Lille Markets

Gare Lille Flandres

Bon Noel! Well, thousands of Brits flock to Lille every year for its Christmas market. The medieval style marche de noel which flourish in the Benelux region (that’s BElgium, NEderlands, and LUXembourg, by the way, a cultural group in which I somewhat include Northern France and parts of Germany, as they share many cultural similarities) are worth a visit if only for the joys of mulled wine and vin chaud (hot wine).

Supposedly, these markets are supposed to be filled with local produce, art and crafts. In truth, most of the markets I visited seemed to feature the same goods you can find in the stalls of daily suburban weekend markets (i.e. for those back home, the Central Markets). After the fiftieth stall featuring Made-In-Some-Poor-Asian-Country beanies and scarves, I gave up on finding anything interesting to send home as gifts, and went to visit the mulled wine stand again. I also took the time to ride the Ferris Wheel, sitting in a carriage with two excitable German tourists who took great amusement at my pulling out The Pink Tripod* to take photos of the city.

What I do adore about Christmas in Europe is the lights. Though now threatened by environmentalism, lights are strung in every main street as the days start to get short. They’re lovely, and distract from the foggy, dark, weather.

I had been holding out for Australia, it’s now here. I went to see it in Brussels, a bizarre experience: while I was smiling in homesick glee, the Dutch and French patrons in the audience were completely confused. No wonder: I can now follow French subtitles (and Dutch is so similar to English, you can usually figure out what it says) and the subtitles were often completely wrong. Australian English just doesn’t translate, it appears. Nicole Kindling was appropriately wooden and Hugh Jackman appropriately yobbo, but the kid is actually really cute, and it is all so wonderfully silly in the way that Baz Luhrmann can only do, so I liked it.

Bruges (it’s in Belgium)

So, after missing my train to Strasbourg (where I was to see one of the more famous Christmas markets in Europe), I went to another ‘famous’ Christmas market, in Bruges. I also came back a few days later, with Caro and family.

The markets there were better than Lille, but not because the market stalls held anything particularly interesting (more Made-In-Nepal Beanies). It was all about the chocolademelk (hot chocolate, duh) with Bacardi or Amaretto, which was  h e a v e n. I keep telling myself that in such cold weather, alcohol is not a luxury, but a necessity.

I liked Bruges the first time I visited with Caro back in 05, but this time around, I was somewhat more bored. It is a photographer’s city, but the weather was appropriately miserable and not suited to taking photos. So I spent much of my time there drinking hot chocolate at the market, and cheap red back at my hostel. I also went to see a movie (Brideshead Revisited), and ate a lot of frites, which I think explains those coupla kilos I miraculously gained while I was away.

Bruges is called the Venice of Belgium (it seems that any city with canals these days is referred to as the Venice of somewhere). The canals really are gorgeous:

Bruges main ‘attraction’ is the Church of the Holy Blood. I did arrive while the ‘holy blood’ itself was being venerated (after a small donation, of course) by tourists. It seemed a little odd, the silent queue up to the platform where the vial of blood rests on an elegant cushion, watched over by a stern faced priest. I was more interested in the interiors which are absolutely stunning. Unfortunately they don’t allow photos (!) so I was promptly told off.

On a minus, I had a flashback to the days when smoking wasn’t banned in bars – in Belgium, it’s still allowed. Drinking my wine with my eyes stinging and nose running in the hostel bar was definitely the lowest point of the trip. I even considered escaping to the terrace (-2 degree weather, by the way) to escape, which I thought was bizarrely ironic and unjust.

At Caro’s

I spent Christmas at Caro’s, with her family. Her parents, her parents and brother in-law also attended, and devilishly gave me a present each (I, of course, hadn’t thought of that). It was great to spend Christmas with friends, especially as I had such a miserable time of Christmas in Japan.We had turkey, bouche (log shaped christmas cake), and tortoise:

The year before they ate crocodile.

Last stop before Iceland – Brussels.

I stayed the last night in Brussels so I could catch an early train to Paris (for my flight to Iceland), and to go see Australia. Brussels was suprisingly quiet – I guess, being a major business city, it’s abandoned at Christmas. But what was fantastic was the light show in the Dexia tower:

It was fascinating. Though you can’t see it, the lights variegated through purple, orange and blue. It wasn’t until I was nearer did I see the display – the lights were representing a video of a street. I think. Anyway, when I got back I did some research about it – it’s an ongoing installation that has taken many other forms over the years. Put ‘Dexia’ into You Tube and you’ll see plenty more.

So, anyway, next is the Iceland trip, if I ever get around to putting the photos together. Adios.

__________

* The Pink Tripod causes great excitement amongst tourists whenever I pull it out. Seriously. Everyone stops to stare and grin. It’s basically three television aerials built into a casing – I bought it at Bic in Japan, never seen one like it anywhere else. I think the excitement is because it’s pink. And it matches my camera, which is also pink.

** So my foreign readers are not alarmed: dead horse is rhyming slang for tomato sauce.

Before I get to the Iceland trip, I’ve got a few photos of some Christmas events in Hellemmes, Lille and Bruges.

Hellemmes welcomes Saint Nicolas

At the end of November, I saw Sinterklaas arriving in Antwerpen on a steam boat. Early December (the 5th to be exact), Saint Nicolas arrived in Hellemmes to much fanfare. December 6 is Saint Nicolas’s day, and like their Flemish neighbours to the north, those in Nord celebrate the saint himself as a seperate holiday, as opposed to the Coke-Cola Santa which, we in English speaking countries, consider part of the Christmas celebrations.

In Nord-Pas-de-Calais, it turns out that Saint Nicolas abseils down mairies:

I was supposed to go see Saint Nicolas abseil down the Arras belfry the following night, but slacked out – I really just wanted to stay in bed!

In France, and Belgium, community areas were suddenly filled overnight with confectionary stands and amusements. I meant to get stuck into a Nutella crepe but never got around to it There are dozens of these community events across the Nord; the biggest being in Lille, of course. Though, there was no Saint Nicolas climbing out of the Lille Belfry.

Reading: Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything – a laymans book about the greatest discoveries in science, really quite funny, actually. Who knew scientists were such a bizarre bunch. Take the attidude of deep-sea decompression researcher J.B.S. Haldane towards the effects of the ‘bends’ and his self-experimentation:

“Collapsed lungs were a routine hazard. Perforated eardrum were quite common, too: but, as Haldane reassuringly noted in one of his eassays, ‘the drum generally heals up; and if a hole remains in it, although one is somewhat deaf, one can blow tobacco smoke out of the ear in question, which is a social accomplishment.” p301.

Hey, who wouldn’t want to give up their hearing for a neat party trick! Seriously, I’m beginning to wonder how it is that men once believed that they had the rationality and women had the childishness.

Watching: Deathproof – was expecting it to be terrible, but you gotta love Zoe Bell, that is one cool Kiwi. The film has absolutely no point to it, but that’s fine. Brick Lane – rather beautiful, important movie, which doesn’t end as many of these kind of movies do, so was very refreshing.

So much for Strasbourg

So, my big disaster of the day, is that after carefully spending the day before packing, doing my laundry, scrubbing my room and the house, laying my clothes out, waking up at 5am, being ready on time, and even arriving at the train station 10 minutes before the departure (usually it’s 2 minutes and I have to run), I missed my train to Strasbourg this morning. Why? Well, I hadn’t bothered to check if the train departed from Lille-Flandres Station (domestic trains, usually) or Lille-Europe (international trains). I suppose my Strasbourg train was actually on its way somewhere else – it’s very close to Germany. I realised at about 6 minutes before departure and ran as best I could in tight jeans and a bung knee to Lille Europe, to miss my train by 1 minute. Fuck.

Of course, the ticket was non-refundable, and, being France, the ticket I originally paid 30 euros for, three months ago, now costs 129 euros, so there I was, not going to Strasbourg. Defeated, stinking and sweating like a pig in my snow jacket (remember, I was on my way to Iceland), I had to stumble home and go back to bed.

All is not lost for the whole trip – instead of going from Strasbourg to Brussels, and then Brussels to Caroline’s house for Christmas, I’ll just go straight to Carolines on Christmas eve (from Caroline’s I go to the airport for Iceland); I’ve already considered going to spend Tuesday night in Bruges (it’s in Belgium, boom cha) – technically, the reason I wanted to go to Strasbourg was to see the Christmas markets, and Bruges is very Christmassy at the moment, I’m sure. I can drink mulled wine anywhere. I could totally kick myself up the arse, though.

Baggio riots continued

Anyway, Friday was my last ‘working’ day; in inverted commas as, a) I only have one class on Fridays, b) I arrived at the metro station to be told that all the metro was closed down, c) I had to walk to Baggio, and I arrived half an hour late for my one-hour long class, and d) there was only one student. But, it was informative; the one student was a kid who loves to talk, and he happily described the morning events to me:

• the metro had been closed down because of fires at Baggio, under the metro line. This occured exactly five minutes before I arrived at my metro station to go to work (!)
• there had been three more fires, and when firemen had arrived, they’d been pelted with stones and bricks, so they turned around and promptly left the fires – and the firebugs – to themselves
• aerosol cans had been thrown into the fires to cause mini-explosions
• more kids were arrested, more glass was smashed, more wheelie bins set alight, the chicken wire barricades destroyed, and a public telephone destroyed. No cars were set alight this time, though this may have more to do with people now parking their cars far far away from Baggio.

On another note, if you’d like an idea of what Baggio normally looks like without the carnage, have a look at the Google street view which was taken on a pleasant summers day …

Lycee Baggio on Boulevard d’Alsace, Lille, Google Street View

View Larger Map

Can you spot the whole and complete bus shelters? The lack of scorch marks? The lack of mounds of melted wheelie bin in the road?

Well, it’s school holidays now, hopefully this will fizzle over the winter break. While it’s been exciting, it is getting a little tiresome having only one student in a class, or even more so, hanging around in the teacher’s room waiting to see if any will turn up.

Meanwhile, I’ll be focusing on my trip ahead.

Reading: F I N A L L Y finished the Twilight books, what a drag, but felt like I had to slog through them since I’d started. Here’s hoping the rest of the movies are going to be better than the books, as the first film was. Now starting on A Thousand Splendid Suns, to be followed by something incredibly literary, just to clean my head of tacky teenage vampire novels.

Watching: Quantum of Solace (somebody finally released a decent screener version); The Birdcage / La Cage Aux Folles - that is, the French original (1978), the American remake (1996) starring Robin Williams and Gene Hackman, and a recent theatrical adaptation at the Playhouse in London; and Brick Lane, just to round off the London trip.

Hanging Around Lille

After my Toussaint travelling marathon (Paris, Limoges, Belgium, Ypres, Antwerpen … all in fourteen days), I’ve spent the last few weeks venturing no further than the Lille Metro will allow.

An interesting exhibition I attended was an art students market in Roubaix (a suburb of Lille):

There was plenty of general funkiness which Jodie would probably appreciate the most. It was all quite reasonably priced too. The exhibition was an interesting concept: 24 hours of non-stop art manufacture, with the artists camping out in their respective stalls, producing throughout the night. By the time I arrived, about hour 19, they were bleary eyed and sedated, but their stalls were full of interesting pieces. I was looking for Christmas presents, but really didn’t see anything that suited anyone; there was plenty I would’ve bought for myself if I were setting up house in France, but the shipping costs back home would’ve ruined the point of buying students work at bargain basement prices. Here’s hoping there’s similar events back home when I do have to set up house end of next year.

Banksy has clearly had a lot of influence on young urban artists: every second artist was doing Banksy-style stencil art.

London

Determined to do something more exciting with my last weekend before Christmas, I booked last minute tickets to London (as in, 11pm Thursday I decided to go, and 1pm Friday, after work, I was on a bus). God I love how you can just do that here.

After the hassle-free Schengen border crossings between France, Belgium and the Netherlands, I’d totally forgotten that the UK actually does customs and immigration before you can enter – luckily I remembered my ‘Titre de Sejour’ – my French residency card. I’d always wondered why these cards were such a hassle to organise, but now I understand: they are essentially one page passports, for use within the European Union.

On a side note, although it’s a four hour flight away, Iceland is a Schengen country, so I probably won’t need to take my passport for that either. I am intensely jealous of all you EU residents, you got it made.

I could’ve taken the train (1 1/2 hours) instead of the bus (6 hours) except the former cost 120euroes ONE WAY for a last-minute ticket and the bus was 60euroes RETURN. Quarter of the price, who cares about 3 times the time?

The extra time for the bus is due to the delays of customs/immigration, boarding/disboarding the P&O Ferry at Calais. Interesting experience, and a good oppourtunity to buy cheap alcohol before arriving in London:

I’d heard about this: the British come over on the ferry, stock up on cheap booze (no tax on French wine, hell yeah) and drive back again. This fella had every space in his hatch filled with cases, and no luggage. Planning a party?

It seems I can’t escape it … BANROCK! It’s here! Only it’s actually called Rose here instead of ‘White Shiraz’, seems they don’t bother with the toffee name. It was one of a few wines available (duty free, of course) on the ferry in boxes, so clearly it’s popular. They also had Penfolds, Hardys, Lindemans (no, not the guy from Heroes), and a few other South Australian wines. In fact, they dominated the selection. I bought a bottle of Hardys cab sav because it was the cheapest cab sav available – I know, Hardys is an American company now, but I couldn’t resist buying a bottle of alcohol that is marked ‘Reynella, South Australia’ while on board a boat crossing the English channel on the other side of the world. Oh, and just to piss you off just a little bit more: it’s cheaper here.

And, it appears, they save the best for the Brits: normally most Hardys reds are bloody awful, but perhaps because it was chilled, the bottle I bought was really rather nice. Either that or I was drunk too quickly to notice. Or I’m used to the somewhat more hideous French wines.

British Museum

Really, the only touristy thing I did was visit the British Museum. It’s one of the more important museums in the world, but I have overdosed on Egyptian and classical artwork at other museums, so I found the modern art and the non-European artefacts more interesting. It really is a must-see in London, however, if even only to see the Rosetta stone in person, or to see the huge Grand Court (the covered courtyard in the centre, a recent addition).

The British Museum is famous for being one of the largest collections of “borrowed” artefacts in the world (I think the Louvre would have to be the best). Very little of the collection are actually British – it’s mostly Egyptian and Middle Eastern artefacts somewhat controversially removed from Egypt during the 19th century.

There are better reliquaries (a gilded container designed to hold a relic, a religiously significant artefact, which is usually the body parts, or other pieces, associated with certain saints and religious figures) to be seen in Munich (skulls, finger bones, all gruesome and wonderful), the British Museum’s sole one is probably trumps in ’significance’ – supposedly it’s one of the thorns from Jesus’ Crown of Thorns. Wonderful Catholic twaddle, but the reliquary itself is pretty cool; check out the dead rising from their coffins in its base:

If you do visit, check out the North/South American, Pacific and African artefacts (particularly the African) as they’re much more fascinating and relevant (well, I found this to be so: I’ve been to the Pergammon in Berlin, the Vatican in Rome, the Louvre – of course – in Paris and the Museum of Natural History in New York: I am over Egyptian and Classical artefacts.)

My personal favourites at the museum where the following three turquoise pieces which I think were Mayan and the African pieces created out of decomissioned weapons.

My apologies if these are not Mayan but some other South American culture – I didn’t actually check, though I’m pretty sure the room they were in represented Mayan arts.

The African room also includes information and documentaries about the decommissioning of machine guns in certain African countries, where the materials for these pieces are derived from. I admired these works because they represent the feel and spirit of native African art, but incorporate the interference of Western culture onto their society, in the use of the decommissioned weapons. The most important thing I took away was that none of these weapons – which had each killed African civilians – were manufactured in Africa. It reminds us Westerners of our continued responsibility for the difficulties faced by Africa.

Statue Philia at the British Museum

However, at the moment, the main thing to check out at the British Museum are the incredible pieces of modern art that are dotted around the buildings. I’m not usually much of a fan of modern art, but sometimes there are things that are destined to be classics, the meanings and interpretations of which are enough to fascinate even ordinary people. I’ve always thought that a person shouldn’t need an arts degree to appreciate art, and if an arts degree is necessary, then it just isn’t great art. I had to fight through crowds of people to see these pieces, which held many transfixed.

They’re part of the British Museum’s Statue Philia exhibition which will run until the 25th of January.

‘Siren’ by Marc Quinn is the one gaining most media coverage. It’s a solid gold statue of Kate Moss, but intended to remind us of ancient Greek art, with Moss as a modern Aphrodite. Besides being genuinely confronting to look at initially, it’s fascinating to see the level of detail at different angles, much as you would at Michaelangelo’s David. It was positioned in comparison to Lely’s Venus (which I took a photo of above).

Then there’s Ron Mueck’s Mask II. This was the hardest to get a photo of, as every man, woman and child was clustered around it in wonder. Check it out, plopped next to the statue from Easter Island (Hoa Hakanai’a); gives you an idea of the scale. It’s his own face, by the way.

Tim Noble and Sue Webster’s Dark Stuff was my favourite piece from this group: in the Egyptian section, these silhouettes are constructed from bundles of mummified animals. When light is cast at a particular angle, we see they represent a man and a woman’s face (actually, the artist’s faces). It’s intended to be a reflection of attitudes to ‘life and death’ and ‘grotesque and beauty’, but really, it’s Noble and Webster’s connecting Egyptian mummification with the ‘presents’ their cat brought home. I loved it: how gruesome, yet so gorgeous!

Another Modern piece which I think is more permanent – and not part of the exhibition – is Cradle to The Grave by Pharmacopoeia. Basically, a doctor and a couple of artists calculated how many drugs the average man and woman takes in their life, then stitched them chronologically into netting, representing the dependence on medication of our culture. It was fascinating to start at one end, and try to identify the drugs taken at different ages – from aspirin to contraception to chemotherapy and blood pressure pills.

Fascinating concept. I recognised a couple of the pills ! I think that was the intended effect; I wonder how much Levlen has come and gone through my own body since I started on it in the late 90’s?

Other adventures in London.

I spent a bit of time wandering around: I knew I’d return to the UK at least once more during my trip here, so I wasn’t too worried about seeing ‘everything’.

You know I’m a musical buff, and I couldn’t go past seeing at least one show, so I saw La Cage Aux Folles (it’s based on the same stageplay which ‘The Birdcage‘ and the French ‘La Cage Aux Folles‘ films are based on.) It was funny, but as gay-themed musicals go, Priscilla kicks its arse (hey, this one didn’t have a huge bus that hangs out over the audience

It is rather overpriced and overtouristed, but Camden Market was excellent. I hadn’t see such wonderful general alternativeness since coming to France (even the Emos are conservative here), so I felt right at home amongst the punks and fat American tourists wandering around here. The stalls in the Stables Market were better than those on the main street, though my favourite was in the two storey building next to the lock (Spittlefields? I forget the name of the building). Something fun: a bunch of kids in an old boat came through the lock while I had my lunch, it was great watching them operate the seriously old skool lock: no electricity here, all levers and cogs.

I ate on the cheap, had a pub meal at my hostel that was rather decent, and had scones at the British Museum. The best though was the mulled wine and irish stew I had at a little booth in Camden Market. It was f u c k i n g freezing, but the wine warmed me up pretty quick.

There were some seriously original stuff here. In the end I only bought a bag (a red canvas one that is the right size for a teachers bag), but I had wanted to buy heaps more junk. I had to keep reminding myself I’m too old (and too teachery) to be a neo-punk.

I did do a free tour of old London, saw all the sites again, but to tell you the truth the photos I took on my one solitary day in transit back in 2005, when the sun was out, are far better, so I didn’t bother taking many.

So, the weather was pretty terrible, but considering I left Lille in -2degree weather and arrived in 5 degree weather, I thought I actually did pretty well (though I ended up being boiling in my snow jacket). It just rained heavily and was generally miserable.

So, back in Lille.

Riots at Baggio, continued.

I had thought that perhaps I would do a full 10 hour working week for my last of the year, but alas, due to the fiery temperament of some of Baggio’s students (see previous entry). The riots and demonstrations from Friday, Monday and Tuesday have continued all week. I had three classes today (Thursday) and not one student turned up to any one of them. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have some students in my one sole class.

Meanwhile, out the front this morning, I think the kids got cold and decided to sacrifice a wheelie bin:

And the poor troubled bus shelter from before had one more of its windows smashed. Oh well, at least there weren’t any riot police this time around.

Apparently there are similar – though less violent – demonstrations in Lens and Nantes. Meanwhile, the newspapers here are quite bored with it, and have moved on to panic about the latest foiled ‘terrorist’ attack in the Printemps department store in Paris. The first I heard about that was the Australian government’s smarttraveller bulletin warning us about increased terrorist activities in France. Riots, terrorist attacks, god what a dangerous country France is Anyway, it’s not as dangerous as Denmark at the moment, according to smarttraveller.

Movies, Books.

Haven’t bothered with too much of a social life here, so my spare time is mostly filled with travel, media and studying French. I’ve been watching a lot of films/tv shows and reading a lot of books I’ve been wanting to see but didn’t have time to during Uni. With books I usually listen to the audiobooks, originally because it gave my dodgy eyes a rest, but now because I can walk down a street effectively ‘reading’ a book without bumping into people. Walking the 40mins home from work, listening to my audiobooks, has become my main hobby (when it’s not raining, that is). In this way I suffered through the whole Twilight series – bizarrely engrossing and addictive but frustratingly impatiently dull. The movies are going to be better.

I can’t believe it – Survivor is heading into its 18th season. When did that happen? I still remember that fat Richard guy backstabbing his way to too much money.

Quantum of Solace was just incredibly dull. I’m so disappointed; loved Casino Royale. Daniel Craig’s still pretty decent despite the battering he takes, but there just wasn’t any story; it seemed like a collection of randomly ordered action sequences. I found myself going off to make a tea half way through, knitting my scarf, and doing some Iceland research, while it ran in the background. It’s not often a movie bores me that much. Oh well.

A Thousand Splendid Suns is shaping up to be a nice pleasant read, though compared with Persepolis and Osama, which explore similar concepts, it seems a little tame (well, Kite Runner was quite tame also). It will do well as a film though, so looking forward to that.

Just watched Wesele (‘The Wedding’) again: a Polish film I saw at a couchhost’s place. It’s the Polish The Castle, I swear, involving lots of sleaze, sarcasm and vodka. I love it. I’m sending it to everyone I think will like it. I cracked up all over again.

Wishing you all …

a joyeux noel. I’m heading out and about on Sunday, won’t be home till early January. Bizarrely for someone who doesn’t like the cold, and is complaining about Lille’s frosty weather, I’m heading to Iceland for New Years. Yeah, I know, incredibly bizarre. But hey, I get to see the Northern Lights and walk on a glacier. And maybe see an arctic fox, man are they cuties. And there will be plenty of alcohol invovled, no fear.

Speaking of alcohol, have a look at this bottle I bought from the local Hypermarche (super-supermarket):

Yes, it is a bottle of wine from the Lordship of Arse estate. You’d think that winemakers in a country where the English speaking rate is quite high, and which is right next to the UK, would know better. Actually, it was really nice wine for the price (about $7) so I’m going back to get more.

Mum, if you’re reading this, look after Lily, no matter how much she annoys you. Everyone else, have a good vacation, and think of me in subzero temperatures while you’re enjoying mild South Australian weather of around 30 degrees in shorts and t-shirts. Best wishes for a happy new year, see/hear from you soon.

Reading: The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek.

Watching: TV: Californication, Heroes / Films: The Seventh Seal, Hellboy 2, Changeling.

Ieper

Thanks to the discovery of the Belgian railways weekend ticket – 50% discount! – and the Armstice day long weekend, I was able to visit Caroline and her family for several days after I returned from Toussaint vacation. We went out to Ieper (Ypres), a major site of WWI, where many thousands of soldiers died, including several thousand Australians. I’m planning to return to go over the town more thoroughly when the cold eases up – I wish to visit the Commonwealth cemeteries, which requires some walking outside.

Caroline and Christian were kind enough to buy some marzipan for me to try – made from sugar and almond meal, it is traditionally shaped into fruit at this time of year:

It’s very rich, and tastes like almonds (funnily enough) – it really is difficult to work through even one of these small pieces.

Other delights from the confectionare:

The Menin gate is a monument which lists the names of all soldiers who died in the battle for Ieper without a grave in the surrounding cemeteries.

There were panels and panels of soldiers – so many Australians also:

Back in Zottegem

… I went with Christian to the local market. Now it’s getting cold, the hot food sellers are abound in the local markets – like this incredible beheamoth of a rotisserie chicken seller:

Forget Brazilian chicken in Kamimaezu, or Coles Supermarkets end of the day leftover hot bbq chicken – their fare was beautiful, fresh, and delicious. Not to mention: can you imagine just how many chickens they sell in one day? Look closely: there are bays and bays of chickens cooking, behind those you can see. Caroline will probably think this amazement funny: I’m comparing it to the couple of rows which Coles in Aldinga does a day, let alone ten bays. All for this one community.

I so wish there was one in Adelaide.

Confectionary stalls have popped up all over Northern France and Belgium in the past few weeks. Lille is crawling with them. I did notice, though, that I have an extraordinary amount of photos of confectionary – it’s taken over flowers as my favourite thing to photograph. Must be something to do with my current chocolate addiction. Being it’s a very French thing to eat, I allowed myself to buy something I would never buy at home: N U T E L L A. It may as well be a block of hazelnut Cadbury for all the specialness of the taste, but damn even writing about it makes me want to scoop out a large spoonful of smooth hazelnutty chocolateness. When I read the packaging though and saw it is 56% fat I was reminded of why I don’t buy it at home, and won’t buy it again … but while I’ve got it …

Antwerpen and Sinterklaas

Bugger Coca-Cola’s Santa, the Belgians and Dutch adore Saint Nicholas, the real Saint who gave gifts to poor children, with their own quirky traditions. Although St. Nick lived in what is now Turkey, the modern Sinterklaas arrives from Spain in a steamboat around mid-November every year and gives treats to children every night till the 5th or 6th of December (as well as making appearances at department stores). He is accompanied by the totally politically incorrect Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) and his cronies – usually played by acrobats in black face (!) -

Before continuing do have a quick look at the Sinterklaas page on Wikipedia so you have a better idea of what I’m talking about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas

I was able to go to Antwerp to see the Sinterklaas arrival on November 15th. I took more footage than photos, and was harrassed by somewhat over eager mothers who were using their children as excuses to see the events themselves (I could’ve slapped some of them).

The parade was short, but spectacular – the costumes are really amazing and creative. I imagine there is a story behind each character, but I’m not very familiar with the legends.

I loved these costumes. These guys were very funny – I stood near the prep area for a while and they played up to the kids hanging out there.

I do remember that the two ’spaniards’ represent historical figures – Caroline, I’m sure you told me something about them.

Antwerp’s a pretty cool city – it’s like the Munich, Amsterdam or San Francisco of Belgium – that is, a party city. But I’m not much of a partier, and being pretty poor, there wasn’t much for me to do other than see the parade (I came here with Caroline in 2005, so I’ve already visited the “must see” museums in Antwerp). I did end up cutting short my trip and going home early as I simply was tired of walking around in the cold. I did catch a movie, though, Changeling with Angelina Jolie, enjoying the lack of dubbed films in Flemish Belgium (oh the sorrow to return to France and see the lack of ‘VO’ voice originale films in cinemas here.) I walked through the Stradpark, quite nice at night – there’s bunny rabbits (!):

The white dots next to the water were little bunnies. Beats having ducks, I guess.

Such is my camera and the cloud cover, both these photos were taken at night – the long exposure setting drew in such light that they almost look as if they were taken during the day (except for lights).

Antwerp is, of course, a very beautiful Flemish city, just like Ieper, Lille … well, pretty much every Flemish city they’re all so dramatic. Next time you’re touring Europe, add it to your list. Just don’t stay in the Boomerang hostel: I endured a snoring homeless man, rank smells and vomit clogged washbasins (although, most guests at the hostel were still out partying till after I left in the morning, ensuring a near empty hostel dorm for me. Besides the fat, farting drunk homeless guy.)

There are some seriously decent arty little shops around – and the markets I visited were good. There was a lot of cheap shops and the such. Theres dozens of comic book murals around Belgium, and I saw several there.

Still, too cold, too poor, so went home. I didn’t feel like walking from Menen (Belgium) to Halluin (France) to get back to Lille (which cuts 16euro off the cost of any trip to Belgium), so I stayed on the train from Kortrijk to Lille, thinking a conductor was going to kick me off. However, it appears there are no conductors from the Kortrijk to France link; perhaps it’s worth the risk more often (Belgium trains are obsessively well patrolled by ticket-checking conductors, so I always make sure I have tickets for their trains – it’s the French ones you don’t have to worry so much about).

Meanwhile, back in Lille …

Once again the view from my window demonstrates the change of seasons for me – the tree outside my window before I left for Limoges was entirely green; I returned to see mountains of yellowed leaves and bare branches. Then, much to my delight, this week I woke up to snow:

Snow’s actually more pleasant than rain: it’s soft, sticks to your eyelashes when you go out, that sort of thing. I did rug up on this day, made use of my snow jacket and went to the local markets.

It had snowed the day before as I’d done the grocery shopping in Lille, but was far less pleasant as it was more like sleet.

I did get home before it got absolutely miserable: heavy wind and flurries. Believe it or not, it’s only a day later and all the snow has gone. It was warmer last night (4degrees) than it was during the day (-.02degrees) yesterday.

I’ve been appropriately hiding at home this weekend: but next weekend there’s another festival in Comines, and the weekend after Sinterklaas arrives in Arras and Dunkerque. And Lille’s Christmas market’s in full swing; so I’ll be busy between here and Christmas.

Also: the best news of the year: I   G O T   P A I D. You were probably sick of my whining about my poverty: well, now I can afford to actually send the postcards I labouriously wrote out weeks ago; buy some new (warmer) clothes, though still second hand for an euro each at the markets; buy some laundry detergent to replace that which I’d borrowed from my long suffering landlord; hell, I can afford meat now instead of pre-packaged deli-ham. Probably won’t do much for my waistline – poverty becomes me – but I’m sick of dodgy fried rice and cheap cheese on bread. Time for some real food! Appropriately my mum tells me my bill for overpaid Centrelink just arrived at home … … which equals about half of what I earnt for all of October. Well, that can be paid off slowly.

So, catch you soon. And hey, how fucking good is Californication? Seriously those Showtime guys know what they’re doing. Bye.

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

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):

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:

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:

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:

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.

‘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):

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:

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.

Lets hope this kid – the luckiest kid in France – had earplugs:

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.

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.

I should mention that the event was also attended by about fifty scouts in flourescent blue, orange and yellow shirts.

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.