blogger erased my last post

let's try this again.

i went out of town this past weekend, as i'm on a 2-week vacation. lille, in the north of france, was the destination, for a couple of reasons. firstly, it's a notable city and i thought deserved my attention; secondly, it's now hosting lille 3000, an Indian culture festival with art exposes and such throughout the city. actually, i thought that i'd be eating lots of indian food and people would be parading through the streets. the festival consisted largely, however, of visiting a couple different Indian art exhibitions, taking my picture with one of many large elephants lining the main drag, and sipping free chai as i watched an Indian theatrical spectacle on a large screen outside of the Opera house.

also of interest was a fine meal saturday night wherein the main course was kangaroo. it was really quite delicious. they suggested cooking it like i like my beef cooked, so i had it "bloody", as the word translates from french.

sunday morning i aimed to go to the american church in Lille, but when i showed up at 1030 no one was there. so i went to a french church instead. as i was sitting in what i thought was the 2nd service, i realized that the time had changed in france as well as in the states, and i was sitting in on the end of the 1st service, the time change also explaining why i missed the american church. but i was really glad i missed the american church and went to the french church instead, as i met a student named Dieudonne, literally God-given, and he was very welcoming. and as a result of standing next to him, all the people who greeted him also greeted me, and often with a couple kisses. perhaps you could call them "holy kisses".

sunday included a lively market, a visit to a big park complete with zoo, the american church's evening service, and dinner with friends from Paris. then monday, instead of spending the entirety of the day in Lille and returning to Paris at night, i went to Amiens, site of the largest gothic building in all of France as well as a series of canals winding amongst gardens. the church was nice, but i entirely preferred the punt ride on the canals--the fall colors were breathtaking.

back in paris, i celebrated halloween first with dinner with friends from church, then i went out with assistant friends. my costume was a frenchman, for lack of a better idea--i bought a horizontal striped blue and white shirt, a beret, a baguette, and i drew a mustache. turns out none of the french people at the party we attended were in costume, but they gestured to mine with a smile. though the party (on a boat) started at midnight, we were too late to take the metro and it took quite some time to walk to the party. we arrived at 230, entered the party around 3, and left at 6. it was early/late enough for the metro to be running, thankfully, as i basically would have refused to walk back home.

today i visited the Pere Lachaise cemetery, home to Chopin, Bizet, Jim Morrison, Gertrude Stein, Oscar Wilde, and others. tomorrow i head for Bordeaux for a couple days/nights, then back to Paris before school resumes next week.

please check out my photos from the trip here