Saturday, October 04, 2008

I am in an unfortunate situation. The situation is that Maubeuge, the small city where one of my schools is and where I am living right now, has recently proven to be the lamest city I’ve ever lived in. I’m talking way worse than Shreveport, even a little bit worse than Forest Lake. For while it’s cute and French and all, there is absolutely nothing to do here. At all. None of the other English assistants live here at all, but rather live in Valenciennes, which is about 40 minutes away by train (only due to stops and all that; it’s really not terribly far away). I was aware of Valenciennes before I came here, but my contact person told me not to look for housing there because of the commute time and because the trains between it and Maubeuge really aren’t all that frequent. Here’s the thing, though: I only work twelve hours a week. These twelve hours are spread out over three days. So while living in Valenciennes would mean that I’d have to spend about 4 hours on the train in a week, that’s really not so bad. I mean really, I did more than that on the bus when I lived in St. Paul. It’s not ideal, and it would be a pain to move, but at the same time, staying here is starting to seem more and more out of the question.

I was trying to be optimistic, I really was. And before tonight, I hadn’t exactly gone out and explored the Maubeuge nightlife. Well, let me tell you about my night. I got home at about 7:00 from lunch and other such things (including visiting Valenciennes briefly) with Mme Carmalez and Angèle. And I definitely didn’t want to be at home at 7:00 on a Saturday night in France, and as the weather was pretty nice, I decided it would be a perfect time to try and explore some. So I went upstairs around eight and asked Hind, the really nice Moroccan girl who lives there, if she wanted to go with me. She was only studying at the time, so she agreed. Well, Maubeuge. On a Saturday night. Around 8:00. Basically, nobody was in the streets. There were some older people in the little café/brasseries that are around, and there were a few people buying food of sorts from a friterie. Other than that…basically nothing. There was really nobody in the streets, to the point that we didn’t even feel very safe when we went to the train station to check the schedules. We ended up taking the free “navette” (a humorously small bus) from the train station back to near our house so that we could get away from the poorly lit station area.

I mentioned that I visited Valenciennes briefly today. We went there so I could get train tickets for Monday, since I have to go over near Lille for my obligatory medical visit. I was somehow under the impression that it wasn’t much bigger than Maubeuge. And maybe it’s not, but it definitely seems like it. There are actually things there. Multiple shops and a mall and a Monoprix and really cute houses. And people. There are so many people there. And that is where I belong, so much more than here. I wouldn’t mind not really knowing anybody, if only there were actually a prospect of meeting people. I’ll go and be an awkward foreigner, or whatever, but I can’t even do that if there is nowhere to go to do it.

I need to examine the train hours a bit more, but I am seriously considering moving. I’ve already signed a lease, but it was really informal and I’m hoping that somehow I can get out of it early. It’s not like I won’t give them fair warning, but I seriously don’t think I can live here for seven months. There is just absolutely nothing, and I’m kind of miserable at this point in time. I know that my relationship with my landlords is business first, but they’re really nice people and I’m just hoping that if they realize how truly awful it is for me to be in such a small city with no one I know and no prospects to meet anybody my age, they’ll be understanding. And I also don’t want to seem ungrateful as far as Mme Carmalez goes, because lodging was difficult to find here and all, but at the same time…I’m the ONLY person who ended up here. Clearly anybody else’s contact person had different ideas. I know she was trying to do what was best for me as far as my work was concerned, and even though I’m obviously here for my work, it takes up such a small part of my life that I feel like I shouldn’t be basing my living situation off of it.

I really wish I had realized all of this before, because changing is going to be a pain and probably kind of awkward, but I hate living here. I really do. If it turns out that I can’t move, I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do. Agh. I hate this.