Douai is home to some 50,000 French people, the most beautiful belfry in Northern France, between 10 and 20 foreign language assistants, and as of one week ago, yours truly. Eighteenth-century buildings with tall windows and sloping red roofs line the streets and canals. Clouds in various shades of gray cover the sky more often than not. Everyone can tell I'm not French, but they smile and say "Bonjour!" when I pass. If I hold the door for someone I always hear "Merci!" and Douaisiens, as they're called, always hold the door for me.
A few square kilometers of 3- and 4-story buildings surrounding the belfry and a cathedral make up centre ville (downtown), just five minutes walk from my home in La Maison des Elèves, Résidence Condorcet. My room is about 10x12, including the bathroom. I live on a hallway with five other English language assistants from the U.S. and England, tucked away at one end of the 4th floor. All the French students know we're here, and we eat beige food together in the dining hall, but so far we haven't had much interaction. We are constantly formulating plans for how to meet some French people our own age, but have yet to put any into action.
Yesterday we took the train up to Lille to poke around in the big city. More beautiful old buildings (some with cannonballs still stuck in their walls from old assaults) with boutiques, cafés and patisseries lining cobble-stone streets. I ate the Belgian/Northern French delicacy moules frites (fries with mussels) and a sweet, crumbly blackberry tart.
On our way home we had a little adventure... we saw there was a train leaving at 6:05, and the train to Douai was at 6:05, so we got on. For about 30 minutes we sat around making dirty Harry Potter jokes until Kate mentioned that she didn't recognize the countryside, or any of the towns we'd passed. We searched unsuccessfully for them on our maps until a man came by to check our tickets.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"Douai," we replied.
"Well then you have a problem," he said, "because this train is going to Belgium."
We wound up in Tournai, a small-ish town with a towering cathedral whose spires dominate the skyline. In the 45 minutes before our train back to Lille, we found some mystery kebabs with chicken marinated in an unknown greasy, yellow sauce. We returned to Douai unscathed, if two hours later than we'd intended.
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