...And then again, sometimes I hate you.

Still homeless for all intents and purposes, which in France translates to: tres screwed. I need an address to open a bank account in order to be paid for my work, but I can't use my hostel de la semaine for it, and I still haven't found a permanent place yet, so things feel really stalled at the moment. I started my orientation for work, and even that is horribly disorganized. I mean, I love Paris, but thus far I am not loving the French school system. And it doesn't help that everyone in my program, for the most part, has already found housing. This is also the only thing they seem to talk about. And at our orientation, I sometimes feel like I'm stuck in high school French again. Perhaps sitting in a room full of Americans as we try to speak French together will always be a little reminiscent of being fifteen and daydreaming about Paris as my teacher, who was American, and had a severe American accent, described something really riveting like...I don't know...French fashion terms. Which, given that our book was from 1984, wasn't going to be applicable anyway in real life. Although acid washed jeans are back, so you never know. Maybe I should have paid attention.

Every time I tell someone from my program that I don't know where I'm living yet, they give me big sloppy puppy dog eyes like I just informed them that I have a rare and painful but incommunicable disease that sucks for me, but luckily they won't catch it. Most people got here about a month ago, it seems, which leaves me feeling really unprepared and haphazard. What can I say, though? Some of us were still recovering from abdominal surgery a month ago and that's why we don't have an apartment yet? I think that might be all kinds of awkward.

Anyway, I'm about to head to the tenth to look for an apartment that I may or may not have the correct address for, and then I'm going out to dinner with two girls from the program who aren't in the same section of Versailles as me. They don't have housing either. I also met a boy who's working in Creteil and also hosteling it for now, so I'm not exactly an anomaly. It can be hard to remember this when someone extols their new apartment as "meant to be" but it is, in fact, the reality of moving to Paris.

The best times I've had have been nowhere near orientations or paperwork or anything like that anyway. They've been in the Marais, wandering around, sometimes alone and sometimes with other people, eating delicious felafel and shawarma, and gelato and fruit and hanging out at Place des Vosges and exploring the city in a very casual, relaxed way. Also, today I ordered my lunch in French at the cafe I go to every day to check my email without the woman behind the counter switching over to English. This was an accomplishment, because I was at the equivalent of French Starbucks, which means that if your accent is even a little bad or your grammar the least bit shaky, they won't even give you chance to continue in French. So I may not have an apartment, and my job may be super disorganized, but at least I can order my own sandwich in French.

A petite studette meublee in a nice neighborhood can't be far behind.