General merriment in Bruay and Auchel and Berck

So, I thought I'd take a moment to quickly recap the events of the past little-more-than-week. Saturday, the 18th, we headed off to Bruay-la-Buissiere, where I ended up staying. In the above block of pictures, you'll see that Bruay is the really old looking church at the bottom.

While we were there, we led kids' clubs and hosted an international night, a concert, and a theater night. During all of these evenings, the city was invited, and we had quite a few people passing through. It was really a great time, and a great opportunity to meet a lot of very interesting people in the north of France.

We also had a free day. Along with 4 friends, I headed off to see the English Channel at Berck Plage. It was absolutely freezing and rainy the whole time, but very, very fun. I ordered a Gaufre (waffle) while I was there, because, being so close to Belgium, I thought I'd better seize the opportunity.

All in all, I found that the North is a really interesting place--like nowhere I've ever been before. The people were really incredibly nice--constantly offering food and drink and anything they could offer. The weather was horrendous--it rained nearly everyday, and seemed cold as winter (In fact, there was a man from Brazil there, who mentioned that summer in the north of France is colder than winter in Brazil...) Of course, the down side is that the people there are Cht'is who have been made famous by the French film Bienvenue Chez les Cht'is. As a result of this, I barely ever had any idea of what was going on, and so, perfected my nodding and "Oh yes," skills. At first, I though, "Has my French really deteriorated this much?" but over the next few days, I realized that, in fact, what was happening was that they were pronouncing any word with a "c" or "s" sound with a "sh" Instead of "Ainsi", they said, "Ainshi." And instead of "Merci"; "Mershi." It was interesting adapting to the "new language."

Highlights:

1) I can now say "Over there is a chair" in Cht'i

2) I have visited the site where Bienvenue Chez les Cht'is was filmed

3) I met Michael Jordan (who happened to be a very, very small, German man. Not quite the basketball champion I was hoping for)

4)I ate at least 10 different types of cheese...not many of which I'd like to eat again. :)

As a short anecdote, we had a concert at church (as I mentioned) on Friday night. The singer was an ex-cabaret singer. You would have been able to guess that upon hearing the first few measures of his first song. He was very flamboyant--huge, toothy grin, the shuffly walk, the showman's voice. In any case, there was a man who came in late and sat next to me. From the minute he walked in, I knew he was drunk. He just reeked of alcohol. Somewhere during the concert, the singer said, "Next I'll sing 'Oh Uppy Day'" (which I later found was in fact "Oh Happy Day") and as he sang, the drunk man next to me grabbed my hand and said, "Let's dance." Everyone was standing and clapping, but no one was dancing. I said, "Well, I don't think anyone else is dancing." But he urged me, and me, having no idea how to dance or even what to do in this situation, started awkwardly jumping around. The drunk man let go of my hand after a few minutes of this and said, "I didn't mean dancing like that." And he started jiving away--rolling his head around, shaking his hips, clapping his hands. But when the song ended, he sat, and said, "I think I'm going to throw up."

So, interesting concert all around. It was definitely a highlight when the singer walked down the aisle, singing, and the drunk man beside me reached out and grabbed his rear-end. I can't say anything like this has ever happened to me before, but wow. Memories of the north. I'll treasure these forever.