Hello from Belgium!

It has been quite the week here in Lille, full of boring information sessions as well as exciting events thrown by IESEG’s international club. We had a barathon where we visited several bars in the city, a 4-hour scavenger hunt throughout the city (my feet still hurt from all the walking!), and a surprise trip to the city of Béthune and the beach at le Touquet. Besides that I got French healthcare, which I thought I would need this week. One morning I woke up with a sore throat, no energy, slight fever, and no appetite—I felt awful and words can’t describe how I felt. I struggled throughout the day, but 10 hours of sleep seemed to do the trick. Hopefully I don’t get sick during these next few months!

 

Perhaps one of the things I was worried about the most, both before and after I got to Lille, was the classes I would take. The Lille program is relatively new to Santa Clara, and so there isn’t a set list of pre-approved classes and the credits at IESEG don’t really translate to SCU. Because I will be taking classes at both the bachelors and masters level, credits for classes are different. One thing I really like at IESEG is that some classes are extensive and others are intensive. Classes that are extensive meet once a week for a semester (well it seems like a lot of mine only meet for half a semester) and classes that are intensive meet a few hours everyday for one week with a final on Friday. It seems pretty crazy, but I’m actually doing a few of those. Thus far I signed up for 9 classes (20 units), which doesn’t quite equate to a full course load at SCU. With this said, I’m still trying to add classes at the other schools at la Catho aka my French classes because most of my classes are in English besides business French and Euro-Mediterranean relations.

Now that my week of orientation is over, it’s time to actually start school. Well actually, it isn’t. Thanks to the wonder French education system I don’t have any classes the first week and for my second week I only have one class, and it’s on Monday. This means one thing: a lot of traveling through Europe. Currently, I am writing while cruising on a train along the beautiful countryside of Belgium. I feel like Xavier from one of my favorite French movies “L’auberge Espagnole.”  For the next few days Molly, Ryan, and myself will be exploring the medieval city of Bruges and the wonderful city of Brussels. It was kind of a spur of the moment trip because none of us have class the first week. Even better, we got really cheap train tickets (only 13 Euros to Bruges) as well as some cheap hostels.

Looking forward to when we get back to Lille, we have a few things for which to get excited. We plan to take the 45 minute TGV ride down to Paris to do a little bit of exploring. The other reason to be excited is the famous “Braderie.” From what we heard, it’s Europe’s biggest flea market with people coming from all over the continent to both buy and sell stuff. As you walk around the city, you can see people already sleeping in tents trying to get the best possible areas in Lille. 

 

To put things into perspective, today experienced the weekly (flea market) at Wazemme. Ryan went last week and said it was quite the experience. Literally everything was sold, from things like clothes, socks, and towels to exquisite cooked food like rotisserie chickens, slabs of ribs, and both Moroccan and Asian delicacies. The smell throughout the market was contagious and I couldn’t resist buying some food. I decided to get a slab of ribs (5 Euros) a quarter chicken smothered in its drippings (2 Euros) a container full of roasted potatoes in chicken drippings (2 Euros) and a baguette (50 cents). Needless to say, it was one of the best meals thus far. This market is amazing, but I honestly can’t imagine what the Braderie is going to be like.

A few parting thoughts…

Even though I have been here for more than a week, I still can’t get over how nice people are here. It really seems like a family here in Lille, as people are willing to talking to everyone, even the homeless people.

I’m not sure how I’m going to get used to all the rain. It’s not like it rains all day here. It will rain for a few minutes then stop, and then get harder again. It’s kind of unpredictable.

I wish I paid more attention to the metric system in school

Professor Toppel’s lecture on culture in MGMT 80 mirrored exactly what a culture specialist talked about during her information session. “Culture is like an iceberg: 10% of a person’s culture is above the surface, and the other 90% is below the surface.

Update:

Belgium is awesome.

Exchange student orientation: being a freshman again

After spending the few days wandering the city of Lille by myself, it was good to finally interact with people, whether they were people I knew from Santa Clara or that I had just met. Today was the first day of a weeklong orientation and when I think back to freshmen orientation at Santa Clara, I have memories of meeting people from all over the United States, signing up for classes, getting tours of the school, etc. In many aspects, orientation here in France has been kind of similar. We were handed a messenger bag full of paperwork, which made me feel like being a freshman again. Although, everything was explained in English, there was just so much information to digest--classes, healthcare, residence permits. 

Perhaps the biggest scare of the day was when the international relations coordinator said that we couldn't leave the country without getting our residence permits approved, which could take from 1-2 months (in other words half of my study abroad experience). Luckily, being the Americans we can travel around with our passport like we're touring the continent (which I plan on doing extensively)--thanks for asking Molly.

At my specific business school in France, IESEG (part of the Université Catholique), there are well over 200 (I think that's the number) international exchange students either spending one semester or a whole year abroad. Of these students there are over 40 countries represented ranging from the least represented, Estonia and the Cook Islands, to the most represented, India and Mexico. In between there are the usual students from various Asian, American, and European countries. The dynamic within the group was quite interesting. The most surprising thing to me was that about half of the exchange students didn’t speak French or were beginners. I can’t imagine what it’s like for them to get around a city where most people don’t really speak English.

Whether we like it or not, there seems to be this negative connotation surrounding Americans. Whenever we asked an international student what they think of Americans, without hesitation they chuckled, which in turn made me chuckle, too. In their minds they have all these American stereotypes—fat, loud, obnoxious. To an extent, we couldn’t hide our American ways whether it was hoarding pizza for lunch (yes you Ryan) or teaching people from Scotland and Korea how to play flip-cup at the dinner table (yes Molly I support your claim that girls are better than guys).

At the end of the first day I came away with a few takeaways:

•  French people love to party. Every presentation had a mention of a party or partying (whether it was by the international club or the school faculty). In this week we have a party at a bar planned and a Barathon (aka Bar Crawl) planned…FOR OVER 200 STUDENTS. Highlight of the day: While we may get a guided tour of the campus at Santa Clara, we get a guided tour of all the bars near campus in France
• I love French food. Flammekueche (tarte flambee/pizza) for dinner.  “Appetence for food”
• The next four months are going to be quite insane (in a good way of course)

Last but not least, don't kidnap kids.

 

My adventure to Carrefour (the supermarket)

After a day of traveling (including the time changes)--seven hour flight from Chicago to Dublin, two hour layover, one hour flight Dublin to Paris (CDG), hour and a half hour wait for the TGV to Lille--I finally made it to my studio in Lille. Luckily I was picked up at the train station by an international club ambassador or else I may not have found my building. My studio is bigger than I expected and came furnished with a bed, closet, dresser, bookshelf, table, desk, two chairs, fridge stove, and a bathroom. Even though I arrived in the late afternoon, I was so exhausted from not really sleeping on my flights that I just put my bedsheets on and called it a night. I slept like a baby besides the fact that I didn't have a pillow.

Waiting for my train at Charles de Gaulle

I'm still getting used to French being everywhere, but I expected it. At the airport in Paris, at least the French was slow and there was english to supplement whatever I didn't understand, but here it's all really, really fast. Even when people realize that I'm American, it seems like they are speaking twice as fast on purpose. For the most part I can understand everything, but hopefully my ability to speak will catch up on my listening skills.

I have yet to see the school yet, it's about a 10 minute walk from where I live, but this morning I decided to go to the supermarket which is a block away from where I live. I've heard of Carrefour before, but I didn't realize the magnitude of the store. It's the world's biggest chain of hypermarkets/supermarkets. Just imagine a Safeway on steroids. Needless to say, it was quite the adventure. I needed to get some stuff for my studio, but even those things were hard to find. It took me an hour to navigate through the store and find the stuff I needed (I didn't get all of it). The selection of things at the store was so different that I just spent a lot of time looking at the variety of goods. One of the highlights, well actually lowlights, was when I checked out. I had paid for everything but there weren't bags for my stuff. I ask the lady if she had a bag and she said to me "trois cents," which translates to three cents. In my head I thought she said "trois cent," which translates to 300. Immediately I asked, her three hundred what. After a few exchanges I realized what she was saying, but then it took me awhile to figure out what coins I could use to pay (Euro coins are so confusing).

Most of the international students will be arriving over the next few days, a lot of them don't speak any French so that will be interesting. Although France is different than home I love it here and I'm excited for all the adventures that will ensue over the next four months.

The journey begins in a week

After spending the summer in sunny Santa Clara, being home in hot and humid Chicago is different to say the least. Needless to say, I'll be going through more changes soon...I leave for France in a week and I am throughly unprepared for my travels! Besides my plane ticket and visa which came in today (which I was stressing about for weeks) I have so much to do/figure out in the next week. I don't have my TGV ticket from Paris to Lille, don't know what to pack/bring, heck, I haven't even signed up for classes yet. As scary as this all may seem, the very thought of living in the moment, totally spontaneity is very thrilling to me. I feel like the whole world is at my disposal.

As excited as I am for this new experience, it's also sad to leave Santa Clara. I'm going to miss everyone in the fall and hopefully my house is still standing when I return in January (but make sure you guys fiesta on). Even though I may be thousands of miles away, a few time zones over, hopefully everyone will be able to follow my travels in Europe via Facebook, email, etc. I know that I'll do my best to stay in contact with everyone, I hope you guys do, too!