The way it all began: church bells and card games

It certainly is (or was when I wrote this) Sunday morning in France. My morning tea was accompanied by the clamor of church bells - the French remember that they're Catholic le dimanche, or at least the churches remember, all the little lofty churches with their bell towers and their old stones. They knoll for the faithful and the others roll over in their sleep and murmur.

As for me, I was knolled awake but not to church, having only ever been to Mass once, for Christmas in Calcutta, because I'm not Catholic but who can resist Midnight Mass? So I shook off my dreams of Grinnell and fixed my usual breakfast these days of toast and jam and strong milky tea with plenty of sugar. Last night we fixed a huge celebratory dinner of pasta with vegetables and a salad and the last of my good bread and Camembert and it was delicious, but I had to use the "American sandwich" bread for my toast this morning, and it's not very tasty. The dinner was because Katie, the other American, came home with her boyfriend (who left this morning for Scotland) and we'd not been all together for most of a week, and they'd not met Steffen, our German (tall and very funny and sweet). After that, we spent all night playing cards and drinking a bottle of cheap champagne, and how can you feel homesick then?

Not quite sure yet where I'm going to be living. I'd like to stay here with the others, but there's supposed to be one more assistant coming. Orientation is tomorrow, so if the Spaniard hasn't showed up by this evening, I'm going to call my résponsable and ask her if I can take the extra room, because I'm willing to pay rent for it if they don't want to give it to me (they should - I am an assistant in the same program, just in the next town). If not, there's a cute room on the Avenue Victor Hugo, not too far and not too expensive. Because I'll only be working twelve hours a week, I don't get paid a whole lot, but that means that I can get some money for rent from the French government. The degree to which the huge complicated bureaucracy actually supports its citizens is kind of astounding, compared to the U.S. I can't wait until I get free healthcare!

I don't miss home as much as I miss Grinnell, oddly enough. I think it's because this is more collegiate than home is, and according to the last few years, I should be in Grinnell. Plus, last night, the cards and the laughter and the beer and Madonna playing on the laptop were just so Grinnell. I dreamed of the college last night, and then of Alika and Abhinav and Sakshi in New York. It was comforting.

We've started decorating the apartment. Some of the profs left us cut roses the color of cream and they're still blooming a bit, and we found miniatures trees and tea roses at the cheap grocery store, so there's a tiny tree and a tea rose that's somewhere between peach and pink. We cobbled together almost-a-couch from a couple of chairs, a box, and a mattress. There's a market on Saturday mornings and we found flags there, so now the walls have Germany and the U.S. and of course la belle France represented. I also bought hand-milled soaps (three for five euro!) and we picked up the vegetables for yesterday's dinner. The courgettes (zucchini) came in a bag with a ridiculously suggestive graphic; I'm keeping it for a souvenir along with the wrapper from a packet of cigarettes that says in large bold letters "FUMER TUE" (smoking kills). Not very subtle.

I think I've lost a couple of pounds despite the fact that every meal is bread and cheese and the French butter everything. It's because we walk everywhere all the time, no car trips or convenient buses, and things in Cambrai are just far enough apart to be exercise. The internet café is about eight minutes walk, I suppose, or the internet room at the library (but that's open less often). I changed my keyboard to French settings so that I can learn to touchtype à la française and I've almost got it down. Just takes a little thinking.

Overall, adjusting well, but mostly because I'm pretending that I live at the appartement with the other assistants. I haven't been able to unpack, but at least I have a place that feels something like a home. It'll be exciting when Julia comes to visit (and then maybe in Februaryish, the other Julia!) and when I get to travel. I have so, so many breaks (seriously, the French go to school for a month and then have to take two weeks off) and I'm excited about living in Cambrai and about not missing autumn this year. It's entertaining: Cambrai has a sister-city program and one of the cities in it is Houma, which is where my aunt (on Dad's side) lives in Lousiana. Oh, odd coincidences.

Pictures soon.