Observations à propos de France

• American things I have seen in Lille so far: McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and Subway. Sadly, no Starbucks.
• The stop signs by the Metro station have "STOP" written on them. In English.
• Bringing peanut butter with me was a smart idea. Having no grape jelly makes me sad, though.
• I found cheddar cheese in the supermarket today and got really happy. I bought a couple croissants and am going to experiment with sandwich making; here's hoping it goes well. The ciabatta I bought got stale after only a day, but I'm betting croissants will be a little easier to deal with.
• Hulu, Netflix, and ABC Family are no-gos so far. I can, however, access The Daily Show and The Colbert Report here, as I think I've mentioned before. Hallelujah. By the way, there's a Chuck Norris World of Warcraft ad I saw in the States before I came to Europe that is dubbed in French and plays between the show segments here. Chuck Norris speaking French will never not be weird. ("Je suis Chuck Norris, et j'approuve ce jeu!"). That link also has French Chuck Norris facts, haha.
• My landlady made up my bed with a Tintin duvet. It's different, but I kind of like it.
• Trains actually leave and arrive on time here. It's amazing. Also, I was at the train station again today to exchange some dollars I didn't spend during my trip, and I saw a train to London on the departures board. I want to go explore the UK so much liek woah. Not gonna lie, I mostly really want a picture at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters at King's Cross.
• So on the one hand, I think Lille's Metro is very handy and efficient; I can leave my place between 10 and 15 minutes before I have to be at Sciences Po and still get there on time. On the other, my station is smelly and there are cigarette butts everywhere.
• Have I mentioned before that I really, really loathe cigarette smoke? Guess what? Everything you've heard about France and smoking? Probably true. I'm continually shocked at the number of people my own age I see smoking, too. Um, you do know that you're polluting your lungs (and mine) with every puff on that thing, right? I hope you enjoy getting lung cancer and dying young!
• Eight-story bookstore with a whole section of English books, including British editions of Harry Potter? Yes, please.
• I keep forgetting I'm actually in Europe until I walk down the street and there's a completely gorgeous church from at least the 1400s. If I were in the habit of pinching myself to make myself wake up, my arms would be black and blue.
• When I'm with European students, I often find myself speaking with a weird mixture of American and British accents, maybe because they all speak English with a mixture of British and their own native accents and I'm trying to subconsciously emulate them. I don't know, it's weird. Although I'm tempted to test how good my British accent is, and let people guess where I'm from before telling them.
• Today, the international students had a methodology lesson, where we learned how to ... write an essay. No offense, Sciences Po, but I did graduate junior high.
• I'm starting to feel a bit more comfortable here (for example, it doesn't take me five minutes to unlock the front door anymore!). Let's hope it lasts!