Mon premier jour

04JAN (this was written in retrospect)

Dragged myself out of bed around 0745 and went grabbed some breakfast which turned out to be bread/butter and a bowl of tea. After that I walked down to the university on Blvd. Vauban and filled out this little registration form for school. I didn't have any mini-pictures of myself so after that I went to this photo place and took care of that. That was all the university asked of me today. Pretty sparse.

Après-ça, I stopped in a bakery and grabbed a pain au chocolat and wolfed that down. Wandered my way back home and went for a run. My house is really close to this old citadel which is now a park with trails so I went over there and ended up running in between the inner and outer ramparts of an old star fortress which I thought was pretty cool actually. Ended up being like 3.65 miles or so. Felt good to get some exercise.

After showering and changing I went to La Poste and bought a phone card for the little pay-as-you-go phone Stiles left me. I'm not sure what exactly I bought so we'll see if it works or not. I grabbed lunch at what must be an equivalent to Taco Bell. Instead of Latin Americans immigrating from the south they have Arabic people from the Maghreb so they have kebab shops instead of taco stands.

Didn't really have anything on my itinerary after this so I walked into the center of the city and went to le FNAC and bought the album "Cheese" by Stromae for 7euro. Totally worth it. I also bought a book there. If you need to know what it was you'll find out. If not, n'inquiet pas. I also went to La Gare-Lille Flandres and changed some American dollars to Euros. The exchange rate still sucks...

Finally, on my way back in I stopped by Notre Dame de la Trielle. It was a lovely church and I took a couple of pictures before heading home.

It was probably 1700 when I got back and I was pretty gassed so I goofed off on my computer and then took a nap before dinner at about 1930. Marcus didn't feel like going out so I chilled in my room, talked to some people and then got some shut eye.

I still need to find a gym.

A few things I noticed:
-All the French shops doors you push from the outside and pull from the inside, which definitely seemed backwards. Or am I just completely wrong?
-Everybody wears scarves. I'm glad I brought so many.
-Portions are smaller. I'm starving!
-Europe doesn't deal with this 99 cent bullshit. When they say something is seven euros it literally will cost you seven euro. They calculate the tax beforehand. So logical...