Home Sweet Home

I have been in Beuvry now for 3 days living with the Sevette family - Eric, Martine, David -21, William-19, Robin-17 and Lea-14. Beuvry is a VERY small quiet town with many charms. It is situated about 7 km from Bethune and one hour from Lille. It is located in the Nord pas da Calais region.

My french is prooving way rustier than I ever imagined and communicating with the family has been quit rough, but we are managing. Martine, David and William have a pretty good concept of the english language, but Robin, Eric and Lea have very little so often William and David have to do some translating.

In the three days that I have been here I have already gotten to see a lot. Yesterday William took me into Lille where we walked around and toured some of the great sites - The Museum de Beaux Arts, a couple large churches, and this really cool old building with a courtyard that had really old french books for sale. (I apologize i dont know the names to these places - William didnt know what many were either). Cobblestone streets and streetside cafes were a plenty. I had a gasfrey - a waffle coated in sugar and dipped in chocolate - it was fantastic!

I have ridden the train many times throughout France already and one thing for sure - the french love graffiti. It is everywhere and on everything. And as beautiful as France is, it is also very dirty. For granted I am residing in one of the more poor areas, but there is much trash along the railways and many smells not to be recognized.

I have had many french food experiences already as well. Apparently the french love chocolate for breakfast - which at first i thought was fantastic but i have already had my fill of chocolate to last me a year. And yes, I have already had snails, or escargot, and it was actually quite good. On the other hand, the plate of beets I ate for lunch the other day was not so good. I think I will pass on that one next time. I rode into town with Martine to go to the frozen foods store - yes it is a market of only frozen foods - and what did they have, but of course, Ben and Jerrys Ice Cream!

Today is gross and rainy - pretty normal for the north - so we have spent most of the day indoors. David just left for a week in Paris to visit his girlfriend and William leaves on the 9th for Spain, so my two translators are going to be gone! That makes me a little nervous. :) Martine, Robin and Lea are going to be on Holiday for the next two weeks (similar to spring break) so they will be home during the day. I hope to get out more this next week. I hope to make it up to Brussels one day and possibly spend a day on the coastal beaches. I also hope to meet up with Eva in Paris for a cooking class at some point and we plan on taking a weekend to go to Provence. So much to do!

Tomorrow is Robin's birthday party so I will get to meet some of the extended family. I am looking forward to that.

I guess that is it for now. I miss everyone back home. Oh, and by the way, keyboards in France are not the same as in America. The letters are all in different places and they don't have some puncuations, so typing these blogs is very diffacult!