Formidable!

I have a new favorite store in France – Formidable! Formidable means great/incredible/terrific, which is ironic since this store is on par with a crappy Dollar Store in the U.S. I would probably not even consider going in it if it was in KC, but here its amazing! It has every random thing I have needed from another blanket for my bed to kitchen supplies and coat hooks. Plus its extremely cheap. The only downside is it has that “cheap stuff” smell which makes my skin crawl. Its also really close to our little house so sometimes I go if I’m bored and end up finding things I forgot I needed! We’ve recognized quite a few things that were in our house before we got here at Formidable, so I have a feeling its been popular with assistants for a while.

My previous favorite store in France was Monoprix, but alas, we don’t have one in Cambrai. I was quite disappointed since Monoprix has more of a Target feel to it than Dollar Store and you can count on it having certain things. With Formidable the things you find seem to be completely random, and of course no brand anyone has ever heard of.

Another exciting update from this week: WE HAVE HEAT!!! It had apparently already been turned on by the school, it just wasn’t working. So on Tuesday a guy came and fixed it, we couldn’t have been more excited. I think we cranked it up to 30 degrees C!

Yesterday was our orientation in Lille. Since our school has been so good about doing our paperwork and showing us around, I really didn’t learn a whole lot from it. The only thing that was new to me is the fact that you can’t reveal your religious or political affiliation in any way. Even something as small as wearing a cross necklace is not allowed. I guess we have something similar in the U.S., just not quite to this degree. Oh the French and all their rules. I wonder if I can talk about Christmas? Surely…

The high school where we had orientation seemed to be in the crappiest part of Lille. After the morning session we walked a half hour to eat lunch at a university restaurant. There were so many of us we completely overwhelmed the place and had to wait around an hour in line. In the rain of course. Since it took so long for lunch our afternoon session was cut short, just as well though. We have to return to Lille two more times before the end of year for pedagogy classes. Super fun!