Days 9-10 (maybe? Have I lost count?)

Days 9-10 (maybe? Have I lost count?) (Morning Post)

Today is the day that we go to Brugge! .... and its raining! Badly! D: Last night, it was gorgeous out, no clouds whatsoever... and then, I wake up this morning and think "hey, I need some light, let me open the window and illuminate the room with sunlight!" and I raise the blinds and... it's like halfway to Noah's ark outside. ;_; 

... Well, it's not as bad as that. It's raining hard, but from what I can see, it's actually almost a sunshower. Sunshowers are nice, right? (I need convincing.) See, I don't mind rain, especially here in Europe, because it's a nice, warm rain. However, it's really difficult to take pictures if you have to wipe rainwater off of the camera lense between photos. ;_; 

Anyway, I shall now report on my trip to see "Alice, etc." at the Théatre du Nord! We walked down to the theatre (it's right on La Grande Place square), and demonstrating in front of it were a bunch of people chanting against the possibility of expulsion for the "sans-papiers" (litterally, "without papers", but they're referring to illegal immegrants). They had an epic chant, and they were singing and everything. I have a short video of them from far away, but my camera's microphone isn't terribly good. Again, I'll try to figure out this youtube thing later! D: 

(Demonstrations are actually really popular in France, as I'm sure that some of you may know. Since here, I've witnessed... like two or three. I've been here for less than a week and a half, and this isn't a massive city.)

Oh, and there was a firedancer having fun outside the theatre when we left. Just so you know. That square is an awesome place for demonstrations of any kind. 

Anyway, the play itself! It was... strange, probably very avant-garde (it's France, right?). There were a lot of sexual jokes, and since that kind of vocabulary just doesn't come up very often in the context of the classroom, some of it was difficult to follow. It started off kind of dark and almost hallucinogenic, as we got these three girls who are dressed like Alice (from Alice in Wonderland), but in different colours, doing things in sync... But most of the play is about this one chick (whose name also begins with "A" but I can't remember the whole thing... it wasn't Alice, though) and her husband. Her husband cheated on her, and she tries to kill herself in various ways when she finds out. The husband then insists that "hey, you can cheat on me too", like, an open relationship... and she goes into various changes in clothing, etc. to try to attract a younger man to prove to herself that she's still attractive. Of course, when she begins succeeding, her old husband gets increasingly jealous, and then he threatens to kill himself... And the play ends with him jumping into a bathtub with a plugged in hairdryer (fireworks!).  XD It was very funny (he came out okay, just covered in charcoal).

The two main characters frequently address the audience (commenting on how stupid the other is ;) ), and it gets more and more absurd as things go on. ;) There was also a random interlude with the character of this wife (that you never see again) who runs away from home, ends up returning in the dark and making up with her husband... and then when she gets up in the morning, there are strange children and a strange man sitting at the kitchen table... and she had "made up" with someone who wasn't her husband. D: She leaves, awkwardly, saying that it was just "a little mistake". ;) The cool thing about that entire scene is that it's narrated by that wife, and she acts out the parts of everyone else. Oh, and "she" is played by a male actor. I wasn't sure for the first minute or so, but then s/he took off her wig to play the part of a male lover. He was an epically good actor. 

Anyway, if you ever get a chance to see it (even in translation), do so! It's very good. :) Anyway, now I need to get ready for my morning's worth of classes... and then we leave for Brugge! Luckily enough, as I was typing this, the rain seems to be dying down... Now I can only hope that the rain just isn't drifting across the border into Belgium...

Day 10

Okay, I'm pretty sure that it's day ten... anyway, now everything's going to be arbitrarily so many days away from today, which is now "Day 10" of my trip... even if it isn't. What is reality, anyway...? D:

Last night, I saw a wild rat for the first time. I was walking back to my dorm, searching in my purse for my keys (and, incidentally, thinking that my wallet had been stolen for all of five seconds before realizing that I was holding it in my other hand), and I saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked, and I saw a rat dissapearing underneathe a bridge. D: I was kind of creeped out, but I suppose that it's normal for a large city to have vermin inhabitants as well...?

Back to more pleasant subjects... Brugge was awesome. :3 As I mentioned in my last post, it's "the Venice of the North", and it really is a gorgeous city. Unfortunately, I woke up this morning and opened the window to look out upon torrential rain. D: It actually wasn't too bad in Belgium, alternating as it was between "tsunami"-like train and clear skies, then back again, sometimes all within fifteen minutes. 

The city itself was about one hour's bus ride away from Lille. The bus was late getting there, but we still had to leave on time, so we ended up only having about two and a half hours in Brugge, nearly 45 minutes of which was taken up by a boat tour... which was nearly pointless, as we were all huddling underneathe our umbrellas and as a result hardly saw anything. (We did discover that Brugge has extremely low bridges. One of them had litterally less than a meter of clearance. Cool.) So... that left us with less than two hours of time to explore this beautiful city. 

That was very mean. Seriously, I would have been quite happy with a week to explore. Two hours is just teasing - "Here is the awesomeness that is Brugge! Look around, see the sights! ... but make sure you're back at the clocktower right away, or you'll miss the bus and be stranded!" I didn't get to go up to see the view from the famous clocktower, I didn't get to go see Michelangelo's Mary, didn't get to go find some nice lace (Brugge is famous for it's lace, as is much of Belgium), didn't find that one scarf shop that several people reccomended, hardly glanced into any shops... D: I was there for just long enough to see how much I was missing. 

On the plus side, Yan and I have decided that one of our weekend trips will now be to Brugge. We need more time there. 

I'm not saying that my trip today was a waste. It was awesome (I have like 400 photographs of various sights, mostly Flemish roofs). I did manage to buy some Belgian chocolates, which I shall eat pretty soon (we're going to Brussels in a few weeks, so don't worry, my dearest family, I shall return with some Belgian chocolates from there for you!), some really nice specialty tea from an awesome tea shop, and at least 8 post cards (one of them is shaped like a waffle! and another like a box of chocolates!). So yes, I am determined to return to Brugges. 

Also, we're still planning on what to do this weekend. We're hoping for Amsterdam, and we've been looking at train tickets and hostels online... but nothing's been finalized. I really must get on that...
I must now sleep. I am quite tired...