"Weekend in Paris and Dunkerque" or "The Thanksgiving Quiche" or "How much french food is too much?"

I spent Saturday, Sunday, and Monday in Dunkerque, basically building up my paté/champagne tolerance. Apparently it's what you do in France on the weekends, but one person can only consume so much bread and paté and champagne and roast chicken and cake and chocolate and coffee in 2 days. Oh, and I didn't even mention the cheese... Today is Wednesday, hump day, middle of the week, and my stomach still does not feel the same. Quite a weekend.

Spending the holidays away from home was harder than I thought it might be. It really had me a little "off" all of Turkey Day, actually. I tried to keep up my cheery persona and wish a happy American Thanksgiving to every French and British and Irish person I know, but it's just not the same when you have to TELL someone it's a holiday, and it's more than a little depressing when someone literally looks at you and says that they have never even heard of your holiday before. It was funny, but not very festive. And the only American I know in Lille expressed a lack of enthusiasm about the whole thing that pretty much completed the bursting of my bubble-- when I saw him in the office and lit up like a Christmas tree, opening up my arms and saying "Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!!"-- at which he sullenly glanced down at his watch, then back up at me, and said "Oh, is that today?". I was pretty much done at that point. Follow that up with no internet connection to call my family and an extremely uncomfortable laundry mat harassment situation (you know how that goes...) and the entire day left me frazzled, standing in the middle of my tiny apartment with no idea what to do with myself. Luckily, the day was saved in typical Claire fashion, as I sent her a frantic phone call in my desperate attempt for contact with humanity, and she promptly commanded, "Get a bottle of wine and get over here, I am going to make us a quiche." So we ate the Thanksgiving quiche, drank the bottle of Thanksgiving wine, I made the world's most expensive cellphone call back home, and all was right with the world.

So the weekend started with my beautiful Friday in Paris, celebrating a little late-Thanksgiving and doing all things Christmasy with Brooke and Brandon. For 4 years she and I have been talking about the day that we would get to see France together and this weekend it came true! It was such a lovely experience and I'm so thankful I got to see them. We didn't do much, but it was really nice being a little more leisurely and a little less touristy-- we rode the ferris wheel in the Place de la Concorde, drank mulled wine as we walked through the Christmas Market on the Champs Elysées, then went for a wonderful dinner off the Rue de Rivoli with calvados fresh from Normandy afterwards back at the hotel. A perfect day.

Dunkerque was a more lay-around-and-do-absolutely-nothing-but-try-to-digest-what-you-just-ate affair. I stayed with my best french friend Claire at her Mum's adorable little house near the sea, met lots of extended family (including a pet chicken), consumed copious amounts of the aforementioned paté/champagne not to mention a sandwich known as the "americain"-- spicy sausage in a baguette with bourgy sauce (like a mayo/ketchup combo), covered in fries which are then doused with salt and vinegar. Insane in my belly and I had to take meds afterwards just to settle it all down. BUT, after eating the entire thing I was told that I'm now a part of the family, so I do have that going for me. Top the weekend off with watching "Home Alone" dubbed in French with Claire's little nephew Louis and know that I am one perfectly happy girl.

Life in Lille

It's now been a month of living in Lille. As long as I can count my time here in days, in weeks that I can number on my fingers, it seems to lack a sense of permanence, and the heavier realization that I will stay here, be here, carve out a little corner of life and space here for myself. For the moment I still have the feeling that I'm pretending, playing make-believe-- I was always good at that game.

But if it's all pretend then my made-up life is going really well: my work is expanding as I've started another teaching job in the little town of Dunkerque, even further north than Lille, about 10 minutes from the Belgian border. I'm working at a little collège called Sacré Coeur, teaching English and music with students from about 11-14. It is definitely not my preferred demographic, but it is such a fantastic opportunity and I immediately fell in love with the teachers and the atmosphere at the school-- very warm and inviting and so enthusiastic to have an American English assistant! I have truly been overwhelmed with kindness during my short time here and I think it would do Americans an unbelievable amount of good to come here and meet these people who are so generous, so genuine, so interested. The "freedom fries" folks just might have to re-think their philosophy a bit, because I can honestly say that I have never been to another place where there was so much positive interest and excitement at getting to know an American-- it's a wonderful feeling and a great responsibility, I think, to represent the USA here, for people who have never had any interaction with someone from the States, and I am as happy and as proud as I can be (particularly with the outcome of the recent elections) to show Europe what being an American really means, just as the French are daily tearing down my own pre-conceptions and cultural captivities regarding the Old World which surrounds me here.

So I'm starting to feel very settled and very at home in Lille. I've definitely gotten into the groove of things here and I'm so glad for that. I've got that destiny/fate/cosmos-in-the-chaos sense of calm and peace about me here, with a lot of happiness and relief thrown in. Several things have made me feel this way, I think. Jumping on stage at the Guapa Bar was definitely one of them, and so was buying my guitar. Watching my friendships here open up and grow as we all become comfortable with each other and start to trust and depend on one another, getting into fun and mischief together and looking to each other for help. Being involved in other people's lives, like having students who look to me for some sort of knowledge or baby-sitting for a friend's nephew-- I'm started to feel entangled here and it's exactly what I had hoped for from the start.