In other news...
Despite the whole police "incident", things have gone fairly well. I haven't holed up in my room, and I've been able to make jokes about the whole thing.
The dinner at my teachers house was great. I got to meet his wife (who is also an English teacher, and who invited the assistant from her school to dinner as well), as well as two of his daughters. We had raclette (melted cheese on potatoes with meat and veggies, mmmm), and some white wine from that region of France. He also had the piano music for some of the songs from "Amelie", so I sat down and sight-read them. That was really cool, because I haven't played piano in a while. He said that he would photocopy them for me!
On the weekend I went out to Cafe Oz with a bunch of assistants from mainly English speaking countries.
Then I spent a day in Tourcoing, and yesterday I spent wandering around Lille with some friends. Nothing too exciting.
Today I went to Bailleul with Genevieve, LaCrystal, and the American Suzanne for a hike. It ended up being more of a stroll though. The cool thing was that we went into Belgium, and there wasn't even a sign saying 'Welcome to Belgium'. We asked a guy, and he said, "I don't speak French [I think he was Flemish/Dutch], but you're in Belgium". The funny thing was that we saw a field of Brussel sprouts right on what we figure was the border between the two countries. We also stopped at a Commonwealth cemetery, and I found the grave of a young man killed in the First World War who has the same last name as me.
Tomorrow I'm heading down to Arras for a few days, which isn't too far from here. I'm planning on going to Vimy Ridge (a big memorial to Canadian soldiers who died in the First World War), and maybe a few other sites.
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