Douai/Lille/Arras

This post is for the entire week I spent with Juliette (who I also call Juju or Ju). I love her. And I have discovered that her family is amazing and I love them! They were so beyond generous for letting me invade their home for a week while I figured things out. I am so happy I got to spend time with them. They didn't know much English, and I still don't know that much French, but we were able to communicate. Juliette's brother only knew the phrases, "Amazing!" and, "I can't believe it!" And he said them all the time.

I arrived in Douai Friday night on September 23rd. Getting there was very easy, except for having to drag all of my very heavy luggage around. Hey, don't judge me. I was packing for a year, and I wasn't supposed to repack my bags and move at all during that year. Luckily, two British women helped me move my bags from one train, to the next. I felt bad for Juliette's dad because he carried most of luggage, and he was the one who carried them up and down the stairs. Juliette kept saying that I brought too much stuff, and she is totally right. So by the end of the week, I sent some things back to Arizona, but not much. And it cost me 70,30€ to do so. That night was Juliette's dad's birthday. So they had friends over for dinner and a little party. But Juliette and I went to a burger stand (it has the best burgers I have had in France so far) and ate back at her house.

Saturday, Juju and I went to Lille to meet with Annie who worked at an au pair agency. This could just be any city in France, but it was packed with people and people were smoking everywhere. It wasn't my favorite place. It was a beautiful city, but I did not like all the smoke. We got to our meeting place (Australian Bar) early, and we realized we didn't know what she looked like, and she didn't know what we looked like. But Ju asked around and we found Annie and her coworker. Eventually, more au pairs started showing up. I guess they were having a big au pair meeting. There were people from all over. There were groups speaking Russian, Spanish, French, English, and I am sure there was another language around there somewhere.

After the au pair meeting, Juliette and I went her friend Mathilde's house. It was her birthday, so their friends were getting together to celebrate! Mathilde's house was the best decorated house I have ever seen. It was so stylish! First we stayed at her house for a while so we could wait for people to arrive, open presents, and hang out. Then we went to a club and had some fun dancing together. It was a lot of fun, and we stayed out very late. Unfortunately, Juliette and I missed the last tram back to Mathilde's house, so we stayed at one of her other friend's house for the night and went back to Mathilde's in the morning.

We went to Juliette's grandparents house a couple times. Her grandparents were very nice people too. They made the best fries that I have ever had in my life! They were so heavenly! They had just the right amount of salt. They were warm. They weren't crunchy or soggy with grease. They were perfect! They were fresh.

When Monday finally came around, Juliette and I went to school. I didn't have anything else to do during the day, so her dad arranged for me to go to school with Juliette. So Monday morning we woke up bright and early so we could drive to the train station, take a train to Arras, take a bus that dropped off close to the school, and then walked the rest of the way. School in France is different. They have different schedules each day instead of the same schedule every day, every week. Juliette's first class was economics. It lasted for two class hours. I felt bad, but I kept nodding off. I was bored by economics when I took it in English, so sitting through it in French was even worse. In one of Juliette's English classes, they talked about what people think about when they think of America. The biggest things were fast food, McDonald's, and Coca Cola. So congratulations Americans. We are sticking to our stereotype of being an obese society.

I was supposed to go to that same class on Thursday to share what reminds me of my home country. But unfortunately Juliette got sick so we didn't make it to school for the rest of the week. We were extremely lazy for the rest of the week. Juliette had an excuse because of the sickness, but I didn't. I watched Grey's Anatomy started from season one, and Juju watched Fast and the Furious starting with the first one. We both got pretty far in our series by the end of the week.

One day, we attempted to make cupcakes. With the exception of Juliette, her family has never had a cupcake before! Crazy I know! So we looked online for a recipe and started cooking. I am so used to baking with a Bosch mixer, and measuring with simple measuring cups and spoons. Luckily, the recipe was in the French style, so all we had to do was weigh our ingredients and mix it with a wooden spoon. Right at the beginning we received a sign that we should stop. I tried to get an egg out of the carton, but it was stuck. I was pulling and pulling (I don't know why I didn't just go for another egg) until it broke. And it was oozing everywhere and still stuck in the carton. Juliette's mom couldn't find cupcake holders at the store, but she did find bigger, but still small, cardboard cups. We filled those 3/4 full. When the time was done, the cupcakes were not. And they were about to spill over. So we took them out and put them back in. When the little cakes were finished, they looked hideous. They were connected to the tops of the cups, and then they sunk down like a crater. And they looked like dry sponges. We ignored our ugly cupcakes, and made the frosting. Once again, this was a failed attempt. We added too much milk, so it was too runny. We tried to fix it by adding more powdered sugar, but then it was wayyyy too much sugar. The French don't really eat super sweet things. Chocolate pastries are with smooth, dark chocolate. Cakes don't have frosting on top. So when we frosted a cupcake for each of us to test, we got sick from so much sugar. And after I felt like my lips were sticky. Everyone in the family tried one, but I felt bad that the cupcakes weren't good.