambling skills to shame. When the service finally ended, I came down to find a beaming Hervé, who had loved the service and the "beautiful rabbinic chants" and who had also made friends with his orthodox Jewish neighbors and had gotten us invited to Shabbat dinner with the Rabbi's family. We had no better plans for dinner, there were other random Jews who had stopped by the synagogue and were invited for dinner, and the Rabbi and his family seemed truly welcoming, so we went. The Lubavitch Rabbin who invited us was apparently quite famous in France and he had just returned from visiting his brothers and sisters in Brooklyn, New York. He had eight children and a nice, quiet wife who served the entire delicious meal for over 15 people and practically never said a word throughout the meal. There's a lot of interesting things I could say about that meal including the fascinating things the Rabbi talked about, the adorable antics of his children, or the quirks of the other guests, but that would be more than I have time for since I've gotten so behind with these blogs! In any case, at the end of the day, we had a wonderful Shabbat dinner, and both Herve and I agreed that out of the two of us, it was he who would make a wonderful Orthodox Jew.
Saturday was a bit of a lazy day for us, but we did go to a concert in Roubaix that night where I saw a bit of a different side of Hervé. It was a small concert in a little basement in Roubaix with guitar, drums, violin, accordian, trumpet and another random instrument that I am forgetting. It was remarkably similar to shows in the states that I had seen at Toad's Place in New Haven or the Middle East in Cambridge, and per usual, I felt like my ears were going to be blown out, though the music was good. Hervé was really excited though and would go crazy dancing ska whenever they played a ska song and in general was one of the most enthusiastic and hilarious people in the audience. We got back home very late, but thankfully we just made the last metro and so were not left stranded in Roubaix. Now for the first real disappointment in France: I got my wallet and phone stolen in the metro Friday and only fully realized the ramifications of that on Sunday. That's not particularly interesting and it will not be what I remember from this wonderful trip, but I felt I should include this for completeness as I have spent quite a bit of time trying to sort out the problems caused by this; moral of the story. . . I am a total shlemazel and fixing all of the problems I create could essentially amount to a full time job for my wonderful mother (sorry!)
Sunday was la fete de la Musique in Lille, and though we got out late after sleeping in after the concert, we had a great time roaming the city in the evening with Melissa and seeing the different groups playing on the streets. One particularly fun group was playing Irish folk music and Herve and I went in and danced together with about 15 other young French people. At another group, a drunken homeless man was dancing and lipsynching together with the lead singer (a middle aged man who had clearly been a hippy in his youth and still thought he was living in the 60's). We wandered past a few other little music groups, and before long we were back home and La Fete de la Musique was over.
In any case, after work on Monday, I finally saw Kate!! Ian, Kate, Hervé and I had an adorable double date at a creperie in Lille and I got to catch up with Kate a bit, which was lovely. That night was one of the first nights in France that I felt at all excited about the end of the summer or coming back to my real life (which I had previously always been extremely happy and thankful for).
On Tuesday, Herve and I had a day trip to Brussels, the land of chocolate, beer, the EU, and lots of languages. We got there a bit late and only had a little bit of time to walk around the center, but I'm as excited as ever to go back and wander through the chocolate shops with my mother when she gets here this week!
Wednesday and Thursday were wonderful as we had time to just roam around Vieux Lille, go to the Istanbul exhibit at the Art Museum, eat at the most celebrated Mussels Restaurant in Lille with Ian, Kate, and Melissa, and just relax. More about the weekend later!

Waiting for Godot

It's 6 PM Thursday evening as I write this and as I didn't have work today, I've been home basically the whole day other than picking up some groceries and going for a run. I did not plan much since I thought Herve, would be coming today in the early afternoon. However, hitchhiking is not a mode of transportation that has its strength in promptness or reliability, so Herve is currently stuck on a road in Dunkerque, at least three hours from Lille, experiencing bad luck for what I feel is the first time. I, meanwhile, have been astonishingly unproductive today and am thinking that I didn't realize how lucky I was that the last time I went through this I was running around sunny Barcelona with Lauren and Raven, delirious from fatigue and jet lag, and then had Herve show up 2 hours early. In any case, I might as well make myself useful and write about my absolutely fabulous day in Amiens yesterday. I thought that yesterday would be a very long and intense work day since we were going to another city to "see the neuroscience lab, meet a neuropsychologist, et quelques autres choses." Silly me. Muriel and Pascal, my boss and the computer programmer respectively, had a few errands to run in Amiens so they decided to take the opportunity to bring Christabel and me to Amiens for a lovely day trip. Pascal picked us up in the morning: I was 5 minutes early, Christabel was 5 minutes late, and Pascal was 20 minutes late, per usual. From the office, we drove to Muriel's house and then took the long trip out to Amiens. I watched with interest for a while as the French countryside rolled by, but at one point I fell asleep and woke up in Amiens. Amiens is astonishingly beautiful. It's an extremely old city and you can immediately sense that the city has only mildly progressed in the last hundred years. The small brick buildings line Venice-like canals as creperies, bistros, and small shops roll on and on through the city. We stopped at a beautiful creperie along the Somme river and had a perfectly lovely lunch there. The city is famous for their huge gothic cathedral, but before we even reached it, I saw three other beautiful old churches that I thought might be the Cathedrale d'Amiens. We did indeed reach it after lunch, however, and it was absolutely breathtaking. I think I waste my words when I try to describe cathedrals like Notre Dame, Amiens, or Sacre Coeur, so I'll just end with saying I was impressed. After leaving the cathedral, Muriel and Pascal got lost around the city which gave me the perfect opportunity to explore. I'll write more later because I've procrastinated enough that now Herve is already in Lille!

Paris+Versailles: Take 2

Here's my video!

Paris+Versailles: Take 2

Hi Everyone!
I had another fabulous weekend in Paris and Versailles, and this time the weather was lovely, though a bit hot. I'm actually going to post a short video blog about this weekend (hopefully everyone will be able to understand it), but otherwise here are lots of pictures from Montmartre, Sacre Coeur, Versailles, Grand Palais, Petit Palais, Place de la Concorde, Jardin des Tuileries, and just generally around Paris

Oh-bla-di-oh-bla-da. . . life goes on

I've settled down into a bit of a routine here now: work (if there are patients who pass the preliminary tests), long meals, chilling/ hanging out in Lille in the evenings, and lots of sleep. Tuesday I went over to Melissa's and Ian's and we made chicken and pasta for dinner and then crepes with fruit sauce, fruit, and nutella for dessert. It was delicious, though I would be flattering myself if I said I could produce even close to the same result on my own. Wednesday I had the morning off, but stayed at the hospital late, and Thursday I was supposed to work the whole day but all the patients had vision problems that made them ineligible for our tests, so I had the day off! I then decided to go to the Palaix des Beaux Arts in Lille which was amazing! A grabbed a baguette sandwich at a local boulangerie and headed over to the museum. There was a great exhibit called "Miroirs d'Orient" which had really cool photography and paintings related to the Western view of the Arab world. It would have been even cooler if there wasn't a lady who was going right in front of me and only taking pictures of the little description and the paintings without even glancing at the paintings on their own. It would have been nice if she also didn't bump into me because she was so busy looking through the lens of her camera all the time. That would have been too much to ask though. I myself, though, forgot my camera, so unfortunately I couldn't take pictures of the gorgeous building the museum was in, so maybe I was just bitter. I plan on returning to see the rest of the "Istanbul, traversee" exhibit so I'll have my chance. The entire museum was also covered with little French children who were on their field trips, which gave the museum a nice, though somewhat boisterous atmosphere.

It was really nice to just be alone in the city for a day; even though I'm living alone, I've realized that I end up almost constantly being surrounded with other people or communicating with other people, which is great- but every now and then just taking myself out on a date in the city can be fun.
One odd little side effect of writing this blog for me has been that I have found myself almost subconsciously narrating the events of my life. I remember from psychology that one of the "identity confusions" of adolescence involved seeing yourself as the center of a some sort of movie or novel and your life as the story and I thought at the time that it was a funny idea. Now, I think I understand the idea a little bit more: recently, when I've seen something funny or thought something, I've ended up restating and retelling it in my head from a slightly removed point of view; it's amusing for a bit, though I'd prefer that this inner narrative come to an end soon. :-) Anyway, after I left the art museum, I went to the Eurolille shopping center, though I'm not quite sure why. Even before I went, I was fairly certain that I did not want to buy anything, that I was not in the mood for shopping, and even if I found something, that I should not buy it. However, I did make the important discovery that you have to pay for public bathrooms in France and that it costs 30 Euro Cents. I also now know that it's a good idea to figure out how the pay machine works before you get in line, because otherwise you'll have lots of very impatient people who really need to go, angrily rushing you as you fumble with your money and try to figure it out. Not that any of the above happened to me or anything. I also had my first craving for Asian food yesterday. I was waiting for it to happen, for I hadn't had my staple sushi or chicken tikka masala since I left home (the day before I left home to be exact). I had been walking past japanese, chinese, and indian places not remotely tempted by the foods that I ate more often than pasta at MIT, until yesterday when I went to Eurolille and spent a few minutes looking longingly at their sushi bar before getting pain au chocolat, my new staple food. Thursday evening was slow, as I missed Ian's email asking me to come to the center of Lille for dinner. I had some bad soup and went to bed early instead. I'll write more when I get back from Paris/Versailles this weekend!
And a quick last note to all of my lovely friends who have been writing me long emails and then inexplicably apologizing for writing them (you know who you are)...I love receiving your emails, so keep writing them and stop apologizing. :-)