The Good: Working with French students; I’ve knitted my first glove! ; I’m going to the Limoges Halloween Festival ; and the best ever: I can walk down stairs for the first time in 4 months!
The Bad: poverty ; oh why oh why Aussie dollar, do you sink so low?
The Ugly: Karen at 6:30 am when she has to go to work, especially after staying up late to play Sims2; the way the ‘low salt’ butter I bought smells.
This week has alternated between sitting in my room, watching/doing/creating, and sneaking onto the train to go to work. I sat down, considered the amount of money I had, and considered how many weeks there were till I got paid, and didn’t like the conclusion I came to. I’ll be living on 40euro a week until mid December – which is, when one considers the dismal Australian dollar, about $80, which may seem reasonable till you consider the cost of living here (Coca-cola in vending machine 2e ($4), 4 slices of ham 2,40e ($4.80), bananas 2,50kg ($5). With the poor exchange, everything is about double the price; so consider living on $40 a week, and then see how richly you’d be eating! However, my diet of weetabix, butter on bread, apples, and milky tea (haven’t found 2-minute noodles, or equivalent, yet) does have a good side: I’ve lost about half of my knee-injury weight so far.
Here is an example of my poverty – though you could say its creative too! – rather than have containers or pots to put my hair accessories in, I used old pamphlets to make origami boxes, using a procedure I found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0jJZ1gW_qA
Poor Mans Containers
However, the ‘butter’ I bought – not too sure if it is actually butter, it doesn’t actually have ‘buerre’ on the packaging – smells really odd. I bought this particular one because a) it was cheaper than everything else (which is probably the problem), and b) it said ‘léger’ (light) and ‘demi-sel’ (low salt). Its smell has really gotten to me – even Vegemite can’t block it out. Actually, despite the ‘demi-sel’ it is saltier than the Flora Ultra Light marg I’m used to. Need to figure out the word for margarine, and go for that.
Work is pretty good – started to actually work with the French teens/early 20′s, and it’s going well. Finally, something I’m confident and certain in what I do – I could be in Japan again, teaching conversational English to small groups of shy teeny asians (except these are small groups of tall wonderfully accented teens with wicked senses of humour). The only bad thing is the 8am start time on Tuesday and Thursday: 6:30 wakeup, which is K I L L I N G me. Its my own fault: I have been staying up late watching downloads and playing Sims 2. Don’t worry, even I think its pathetic that I moved to a foreign country, and brought the Sims with me; shouldn’t I be outside checking out the Frenchness? Forget it, its too rainy.
Speaking of Frenchness, I caught this today while I was wasting time near Lille Flandres (big train station in the right of the picture):
Graffiti on Dome
That graffiti so wasn’t there yesterday. I was perplexed for a while how the kids had gotten all the way up to the roof of the building to do such an impressive piece of grot, but then I noticed the scaffolding next door, and all became clear. Graffiti and tagging do go on here, but they’re not really terribly noticeable, and it gets scrubbed pretty quickly. Wish there were a Banksy here, instead of this kind of trash, though (speaking of which, I will get my arse into gear and go over to London sometime next month I think).
So, due to poverty, my trips were restricted to cheap places: i.e. places within the 1,25euro Transpole region (metro area where the buses/trains are only $2.50 a trip). I went to Seclin, small dingy town south of Lille for a ‘manifestation’ – that is, a ‘performance’ or, in this case, a ‘re-enactment’ of a World War I battle. It’s 90 years since the end of WWI, which was fought in this very area. That in itself is pretty unreal to think of, for someone whose homeland has rarely seen war on their soil.
Seclin
Seclin’s about 15k out of Lille. You can take the train – 15 mins – but it’s like 6e return ($12), so I took the bus – 40 mins – which is a metro ticket 2,50e return ($5), beautiful. And, hey, you see more on the bus.
The reenactment didn’t begin till 2, so I went into the town, intending to see the beautiful ‘Hôtel de Ville’ (Town Hall), but tell you the truth, I couldn’t be arsed when I arrived, so I had lunch and pretty much started walking out to the Fort.
Lunch was pommes frites. We got to talk about frites. They are not French Fries. They are Belgian. Being in a past life part of Belgium, the Northern French love their pommes frites. Bienevue de Chez Ch’tis (‘Welcome to the Sticks’, a film about this area which is currently France’s highest grossing film of all time) does not lie about this. For me: they are better than chips back home – they’re slightly vinegary and crisper, something to do with the way they’re cooked – and for 2e, I can get enough frites to feed four people:
Pommes Frites
It’s a pity there weren’t four people to feed, though, as I had to throw away 2/3rds of them (and then later, when I was freezing and starving, regretted doing that). And yes, I had the mayonnaise sauce with them. Ketchup is available, but when in Rome …
I sat in the garden of Seclin’s eglise (church). The eglise was being renovated, and something I found interesting was the exposed brickwork, showing the different eras which the eglise had lived through:
Eras
Garden of Seclin Eglise
Fort de Seclin
Fort de Seclin, where the re-enactment was, is about a k out from Seclin, between Seclin and Templemar on the Rue de Templemar. From Lille, take the Ligne 55 (from Porte de Postes), get off either at Templemar Mulier or Vieux Moulin, walk 1km south (from Templemar Mulier) or 1km north (from Vieux Moulin) to get to Chemin du Fort. There is nothing between these two towns, a lot of farmland and no road verges (so you do risk being run over).
If you’re a war buff, it’s a pretty good site to visit: it’s owned privately by a family who is obsessed with memorabilia; you can wander the grounds and check out the well stocked museum. It’s open 2-6 every Saturday and Sunday, the website is here: http://www.fortseclin.com/.
Map here if it’s useful to you:
Vieux Moulin Arrete to Fort de Seclin
Would I recommend making a special trip to go there, if you’re not a mad war buff? Not really: it’s a long way, and a bit dull.
However, if you are in Lille around the third weekend of October, which I believe is when they hold the reenactment annually, definitely go. It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.
Journee du Poilu Poster
‘La Journee du Poilu’ – the reenactment – went for four hours, and involved soldiers in blue uniforms, kids firing cannons, a blacksmith, and some very funny moustached Germans.
Okay, so now the best of the (many hundreds of) pictures. Frenchies are blue and navy; Brits are brown; and Germans, when you see them, are green with pointy hats (and moustaches):
Chatting
Lunch
Camp
Kid
Formation
Equipment
Camp - with cute Kid
Officers
The museum itself is quite nice, quite comprehensive, and I know my father would be in heaven. There were a lot of general war memorabilia, particularly orientated to WWI, with tanks, cannons, uniforms, cavalry wear, badges, pins, German money, that sort of thing. I took a few photos of artifacts but there was one cabinet that struck my fancy, see if you can guess why:
Pins
Lets talk about the best bit of the day: the cannon. These things S E R I O U S L Y R O C K E D. Besides the insane camera crew who kept knocking me over while I tried to take a vid of the one functioning cannon. See the You Tube vid I’ve made to check it out. I particularly liked how the French officer warned everyone to put their fingers in their ears – relevant because it was S E R I O U S L Y F U C K I N G L O U D.
Loading Cannon for Film Crew (bottom right)
Lets hope this kid – the luckiest kid in France – had earplugs:
Kid
This is my favourite shot: this kid got to fire the cannon. Here he’s sitting with the empty shell. How dare he look so bloody nonchalant – I would’ve loved to do what he just did.
Ready for the Charge
Following the cannon firing, we all started lining up for a view of the ‘charge’. The French (blue) and Brits (brown) set up some sandbags and got out their rifes.
The military are now recruiting Scouts - be prepared.
I should mention that the event was also attended by about fifty scouts in flourescent blue, orange and yellow shirts.
Les Allemands
So, heres the enemy, chilling out, waiting for the Allies to get off their arse and head out to see them. Were they even called the Allies in WWI? Well, I mean the Brits and the French, anyway.
It took a long while for the ‘charge’ to get going, so I was wandering about what I later learnt was to be the battlefield. The ‘Germans’ (I actually suspect that at least some of them were really Brits in disguise) started yelling out to me – in English, of course (they could yell in French or German all they wanted, but I wouldn’t have even noticed). While thinking I was being told off, I headed nearer, to learn that actually they wanted me to go ask their mate – taking a leak in the bushes nearby – what was ‘he doing for his country’. As you can see, they weren’t exactly taking the day all that seriously, and are therefore my favourite army of the day. It’s a pity that they lost.
Check out the You Tube clip for the actual charge, and more photos and vids of the cannon and museum. It’s here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POxMyZqHLqE
I was going to stay for the procession of torchlight and candles, but at 4:30 I was tired, freezing (the temperature had dropped suddenly that afternoon), and hungry, so I went home. I had even meant to go back the next day to see a parade – they were to march to the Seclin war memorial (near where I’d eaten lunch), but the temptation to stay in bed, and watch Heroes was too much.
So, in other news
Next week, I’m going to check out the biggest Halloween festival in France – at porcelain capital Limoges. No metro-ticket there, unfortunately: now, don’t freak out Mum, it cost about $240AUD return to buy the tickets to get there. How in hell could someone living on butter and bread afford such a ridiculous price for a train ticket? Well, lets just say that credit cards are there to be charged.
Another credit card purchase is flights to Iceland: about $600 worth (would’ve been $400 worth if T H E A U S S I E D O L L A R H A D N ‘ T C O M M I T T E D S U I C I D E ! ). That is something I’m seriously excited about. I’ve been watching You Tube clips of Bjork showing off her hometown of Reykjavik and standing next to geysers (but not Geysir, the actual original one). I’m tossing up whether to actually do something ridiculously crazy for-someone-with-my-driving-ability-when-visiting-a-country-when-snow-will-be-everywhere: rent a car. I know, I know, dangerous AND expensive, but it may be the best to get the most out of my Iceland ‘experience’. Lets just say I dread the bus tours (they visit pseudo-attractions! Just like Japanese bus tours – why oh why do this to the poor tourists? Why?). I have been knitting a red wool scarf / hat / mittens for the occasion. Yes, just like Sims 2, I brought wool to France to knit with, instead of spending my time out in the big wide Frenchness. And I’ve already scoped out where I can get more cheap wool. So that’s what I’m going to do now.
And, anyway, I fixed the issue with leaving comments. They are open to all and everyone. So you are hereby ordered to leave comments. Bonne nuit.
Filed under: Political
Thanks to Stuart and Alan for alerting me to this.
The Government is planning to create two blacklists: one for children, similar to the one already operating in DECS schools, and one for everyone. The idea is to blacklist child pornography and terrorism sites, which is a noble idea in theory, but as any kind of computer person could tell you, impossible practically without dramatically reducing internet speed (which, in Australia, is already amongst the worse in the developed world), increase internet costs (amongst the most expensive in the world, too) and blocking at least 3% legitimate websites. Oh, and they want to block bittorrent websites too.
This is wrong on a couple of levels. One, superficially, if you’ve ever tried to use a computer in a public (or private) school, you understand how damned irritating these kind of Net Nanny programs are – this blog, for example, would be blocked automatically, because blogs are banned altogether (not sure why? – especially since many people use WordPress to publish actual websites). This has been a huge hindrance to my teaching, let me tell you.
On a more sincere level, this threatens civil liberties. If anyone needs an education on where things like this can lead, talk to my mate Meg, who’s teaching in Japan at the moment. WordPress? no. You Tube? no. Facebook? no. Myspace? no. All because of the ‘national interest’. Scary stuff. There is a reason why lefties and civil libertarians are always harping on about freedom of speech and other similar old fashioned concepts: there is still danger even in a little bit of limitation, such as this.
For more info:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7968823265
Filed under: Uncategorized
My friend Caroline found this vid and posted it on her blog: she often keeps track of international affairs and the bizarre political termoil that goes on in her home country Belgium.
It explains how the World Financial Crisis is now happening (but still doesn’t explain why, when its everyone else’s banks that are failing, is it the Aussie dollar that goes down – come on, there isn’t a Euro bank out there that isn’t suffering! Fall already, damn it!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4Ns4ltUvfw
Okay, now I’m off to watch Heroes – yay yay yay – but I did go somewhere interesting over the weekend, so I’m going to post tomorrow with another mini-vid.
Filed under: Uncategorized
… are now married!
And currently somewhere over the Pacific. They arrive in Adelaide at about 8am or something dreadful like that.
When they get home, they’ll get the pressie I left them – a portrait - and they’ll get a chance to see the YouTube vid I took while I was making it.
Check out the creation of the portrait here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd0NE0tqMQY
I’ve been really busy, playing with video editing programs (including F R U S T R A T I O N with Windows Movie Maker, I think they deliberately programmed scheduled crashes into it), hell, haven’t got much else to do here except walk around. Made a couple of clips about my time in Japan – theres a page (link to the right) about it, but view the clips here (Meg, you’re gonna wanna look especially!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrPyVKfqZEU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Da7Aeno4Lw
Meanwhile, other good news – neighbours at home say they’ve seen Lily, my cat, who went missing just before I left. We believe she is hiding out in our neighbour’s garden while John and Shannon’s dogs have been in and out of our house (Stephen babysat them at their house, but he brought them over often), sneaking back in to eat. Mum is going to do a good hunt for her when John and Shannon are back. I’m very happy, I was pretty sad when she disappeared, and had assumed the worst.
The Good: throwing Ladles from the town hall in Comines; 2 kilos down, 6 more to go;
The Bad: paperwork (again); not getting paid till end of November; falling Aussie dollar not doing me any favours; confusion about the buses going to and from Comines.
The Ugly: complete and utter disorganisation at my school
Comines: Fete Historique des Louches
Poster for Fete Historique des Louches
I may or may not mentioned the geants: the large papier mache people which belong to each town here in the north of France, especially in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais and southern Belgium. They’re wheeled out for particular historical festivals. I found out that in Comines, a small town to the north of Lille, which is half in Belgium, and half in France, would have a local festival last weekend; after discovering it was well within reach by public transport, I headed over there for the Fete des Louches on Sunday.
I knew nothing about it except that ‘louches’ meant ‘ladle’ and that there would be a costume parade. The program mentioned something about ‘jeter les louches’ – jeter means ‘to throw’ – and was a little curious about what that would entail.
Well.
Comines is a really nice day trip out of Lille. It’s in the middle of farmland, and has a UNESCO heritage listed beffroi (bell tower – theres a bunch of UNESCO listed belltowers in the north of France). Getting there was relatively easy – the Transpole #18 or #36 buses leaving from Lille Flandres Gare, or the Transpole Liane #1 bus leaving from Grand Palais or Republique Beaux Arts in Lille, gets you there in 40 minutes, takes you right to the city centre – or should, except when you go during a festival, and you’re made to walk a kilometre from the outskirts because the roads are closed – and because it’s Transpole, it was covered by my usual weekly commute ticket, so I didn’t even have to pay to get there (for those of you at home, ‘Transpole’ is Lille’s equivalent of the ‘Adelaide Metro’ meaning all buses, trams and trains use the same ticket.)
Looking towards Grand Place and St Chrysole in Comines
So, I’d had to walk from the outskirts, which worried me a little because I really didn’t know where I was going, but knew I was in the right place when I turned the corner and saw what could only be ‘L’Eglise Saint-Chrysole‘ – a somewhat oriental (‘neo-byzantin’, apparently) art deco church (with what appears to be concrete cancer), built between the World Wars.
St Chrysole at Sunset
It was closed due to the festivities, but I would’ve loved to see inside it.
The beffroi is down right unreal, it’s bizarre and beautiful, with a slight oriental/eastern feel. The ‘Hotel de Ville’ (town hall) and beffroi were built in the 20′s, in Flemish style.
Mairie and Beffroi of Comines (French side)
Comines is a half French city, half Belgian. Apparently this entire area of France used to Belgian, and vice versa; hence the frequent Flemish architecture clashing with Renaissance architechture throughout Nord-Pas-de-Calais. In fact, both sections are joined by this bridge:
Bridge to Belgium
River Lily, seperating two countries.
I still can’t get over the relationship between Schengen countries (for those playing at home, Schengen countries are those in Europe which don’t require border controls when moving from one to the other – such as France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Italy etc.). A Melbourner I’ve met here lives near the Belgian border, and regularly goes for a run over there; here, in Comines, I wandered back and forth between Belgium and France. For an Aussie that’s simply unreal.
Of course, historically, Comines (France) and Comines-Warneton (Belgium) were the same city, so it’s pretty much not that much different on the otherside (the language is even the same, as it’s Walloon Belgium). Anyway, continuing.
There was a medieval market, with mostly pageant participants wandering around in costume, and not many shoppers. I’d arrived in the day too early – most of the festivities, stalls and rides weren’t to open till mid-late afternoon. All you cosplayers back home, northern France is your place to be: seriously, they take their costumes seriously here. Wait till you see the Roman soldiers in the Youtube clip I’m going to do.
Medieval market.
On the Belgian side, I found the geants, who would later feature in the parade, waiting patiently outside a church (the parade starting point).
Buchard (left) et Messire (right) des Comines
Grande Gueuloute et P'tite Chorchire
So, from French Wikipedia, I have been able to determine that ‘Grand Gueuloute’ – a ribbon maker – and ‘P’tite Chorchire’ – a maker of ‘macaroons’ (a traditional cake) – have been around since the 1880′s (yes, that is how old those geants are). In 1984, Buchard de Comines appeared, in memory of the lord of Comines who went to the crusades; followed by the Lord de Comines in 1987, who wears the costume of the ‘brotherhood’ of Comines, and proudly holds a ladle.
After checking these guys out, people were starting to line up for the parade. I grabbed myself a possie on the bridge, and so began the afternoon’s festivities.
This festival, in its current form, has been going on since the late 1880′s, but has been around in some way since the 1600′s. I wasn’t able to find a definitive origin, something to do with a Duke who was locked away in a castle. He alerted some tradesmen, who were working in the dungeons (? I think), to his predicament by throwing his wooden eating utensils out the window. Anyway, I found these: posters of the festival dating back to the 1900′s:
The parade was quite amusing. The floats represent interpretations of the history of Comines, and are prepared by locals according to different themes each year. Many of the costumes would make Kelly B drool with delight, paricularly the Roman soldiers in full legion battle gear. There is a YouTube clip which will give you a better idea of the festival, but here are some of the best pics from it.
Sheep
Best costumes of the day: The Roman Legion
Friars Brass Band
Buchard de Comines
Crusader Brass Band
Belly Dancer Kids
Gypsy Bards
Spahis Algerias
'Nun' on the float representing the local Hospital
I think these guys represented the Napoleonic era
At this point I moved to around the corner, near the Town Hall.
Gymnastics girls - very very cute
Two other geants, whose names I dont know with the Town Hall in the background
The Damoiselle des Louches and her maidens in a giant louche
Messire de Comines and his ladle trailed at the end of the parade
Guy representing important person - perhaps the duke who was imprisoned?
More important people
Comines medieval marching band
Another marching band
The Belgian Comines Brass Band. Far more impressively dressed than the French Comines Brass Band.
The 'Brotherhood of Comines' (made of event organisers, the mayors of both French/Belgian Comines and other town officials) ready their 'louches' to throw into the crowd (actually wooden spoons with a burnt emblem). These guys were absolutely delighted to peg wooden spoons at the waiting maddening public. It was only a sign of what was to come.
Peekaboo out of a geants skirt
The Brotherhood walks with a mother of a ladle
The Mayors of both French and Belgian Comines ready to jeter des louches
So comes the main event of the day. Yes, they literally were going to ‘throw the ladles’. And not just the small wooden spoons which they threw from the float, but actual, big, heavy, old school wooden ladles.
Damoiselle des Louches and her ladies ready for action
What follows can only be seen in movie form, so I’ve put together a short You Tube clip. The crowd was vicious in their attempts to secure a ladle; in fact, it was pretty disgusting. Though I’d've really liked one, I wasn’t willing to risk my life getting involved. Kids cried. It was like the mosh pit of hell. I think the bespectacled damoiselle-lady in yellow was aiming for me (!), but unfortunately her aim was off and I was too scared to get into the scuffles that erupted over the ladles.
Seriously, these ladles were big, the crowd was insane, and some people were suicidal in their efforts to get a ladle.
It was brilliant!
Ladles flying from the windows of the Town Hall.
So, after it finished, the mass crowd that had gathered dispersed pretty quickly – most to go on the rides or play with the amusements (there was a pretty long alley filled with them). Everyone else started heading home, some teen boys carrying four or five ladles each.
Kid plays with his ladle.
I wish I’d managed to get one, but was happy enough to take shots of kids playing with them.
You Tube Clip of Comines Fete des Louches
Make sure you select the high quality version, if available, you can’t see the ladles hurtling towards peoples heads otherwise!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gVXH_F8vQk
Update:
One of the official filmers for the Jet des Louches has put a couple of You Tube Clips up: watch to get an idea of just how many people turned up for the jetting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-O9iKHWeiw&NR=1
Filed under: Bad Humour
Back in my Japanese days, Japanzine was the gaijin’s bible, the English speaker’s magazine. It’s classic: I remember articles about Hello Kitty dildos, a column by a gaijin ‘hostess’ (Japanese style no-sex whore), and ask Kazuhide (a racist Japanese old man agony aunt who my flatmates and I wrote to and were actually published – I think I brought home several copies which should now be in storage somewhere). Anyway, while checking my hotmail account’s junk mail (which only had 15 emails, compared with my inbox, which had 233; this makes no sense given that 99% of my inbox was junk, and about 60% of my junk mail was actual emails. Hotmail sucks bigtime), I found out I’m still receiving the Japanzine newsletter.
In honour of Halloween, there were ‘gaijin horror stories’, about experiences with weird creepy bizarre people (which seem to be in higher supply in Japan than in other countries). This one cracked me up and I had to share.
If you’re heading to Japan, or want to go, do check out Seek Japan and Japanzine before you go; its a brilliant magazine, and is a bit more reflective of the shit you’re going to see when you’re there.
For jobs in Japan on a site maintained by gaijins: http://www.seekjapan.jp/
For the Japanzine magazine online: http://www.seekjapan.jp/japanzine and while you’re there, read through the archive, there is some funny shit.
To see this article in the original context or to read more gaijin horror stories (and there are some doozies) go to: http://www.seekjapan.jp/article/jz/1817/Gaijin+Horror+Stories
Cocksure Hoodlum
By Jon Wilks
Years ago, back in the days when children were something other people got bogged down with, I accepted an offer from a colleague to go drinking in his ancestral town. I was still relatively new to Japan, so Iizuka meant very little to me other than being a distant, mountainous destination, some 2 hours up the line from my station. Obviously, I had a lot to learn. As anyone who has done time in North Kyushu will tell you, the area is a caldera-like mining region that suffered heavily when industry moved on, leaving the workers to relocate elsewhere or seek employment in less desirable trades. Iizuka quickly became known as a breeding ground for yakuza toughs.
The evening started well enough. We found a local bar that had been done up to resemble a cowboy saloon, and the amiable bartender got out his photo album and showed us pictures of what the area had once been. As the three of us began hitting the hard stuff, the bartender shut up shop so that we might embark on a quality lock-in. He was a great orator, and the evening splashed by in a pool of well-wrought memories and coursely brewed shochu.
At around 1am, he decided he’d had enough of his own place and ushered us out of the door into the late autumn night. He knew of a drinking den, he explained, where we might meet some of the locals who starred in his storytelling. At the mention of the place, my colleague looked uneasy and decided he might make his way back to the hotel. Still absurdly oblivious to what this adventure might entail, I agreed to meet him for breakfast in the morning, and set off in pursuit of the bartender, whose thirst for more shochu and continued conversation had set his eyes burning with a bloodshot hue.
It wasn’t until I found myself threading through a courtyard of expensive, black cars, that I realized what kind of den this might be. Any apprehensions I might have had walking up that driveway were confirmed by the amount of gold teeth and hair lacquer paraded inside. Talk about people living up to their stereotypes! Every man wore black shades, sported an outmoded quiff, and grimaced as though they were enduring an unending urethroscopy. Girls in glitzy chinese dresses flitted amongst them, lighting cigarettes, pouring drinks and making light conversation. No one responded. The grimacing continued.
“Ojamashimasu!” shouted my guide, slipping off his shoes and stepping into the large building – ostensibly a drinking den, but obviously some kind of headquarters. The interior of the 2-storey building was done up like an 80s winebar, and through the cylindrical windows I could see pool lights flashing up from a bubbling jacuzzi. Nobody was using it. Nobody was involved in any kind of action that didn’t involve wordless smoking and drinking. My friend’s exuberant entrance was met with a black silence.
Strangely enough, this was the first situation I’d been in where my foreigness counted for nothing. Either they were used to this guy turning up with foreigners, or the dim lighting and dark shades prevented it from registering. Whatever the reason, I was largely ignored. A lithe young woman came over, sat down, lit my cigarette and poured my drink. There was no small talk. I didn’t even have the nerve to tell her I didn’t smoke.
I decided I’d finish up my drink and then try and get out of there as politely as I could. In truth, the nature of their employment gave me no cause for concern; I had no reason to fear them, after all. But I didn’t like the chilly atmosphere, and I got the distinct impression that my bartender friend was out of his depth. These weren’t his friends. They had no interest in him, and our being here was starting to look like an act of drunken bravado on his part.
Just as I was looking around for my jacket, one of the black suits sitting across the table spoke up. “You live round here?” he said, his English as good as yours or mine. “I’m Koji. I’ve never seen you round here before. You an English teacher?” The shock was enough to knock the grimace off the most bitter of faces. Everyone stared at him. “You don’t need to be so surprised,” he continued. “I studied in LA when I was a teenager. My dad used to go there on business.”
And that’s all it took. Within minutes the room had settled into a familiar routine of backslapping and praising Koji’s English. Only the older guys at the bar kept up the act, upper-lips curled as though they’d been supping battery acid. Koji, meanwhile, was prevailed upon to act as interpreter, and together we worked the room like a seasoned manzai act. All was going swimmingly until one of the surly bruisers at the bar took offense, and so ensued the strangest incident of my life.
Perhaps his nose had been put out of joint by the international antics that had disturbed his gangster fug, or perhaps he himself was just mildly disturbed. I remember vividly that when he brought his open palm down hard on the bar, the room fell into silence. “Koji,” he intoned, almost inaudibly. “Tell this foreigner that I’m smaller than he is.”
“I… I’m not sure what you mean, boss,” stammered Koji, cooler than fuck only seconds earlier, now a turdy mess, wriggling in the spotlight.
“You heard me, you insolent prick!” he snarled. “Tell… him… I’m… smaller… than… he… is… PHALLICALLY!!”
How do you respond to that, I ask you? He obviously wasn’t in the mood for wise-cracking. I had to approach this scientifically.
“No, no! That can’t be true,” I fumbled. “It’s just a stereotype. I’m sure we’re both about average length.”
“You fucking foreigners think you know everything!” he hissed. “I’m a real Japanese! A Kyushu man! I have nothing!!”
Things had taken a turn for the utterly surreal. I stared at my shochu, wondering which of these bastards had spiked it. Nobody made eye contact. Everyone nodded sagely and stared at the bottom of their shochu glasses. Even my bartender friend seemed at a loss for words.
The odds weighed strongly against me whichever course of action I chose. Any right-thinking neanderthal would take serious offense at being phallically slighted. Then again, ‘right-thinking’ was obviously not an applicable phrase in this situation. Taking a deep breath, I decided to go along with him.
“OK, fair enough,” I said, as cooly as I could muster. “You’re smaller than I am. I have a bigger penis than you do.”
The air was so thick it was edible. All eyes were on Freud’s field-day, sitting at the bar. He grunted, and then a satisfied smile spread across his mad face.
“I’m a powerful snake-like being, while you… you’re a tadpole,” I continued, emboldened.
“OK! That’s enough!” he snapped. “I think it’s time you went home.”
Needless to say, I haven’t ever been back.
Filed under: Travel
The Good: a zoo that is FREE! Best thing in the world.
The Bad: Paperwork.
The Ugly: the smell of the Metro elevators.
Lille
Update: I finally got Windows Movie Maker working long enough to string together the footage from the Lille Zoo – view it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VHCHOKEwFI
This will primarily be a photo post, showing of Lille while the weather was nice.
Wednesday was to be my grand paperwork day – but the weather was far too beautiful. After two straight weeks of waiting for a break in the rain, I could not possibly spend it in a queue. The other day, I’d failed to make it to the Citadelle, so that’s where I headed. I walked through the old town, which really is lovely, with its mix of Flemish and Renaissance buildings:
Flemish style, in Old Lille (Vieille Lille)
Vieille Lille
Vieille Lille
The Citadelle is the remains of a small fortress to the West of the old town. Near the entrance to the zoo, there was this wonderful log, a fallen tree that an artist had taken to in the 50′s:
Log, carved by
Cardon log, detail
Funghi! growing on the Cardon log
Lille Zoo is -free-, yes, I can’t believe it either. And it’s a very nice, small zoo, with plenty of seriously cute animals, that kept me occupied for a good few hours.
Two random african deer things and zebra.
Rhinos
Either these rhinos were fighting or seriously in love, because they kept cuddling each other. I will make a You Tube clip soonish to show you what I mean. It’s rare enough to see rhinos, even in zoos, so I was pretty happy to see these guys.
Young Peacocks
There were several peacocks strutting around the park. This was a nice feature: a crowd of ducks and peacocks wandered around at their leisure. I wonder if this would work back home: how many little fuckheads would try to pluck one of their tail feathers or chase the ducks?
Line of turtles, sunning themselves
Monkey getting stuck into a bit of coconut
Quarreling macaos
Cutie baby llama
Iguanas enjoying some ultraviolet
Big turtle mungs on some avocado
Meerkats, checking us out
Meerkat buries his dinner
Porcupine
Mr Porcupine here was memorable more for the dozens of little kids running up and shouting: ‘pork-e-pig! pork-e-pig!’ It wasn’t until I read the sign before I realised they were actually saying ‘porc-épic’, the French for porcupine.
Snow owl
This owl was just beautiful. He settled down on that log and was quite happy to watch us watching him. I think he even went to sleep. However, the best show was put on by this guy:
Big, gruff, owl
The only Australians
Tucked behind several thick bushes were the only Australian animals I could find: two kookaburras. They were lovely, but clearly cold! Nor did they sing, which is a pity because the little French children running around would have loved it.
The Zoo sits on the grounds of the Citadelle. I followed my walk through the zoo by circumventing the Citadelle walls.
This photo was stolen from another site, but it gives you an idea of the shape of the citadelle: a five pointed star, with a pentagon of buildings on the inside (it is still used by the defense department, and you can go in, but I wasn’t really interested). Theres a moat all around the external walls, and a walking path.
http://www.cheminsdememoire.gouv.fr/image/NordLilleAerien1.jpg
The moat, covered by a small-leafed plant.
Walking trail around the walls.
It is incredibly green, thick, and picturesque.
The Citadelle entrance.
The beautiful entrance to the Citadelle interior.
There are an awful lot of autumn flowers around at the moment, and I couldn’t help stopping to take a couple photos:
From there, back to Lille, a complete loop, via Place de Rihour.
Trick of the eye mural near Place de Rihour.
After a wander around Furet du Nord and Carrefour, I was still in the city centre during evening, so I took the time to take a few shots. Come Christmas time, the lights that have progressively been strung about the city over the past few weeks will be switched on, and the city will be exceptionally beautiful at night. Really looking forward to that …
Vielle Bourse at night.
Vieille Bourse at night
Theatre at night.
Towards Vieille Bourse from the theatre, at night.
Random …
As mentioned I went to Carrefour, a hypermarche which is kind of like a Woolworths and Big W combined into one. I had it on good authority that there would be Vegemite there – and …
Vegemite at Carrefour
Yes, there is Vegemite. However, it is 150g for 5 euros 97. That’s about $9-$10. I think I will ration the tiny amount I already have.
I also found Weetabix – not Weet-Bix, but the British variant, which will be just fine, thankyou very much. It has lower sugar and fat than the cornflakes I’d been forced to eat; and they do have fresh milk there, though not much. I’ll save buying a carton for drinking – its too expensive for tea or cereal.
On a side note, theres a shop in Euralille (the big shopping centre above the Eurostar train station) which I took note of:
Undiz at Euralille
Yes, it is an underwear shop called ‘Undiz’. I don’t know if thats a mocking French variant of ‘undies’ or what.
Generally Euralille is not, contrary to other reports, all that exciting: just chain stores, and no food court. Why does everyone rave about it? Theres better shopping elsewhere. Comparatively, its not really that large, either, even with Japanese shopping malls, though I suppose big for France.
My knee is well on the way to healing – just starting to walk downstairs now, and can almost kneel – but still a long way to go, so I’ve been exhausted every single night this week from these sight seeing wanders. The bath here has become my best friend: I felt guilty at first, for using so much water (for non-Aussies reading this, we have major water restrictions at home, and baths are a big no-no), but after two weeks of rain, and reading an article which says France has the cheapest tap water in Western Europe (tastes like it too), I’m happily having one every other night.
Not sure where I’ll travel this weekend – keen to go to Normandy and check out some fields, or maybe somewhere closer – but next weekend theres a World War I recreation at Fort Seclin, near here. I’ve heard these sort of things are good to go watch, if a little family orientated (and therefore weak as American beer). Seeyou later.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I have had an interesting day, and I’m bursting to tell. But before I do, I have to talk about the last few days
The good: Le Petit Chaton; Blue skies over Lille!; Hellemmes market.
The bad: saying goodbye to Le Petit Chaton; no buses to Marchiennes on a Sunday.
The ugly: Romanie children begging. If you’re gonna do it, do it yourself, don’t put your kids up to it.
…
Hellemmes
Eglise en Hellemmes
It was a miracle – blue skies above Lille! This was Saturday. Having stuck to my room studying French and watching movies for the past week, I had to take advantage of it. My plan was simple: check out Hellemmes (the inner city suburb I live in), walk to Lille, check out the touristy things, come home, collapse. It pretty much worked out like that.
Hellemmes is a lovely place to live. It’s like a Walkerville (suburb I lived in in Adelaide when I worked for Wilderness). It has plenty of beautiful oldness and a good community village feel – even though its on one of the main streets in and out of Lille. I knew the eglise (church) was nearby because I can hear its bells on the hour. The belfroi (tower) is a mishmash of eras and bricks – you can quite clearly see on the tour the imprint of previous incarnations of the church. I think I was stunned by the blue skies – I haven’t seen them for a long time! I wandered through the parks, being chased by the massive duck population of Hellemmes and checking out the plant / funghi life:
Wet conditions = massive funghi
Hellemmes market
I did see dozens of senior citizens pull into the townhall carpark with granny-trolleys, but didn’t quite click what they were there for: Hellemmes has a street market every Saturday, apparently. I was seriously happy to hear this: now I’ll be getting my fruit and veg from these markets weekly, no more somewhat suspicious items from the local Lidl (the local equivalent of Rite Price).
Meanwhile, there are a couple mansions about Hellemmes – I’m assuming they’re the old homes of local nobility – theres a few around with parks (and hungry ducks) in them.
Hellemmes grand maison
Lille
I walked my way into Lille, discovering the local equivalent of Cheap as Chips (called Zeemans – and nowhere as good!). Lille really is a beautiful city, and it is such a pity it is grey most of the time.
The best thing I saw that morning was the Eglise Saint Maurice – pretty typical of a French church, yes, but I haven’t seen one in a while, so it was still nice:
Eglise Saint Maurice (from Lille Flandres)
Eglise Saint Maurice
Interieur, Eglise Saint Maurice
Because of the sun, the light through the stained glass windows was remarkable. I should’ve taken more photos: no doubt I won’t have many oppourtunities to see such beauty again soon (unless it snows).
Vieille Bourse
Seriously gorgeous city. This is the main square of Lille. I mean, how could you not love that old world charm? It’s heading your way as a postcard any day now!
Which brings me to other aspects of France that I somewhat love:
Flagons
Yes, they are flagons of wine. They’re about 4 euros each (thats around $7-8) and I think theres maybe 4-5 litres? It’s table wine, meaning cheap and seriously nasty, but beats goon any day. At least you could use it as a degreaser …
Lille is not all old town and cobblestones.
Theres quite a multicultural and disadvantaged edge to France – as evidenced by the riots in 2005 (which occurred the last time I was in France, by the way (!)) – and such there really is a lot of good street art. This mural was – I think – near Wazemmes, where I visited another market.
Wazemmes market: like Central Markets, but without the roof.
Now this is what I call a market. You can buy fruit and veg (of course), clothes, shoes (boots, boots, boots everywhere, after I went to the trouble of going to Roubaix to buy some new boots! Damn you), toiletries (Palmolive shampoo, imported from Germany or Italy, 1E60!), French books, an organic market, sewing notions and accessories, seafood (of course), meat (of course), and I even saw guys peddling pirated dvds, blank cds/dvds (which are quite expensive everywhere here), and hair clips. All very cheap, of course. I don’t think I’m going to bother going to any actual shops in Lille ever again.
So by this time it’s Sunday – I had planned to go to Marchiennes (a town 30 minutes drive away) for a sorcery festival (!) but sadly, there were no buses. My other option was to go to Paris for the Nuits Blanche event (where the city’s museums stay open all night) but the cost of the TGV to Paris (70E round trip, we’re talking about $120) was too high.
Sunday night I found out I would be working Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays only, so that left me with Monday to fill – again. After visiting my school to chase up some paperwork, I was back in Hellemmes, and took advantage of the lack of rain (but sadly, lots of grey skies still).
Hellemmes (again)
A police station. No, really.
Near my supermarket, I had seen a sign saying ‘Commonwealth War Cemetery’, so with this spare afternoon, I wandered through, and sure enough, there were about two dozen Aussies buried here. Some are identified only as ‘Royal Air Force Pilot’ or similar. Some of the graves in there dated from around the late 1870′s – I didn’t really see any older.
Commonwealth War Graves, Hellemmes
Then, on my way home …
Le Petit Chaton
Which is a little boy kitten. On the way back from the cemetery, I followed a billboard which promised discount bargains (for a large K-mart like store) on the second left. I found the place, thought’great! If I need to buy cheap crap, I can do so one block from my house’ and started home – then I heard the most awful sound a sucker like me can hear: a cat in distress.
And not just any cat. A two-three week old kitten, huddled against a concrete wall, desperate for its mother.
I thought, it’s nothing to do with you, it’s clearly a stray or someone’s pet, it will be rescued, walk away. But when I got home I was far too upset, so against better judgement I went back, brought it home, cleaned the poo off its tail, gave it some milk and put it to sleep in my towel:
Le petit chaton se dorm.
The first thing I did was look up the word ‘kitten’ (c’est ‘chaton’) so I could figure out the French to explain why I had one wrapped in my towel, to my landlord or whoever. His crying stopped as soon as I gave him milk (head first in), and purring started. He was still unsteady on his feet and still had blue eyes, so clearly very young (or, as I prefered not to think, maybe too ill). He seemed relatively healthy, if skinny. I think someone’s cat nearby had kittens, and he went walking, or he’s the baby of a stray. He would grow up to be a lovely cat: as soon as I picked him up he cuddled into me, and fell asleep the moment I wrapped him up.
I was seriously tempted to keep him, secretly wrapped in my bedroom, until I trained him to live in the backyard and wait till that day I could take him home with me – but sense got hold, and I realised I couldn’t subject any cat to the 6 month hell of Australian quarantine, or to my absense by travelling. And I didn’t want to have to explain him to my landlord.
By chance, I had seen only days before this poster, in the window of a shop around the corner:
Poster from the Ligue Protectrice d
It advertises an open day at the local Ligue Protectrice des Animaux – LPA – which I (rightly) assumed, was the local RSPCA. I have been in the habit of reading posters wherever I saw them because a) that I can read in French makes me feel better about my shitty speaking and listening skills, and b) its the best way to know when local events are happening. I had seriously considered going to the open day only the previous day, as I like animals (but didn’t because I knew I’d want to take every one of them home – quite ironic and coincedental, given what occurred).
So, I decided that was the best place to take Chaton (who, in the tradition of ‘Dog’ from Footrot Flats and ‘Cat’ from Breakfast at Tiffanys, became quickly known as ‘Kitten’ in my mind).
Ligue Protectrice d
Luckily it was on a metro station I knew of (it’s the end of my line), and I found the directions on Google maps easily enough, and it was open when I went (by this time, almost 5pm). He slept in my backpack, wrapped in the purple towel, the whole way.
The lady at the accueil (office) listened to my ‘Pardon-moi, mon francais, ce n’est pas bon’ and ‘J’etais faire un promenade quand j’ai trouve un chaton …’ (which I’d practiced on the way), grabbed him by the scuff of the neck, said ‘Merci’ and that was it. Yes, I cried on the way home: not so much because I knew that in 8 days he’d probably be put down, but because I really wish I could’ve given him a home. If I had found him in Australia, I wouldn’t have hesitated, I would’ve taken him in. His only hope now is that he gets fat, and some French family think he’s adorable. Back home, apparently most kittens have a good chance, so hopefully its the same here.
Les Romanies
On a side note, the LPA was next to a communal parking spot for the nomadic Roma (gypsies) people. They live in caravans all over Europe, moving from place to place, sending their kids to beg people in train stations for money (Not very fond of that, got to say – little kids going ‘Madame? Madame?’ and holding out their hands). I hear that they’re fleeing Italy in droves, where they mostly come from, because the Italians are getting all racist on their arses (new laws requiring their DNA registration and so on.) I’ve seen them everywhere here – theres set parking areas, given by the government, and then again, theres not so set places: they park all alongside the highway sometimes. Besides the children begging – which, as I said, I really don’t like to see – they don’t seem to cause much trouble, and I find the fact that a nomadic people still exists in Western Europe, pretty much the same as they have for about a thousand years, absolutely fascinating.
Filed under: Everyday in Lille
The Good: hail outside my bedroom window; Metro de Lille
The Bad: cheap boots splitting in the rain; far too much French, far too little understanding; I’m still the same weight I was before I started 6 weeks of aerobics (how is that fair???)
The Ugly: Noel Allen, the fuckwit
Lycee Cesar Baggio
Today was my first day; after much idle waiting in La Salle des Professeurs (Staff Room) at the Lycee Cesar Baggio, my professeur referent (who is assigned to look after me) introduced me to the directeur adjoint (deputy principal) and the secretaire; I then sat in on a class; then went home. Not particularly awe inspiring but …?
Baggio is pretty interesting: retro art noveau city, man. It’s well maintained, and has lots of orange and concrete. It’s a purely technical school: they teach mechanical engineering and so on here. Interestingly, most of my students are 18+ and pretty respectful. Teaching style in France does seem to tend towards teacher-centred learning, which I might shake up a bit.
Teaching is going to be no problem: French kids seem all in all better behaved than Aussie ones (I expected that), and there’s more respect for teachers. And much of everything is the same: schools are ridiculously disorganised and chaotic all over the world.
I’m settling in okay – I’ve found a cheap supermarket (the aforementioned one which sells printers but not notebooks), my room is comfortable, and the Metro (subway) rocks. Lille metro consists of two lines of driverless two-part slimline carriages which take me to work in fifteen minutes. I’ve met my other two roommates: middle aged Italian professeurs; one speaks passable English, the other none. I’ve not spoken to them much. Jean-Carlo (the non-English speaking one) came to my rescue this morning, gesturing comically at the fantastic mess I’d made by breaking a glass bowl: smashed into smithereens, and me with no idea where the broom, vacuum or dustpan was kept, and with no idea what the French words for broom, vacuum, and dustpan are. Besides broken glass, my only issues are I have no idea how to turn on the stove, or to start the washing machine (and everytime I go to ask the Italians, I can’t remember for the life for me what French for washing machine is – it’s laver. I’ll have to wait for my landlord (who speaks perfect English) to return.
The weather has been dreadful – but this is Lille, and Lille may as well be Seattle, apparently. Certainly there’s no lack of water! Not a big fan of the tap water so I went to buy bottled – at .17 eurocents a 2.5 litre bottle. Yes, that’s around 30c Aussie. Man, are we getting scammed on the bottled water market.
My big excitement this afternoon was this:
Hail outside my window!
Yes, it hailed. One more step away from snow …
which I don’t want to happen, because it appears the boots I bought to keep my feet dry lasted half a day in Lille puddles; hell, not even that. I hadn’t even arrived at my orientation on Wednesday, when this happened:
Never buy boots with the zip at the back.
Here am I, buying these boots back in Aus, thinking ‘Oh, the zip at the back is interesting’. My arse. The bottom of the zip was damaged and just splits its heart away. I had to walk a good 5-6kms with a hair tye holding my boot together.
However, on the bonus side, the Holeproof Explorer socks I bought ROCK: although I was squelching in water every step of the way, my feet stayed warm and relatively dry.
Having found out how much I’m going to earn, however, I may not be able to afford new boots till the end of the year – I’m going to a factory outlet mall tomorrow in a neighbouring town, to see what kind of prices I’m up for; but going on everything here, I know I won’t be able to afford it.
Other small issue: I’m not sure if theres fresh milk here. I’ve been drinking UHT with my breakfast, but I miss fresh milk to drink (UHT is … you know how it tastes, straight). No luck on the Vegemite or Weet-bix search, the only two staples from home I need in everyday life 
Absolutely so far my biggest problem is French. After two years of study, my French is still at a beginner level – I just can’t understand anyone. Understanding is important, as they went ahead and did our orientation entirely in French. I imagine next week’s training day will be also. In the end, I went home and looked up on the internet what I’m required to do, so it was okay, but I had a touch of panic during the session as I could catch words like ‘visa’ and understand that it was all really really important. But, the French thing is really bugging me; I need to become fluent at French yesterday, and no matter how hard I work now, its going to take six months to get there – by which time I’ll be packing for home.
Finally, Mum let me know how things been going with her case. All I can say is, if I ever meet Noel Allen again, I am going to rip him a new one and see how he likes it. What a fucking deluded prick. How can there possibly be someone so evil, and we don’t see it? We have the Hitler of the Pharmacy world in that man, right here, someone should assassinate him now before he goes all Pinky and the Brain and try to take over the rest of the world. What kind of person attacks someone so viciously, especially when he knows they’re innocent and he can’t possibly profit from it?!
I’m off, to sleep for a while and then contemplate some badly needed French study.
