Lille Christmas Market...
There has been a Christmas market (Marché de Noel) in Lille for the past few weeks now. The city is getting decked up with Christmas decorations (lights, garlands, and red carpet), and there is Christmas music playing in the metro.
I know some of the people (a long story) who work in one of the Canadian stands selling maple syrup (great on crêpes or ice cream), Quebec beer (very good), and bison sausage (not as strong as you think).
Anyway, I got a call on Sunday morning from the Québécois girl working in the stand, wondering if I could come in at noon and work for a bit. They needed a bilingual Canadian (the girl spoke French only) to work in the booth, because there are a lot of British tour buses that come over to Lille for day trips.
It was trial by fire. Rapid info was given about the beers (which ones are blonde and which brown I still don't know), maple syrup sizes, info about bison meat, and the prices. Then she said, "I'm off to the bathroom, and I'll be back in a bit". Gulp.
It went quite well actually. I had a relatively good time, but I don't think that I'd want to do that seven days a week, ten hours a day as the Québécois girl does. I only worked for a few hours, but it was another source of some needed income.
A+