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What a week! Ok starting out with Sunday...
Celina and I went to Mass by my place and I really liked it... it was more my style and it was nice that it was daylight. BUT this whole "no heat" thing is kinda annoying I'm not gonna lie... After church we went to the market which was CRAZY so we stopped for lunch (aka hamburgers) to load up for the shopping experience and to get out of the cold for once. We ended up really enjoying food and heat, and when we walked out of the restaurant, all the vendors were closing up shop :( We managed to get some fresh produce and a really soft pair of leggings, but we definitely missed out on a world of things. Next time. Plus now we know how cold and overwhelming it is.
Monday... classes: didn't happen. I only had one class, but not only was it cancelled last week but it was also cancelled this week... fine by me. Celina and I went downtown to work on travel plans for February, and Reid eventually met up with us too. After they left I read my literature book for Wednesday, and then Reid ended up meeting me at a restaurant and we got lunch because his plans fell through for the afternoon. BUT we got a really delicious meal and waffles YUM.
I decided I'm gonna buy tennis shoes at the market tomorrow. All this vacation planning and waffles/nutella has me worried.
Tuesday- my morning class was cancelled again, and apparently the teacher (who rarely shows up to anything) wants to move it to Mondays. Ok. But it's only gonna be a six week course so I guess I can do that. Then we had a placement test for our French Oral Expression class- it was just a 5 minute interview and was pretty straightforward. Then I got a wifi router at AEU and that was probably the highlight of my week haha. Wow is it a miracle. Gina and I got pizza that night after our night class. No surprise.
Wednesday- French Literature at 10am, Linguistics at 1pm (which actually turns out to be French phonetics, which I've already taken. I'll stay in the class because it's fun but I'm also adding the next level up, which is French syntax, for the rest of the semester). Then I tried a new history class, Modern History, because Contemporary History was too hard. I have no idea what the difference is but I'm not taking either haha. I walked in and the teacher already has kids giving half hour presentations on a topic during the period of history that they're talking about. I had no clue what they were all saying, I wasn't super into it anyways because of the whole presentation thing and the fact that I've already missed the first day, so I stuck out the two hours and threw away my notes at the end and dropped the class haha. The teacher was funny though. I got pizza that night too.
Thursday- translation class from English to French which was better this week than last. After that we got sandwiches and planned our trip more... then I went to an "Intro to Politics" class, but it was more focused on the media's effect on politics, which is interesting but everyone was a journalism/communications major and were pounding furiously away on their laptops and I am not about that life. I understood a majority of what the guy was saying, but it was a big lecture hall and even the French had trouble keeping up with him... so I'm dropping that one too haha. Then we had our first French Language class (from the placement test last week). The teacher is super funny and nice, I think I'm really gonna like that class but it will definitely be a challenge- almost everyone in there is fluent (it's for international students) so needless to say I'm intimidated. After that I hung around and got pizza with Reid (notice this is day 3 in a row for the pizza) and we went to choir. Reid was right- we were the youngest people there in this "university" choir. I made friends with a French lady who ended up being the soloist for the main piece so that was cool. She spoke softly so I was straining to hear her and also keep up with everyone in the very difficult piece so by the time I finally got home (10pm) I was pooped. It was a long day of French
Friday: 8am class (it's still dark when I get to school) and I really enjoy my 10am Geography class so that was fun to end the week on a good note.
Overall feelings of school: still kinda annoyed at the unpredictedness of everything, but it's good to have a schedule and to have something to work on. The classes that I really liked last week got harder this week which was kinda annoying but oh well that's school I guess... I dropped the two impossible classes and didn't stick with any of the ones I added this week, which sounds like I'm losing a lot, but I added two classes for next week, so that makes up for the two I dropped... Which brings me to a total of 23 (?- can't exactly remember) hours of classes which adds up to a maximum of 6 classes at Marquette so I'm glad I'm getting some stuff out of the way :)
Friday night we had an international girls night in my friend Katie's room. I brought ketchup potato chips and was obviously the life of the party lol. We chilled in her room till about midnight when the Mexicans wanted to take us to a Latina bar, which ended up literally being called "Latina Cafe". It was super fun, especially with just hanging as a gal pow wow. Plenty of Spanish music and dancing to go around ;) At about 2am we went to a bar called Smile which was definitely more American club style and it was even more fun than the Latina bar, maybe because we knew the music... About 40 minutes later, everyone started leaving but Gina and I stayed because it was so much fun. We ended up hanging around these two Irish guys the whole night- they were hilarious and weird human beings, and bought us beer at the end because well, they're Irish. We left at like 4ish, and the walk home was slow but we made it back by 5 safe and sound :)
Saturday I was lazy, and all I wanted to do was laundry but that didn't happen, and I'm not so sure it's ever going to happen, so I did a good chunk of my load in the sink today, and now my bed is the only think that doesn't have clothes hanging over it. Good thing I have wifi :)
Today Celina and I went to the market like last Sunday, and we even bought stuff this time! 2pm still came too early for us, but I bought some shampoo and conditioner, a skirt, a bottle opener, some scrunchies, and some chocolate :) Pretty successful minus the running shoes so I'll be fat for another week.Then we went downtown and got waffles before getting lunch- bad idea. The waffle was so sweet I could not finish it all and that's saying something. Wow I literally could not walk straight my mind could not comprehend what just happened. It was good but now I'm scared for Belgium.
We got lunch at one of our favorite places (it has wifi). I got an "American Crepe" which was just beef stew put inside a crepe.... it didn't work out well as you can imagine. But I appreciated the protein. Then we met up with our friend Linda to go to church in the big church downtown... The bigger the church the colder it is, and I think this is the coldest church in all of Lille. It was a very different style of mass, but I enjoyed it! The priest was really good, and we all walked up to the altar for the consecration, which was kinda weird but cool symbolism. This church also dipped the host in the wine and tacked on the last part of the Lord's Prayer. There were also a lot of events that week for Presbyterians, so we were confused as to what we went to, but we're pretty sure it was Mass... I'm guessing there aren't a ton of Protestant churches around and this church was trying to provide a community of Christians. Who knows.
After a long day I'm hoping I have my 9am class tomorrow because I would really not like to get up for nothing haha
Celina and I went to Mass by my place and I really liked it... it was more my style and it was nice that it was daylight. BUT this whole "no heat" thing is kinda annoying I'm not gonna lie... After church we went to the market which was CRAZY so we stopped for lunch (aka hamburgers) to load up for the shopping experience and to get out of the cold for once. We ended up really enjoying food and heat, and when we walked out of the restaurant, all the vendors were closing up shop :( We managed to get some fresh produce and a really soft pair of leggings, but we definitely missed out on a world of things. Next time. Plus now we know how cold and overwhelming it is.
Monday... classes: didn't happen. I only had one class, but not only was it cancelled last week but it was also cancelled this week... fine by me. Celina and I went downtown to work on travel plans for February, and Reid eventually met up with us too. After they left I read my literature book for Wednesday, and then Reid ended up meeting me at a restaurant and we got lunch because his plans fell through for the afternoon. BUT we got a really delicious meal and waffles YUM.
I decided I'm gonna buy tennis shoes at the market tomorrow. All this vacation planning and waffles/nutella has me worried.
Tuesday- my morning class was cancelled again, and apparently the teacher (who rarely shows up to anything) wants to move it to Mondays. Ok. But it's only gonna be a six week course so I guess I can do that. Then we had a placement test for our French Oral Expression class- it was just a 5 minute interview and was pretty straightforward. Then I got a wifi router at AEU and that was probably the highlight of my week haha. Wow is it a miracle. Gina and I got pizza that night after our night class. No surprise.
Wednesday- French Literature at 10am, Linguistics at 1pm (which actually turns out to be French phonetics, which I've already taken. I'll stay in the class because it's fun but I'm also adding the next level up, which is French syntax, for the rest of the semester). Then I tried a new history class, Modern History, because Contemporary History was too hard. I have no idea what the difference is but I'm not taking either haha. I walked in and the teacher already has kids giving half hour presentations on a topic during the period of history that they're talking about. I had no clue what they were all saying, I wasn't super into it anyways because of the whole presentation thing and the fact that I've already missed the first day, so I stuck out the two hours and threw away my notes at the end and dropped the class haha. The teacher was funny though. I got pizza that night too.
Thursday- translation class from English to French which was better this week than last. After that we got sandwiches and planned our trip more... then I went to an "Intro to Politics" class, but it was more focused on the media's effect on politics, which is interesting but everyone was a journalism/communications major and were pounding furiously away on their laptops and I am not about that life. I understood a majority of what the guy was saying, but it was a big lecture hall and even the French had trouble keeping up with him... so I'm dropping that one too haha. Then we had our first French Language class (from the placement test last week). The teacher is super funny and nice, I think I'm really gonna like that class but it will definitely be a challenge- almost everyone in there is fluent (it's for international students) so needless to say I'm intimidated. After that I hung around and got pizza with Reid (notice this is day 3 in a row for the pizza) and we went to choir. Reid was right- we were the youngest people there in this "university" choir. I made friends with a French lady who ended up being the soloist for the main piece so that was cool. She spoke softly so I was straining to hear her and also keep up with everyone in the very difficult piece so by the time I finally got home (10pm) I was pooped. It was a long day of French
Friday: 8am class (it's still dark when I get to school) and I really enjoy my 10am Geography class so that was fun to end the week on a good note.
Overall feelings of school: still kinda annoyed at the unpredictedness of everything, but it's good to have a schedule and to have something to work on. The classes that I really liked last week got harder this week which was kinda annoying but oh well that's school I guess... I dropped the two impossible classes and didn't stick with any of the ones I added this week, which sounds like I'm losing a lot, but I added two classes for next week, so that makes up for the two I dropped... Which brings me to a total of 23 (?- can't exactly remember) hours of classes which adds up to a maximum of 6 classes at Marquette so I'm glad I'm getting some stuff out of the way :)
Friday night we had an international girls night in my friend Katie's room. I brought ketchup potato chips and was obviously the life of the party lol. We chilled in her room till about midnight when the Mexicans wanted to take us to a Latina bar, which ended up literally being called "Latina Cafe". It was super fun, especially with just hanging as a gal pow wow. Plenty of Spanish music and dancing to go around ;) At about 2am we went to a bar called Smile which was definitely more American club style and it was even more fun than the Latina bar, maybe because we knew the music... About 40 minutes later, everyone started leaving but Gina and I stayed because it was so much fun. We ended up hanging around these two Irish guys the whole night- they were hilarious and weird human beings, and bought us beer at the end because well, they're Irish. We left at like 4ish, and the walk home was slow but we made it back by 5 safe and sound :)
Saturday I was lazy, and all I wanted to do was laundry but that didn't happen, and I'm not so sure it's ever going to happen, so I did a good chunk of my load in the sink today, and now my bed is the only think that doesn't have clothes hanging over it. Good thing I have wifi :)
Today Celina and I went to the market like last Sunday, and we even bought stuff this time! 2pm still came too early for us, but I bought some shampoo and conditioner, a skirt, a bottle opener, some scrunchies, and some chocolate :) Pretty successful minus the running shoes so I'll be fat for another week.Then we went downtown and got waffles before getting lunch- bad idea. The waffle was so sweet I could not finish it all and that's saying something. Wow I literally could not walk straight my mind could not comprehend what just happened. It was good but now I'm scared for Belgium.
We got lunch at one of our favorite places (it has wifi). I got an "American Crepe" which was just beef stew put inside a crepe.... it didn't work out well as you can imagine. But I appreciated the protein. Then we met up with our friend Linda to go to church in the big church downtown... The bigger the church the colder it is, and I think this is the coldest church in all of Lille. It was a very different style of mass, but I enjoyed it! The priest was really good, and we all walked up to the altar for the consecration, which was kinda weird but cool symbolism. This church also dipped the host in the wine and tacked on the last part of the Lord's Prayer. There were also a lot of events that week for Presbyterians, so we were confused as to what we went to, but we're pretty sure it was Mass... I'm guessing there aren't a ton of Protestant churches around and this church was trying to provide a community of Christians. Who knows.
After a long day I'm hoping I have my 9am class tomorrow because I would really not like to get up for nothing haha
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