French, Passion & Culture!

It's none stop rain au Nord at the moment - just like being back at home! I have finished my first week back to school after the holidays and it happily feels like I never left. I've had a lovely time this week finishing off The Very Hungry Caterpillar, looking into film genres and telling year 7's about my daily routine! A week's work wouldn't be complete without the amazing school food I've had too, it's been a good one!

This weekend was one I've been looking forward to since before the holidays, a lovely catch up with Julia and a very lush tea house - what could be better?

Chez Méert is one of the best pâtisseries or the best in Lille. Along with its lovely fancy shop front, its tearoom is a must do in Lille. Although, it's almost sure to have a queue! Thankfully for me and Julia, they seated us quickly as a table of two and we spent a lovely 3 hours in deep discussion about life, literature, holidays and of course - which teas and cakes to have.

The menu in this place was a booklet - of excitement of course - and it took me too long to decide what to have. Classic Jess - always a chocolat chaud - but for the first time since I've been in France - macarons. This is probably like swearing, the fact that I haven't already eaten real French macarons, but they were definitely better than those awful ones we have in Cosmos in England! 

To say I was amazed at Méert would be an understatement. Inside with its glass conservatory, beautiful flowers, chandeliers, lamps and wonderful chairs, we really had a café in style. I would say this was one of the loveliest places to have long chats, start my novel or even to watch the world go by!

It's a place I'd love to return to and that I would recommend to ANYONE in Lille. Treat yourself! The day ended in the best way possible - Pizza! It finally stopped raining so Julia suggested a lovely walk to Becca and Lauren's (one day Becca will actually be there when I am!). After a lovely invite Lauren, Luke, Julia and I settled for a feast from Dominos and caught up on the latest news in each other's lives. Loz and Luke, thank you for having us!

This weekend has taught me I love nothing more than to find someone with the exact same passion. Whether that is in the subject I do, the morals and happiness I have, the craziness and wildness I can embody (only on occasions!), the films and music I like - the list can go on. I once found the following quote: 

You'll have more than one soulmate in life, there are different ones for different things.

There are musical taste soulmates

Friend soulmates 

Let's-get-coffee-every-day-together soulmates

Artist soulmates 

etc etc etc

The romantic soulmate is only one aspect of this notion.

The more I've learnt and the more I've grown I've seen who these different people are. These are sometimes the people you need for creativity, you need for motivation, you need to get you through the week. Not everyone will share the same passion as you, the same morals as you, the same sense of humour as you, the same "I want to leave the night club damn early" as you, so these soulmates are definitely people to treasure. They can be family members, professure référantes, friends you've known forever, friends you've known for five seconds, lecturers, teachers, shop keepers, bosses, co-workers, neighbours and more.

It's not every day, for example, I find someone that doesn't want to walk out the room when I talk about France, when I talk about French, when I talk about the future, the past, la recherche du temps perdu...if you let me get that far. What's special about your different soulmates are that they'll understand that part of you, that no-one else will. The desire to travel, the desire to read, the desire to be as crazy as can be, the desire to do an impression of all your favourite disney characters... the list goes on. We have special friends for special moments.  I'm lucky I got to go for un café and get pizza with some of mine this weekend.

I refused to let the rain stop me this weekend and that included today. We have a musée des beaux arts in Douai so I thought - why not check it out! Every first Sunday of the month, all museums in France are free - so il faut que je profite!

The musée was beautiful, I was sad not all the salles were open but I still got to see a variation of different works:

 
  
The one above is Louis XIV arriving in Douai...pretty cool. I enjoyed my little piece of culture for the day, even if it wasn't the biggest museum in the world! I'm really glad I went and after June it'll be fully open again - a good recommendation for those seeking art!

So what's next? This week is BUSY! We have the excitement of the cinema, Versailles and of course Caroline's son's birthday!! It's all go go go! And yes....it is still raining.

JR

xxxxxxx