13 Things

It's really late, and yet again cold and gray in Paris, and since I don't have too much time to write, the time has come to list. So, things I've discovered so far:

1. French women DO get fat. Just not morbidly obese.
2. Starbucks has taken over the world, apparently. Even in the 13th, an "up and coming" arrondissement without the same level of affluence as other parts of the city, there's a stretch of yuppie chains just a ten-minute walk from my house. One of them is Starbucks. Clearly there is no escape from them. There is also no escaping Brigitte Bardot.
3. You know you're from Seattle when having a coffee maker in your apartment makes it feel approximately 1000 more times like home.
4. French kids are adorable. They also don't understand English, so when you introduce yourself to a classroom full of 8-year-olds in English, it's best to talk about your time with them in terms of years, not months.
5. On a similar note, the cutest thing I've seen so far was a little kid in the class I met today asking the teacher, " 'Seven,' c'est sept?"
6. The Luxembourg Gardens close at 7 in the evening. This means that if you try to go there in the early evening for a walk before dinner, you should probably reconcile yourself to wandering around the Latin Quarter.
7. ...which is not nearly as fun as wandering around the Marais.
8. Even though people don't greet each other on the street, everyone in my building says bonjour/soir if they run into each other in the hallway or the courtyard. I love this. It makes me feel like even though I live in a little tiny studio in a huge city by myself, I am still living in a community.
9. ...which is largely populated by people my age, and families with babies. There is also a man who walks his chihuahua at night.
10. The Paris in "Amelie" is a fairy tale Paris, but sometimes it still feels like I live in that world.
11. Everything here is named after famous people. The schools I work at are named after Denis Diderot and Yuri Gagarin, the park next to my apartment is named after Heloise and Abelard, the footbridge over the Seine is named after Simone de Beauvoir, and just a look at a Metro map is a bit like looking at the index of a history book.
12. It's funniest when these famous people clearly aren't French. I have so far encountered two Boulevards President John F. Kennedy.
13. The 13th is where I live. The more I see it, the more I like it. Although I'm still waiting for my apartment to feel like home.

But the coffee maker is helping.

Paris in the Rain

Another beautiful night in Paris. It was raining, but this was more than made up for by Nutella and banana crepes on Rue Mouffetard, followed by kir (white wine + creme de cassis) and conversation at a sidewalk bar followed by a bottle of cheap wine in the ancient, fancy apartment one of my friends has been staying in with a quirky old lady while searching for housing. Everyone I know, through some protracted search or a bit of luck, has now found a place to live.

I caught the Metro back by the Bastille - only the top of it was bright enough to shine through the rain - and then back to my little corner of the world on Rue du Chevaleret. Life is good.

Sometimes being here is all about the simple pleasures, like reading on the Metro or having someone ask you for directions in French for the sixth time or the way the way the Bastille looks in the rain. Those are the things that make me happy I live here.

This is what it's like to live in Paris.

This is what it's like to live in Paris. I think I get it now. You live in your small apartment and cook simple, cheap staples for yourself, and then spend lots of money on delicious Mediterranean food and red wine when you go out with your friends. You live in a neighborhood that isn't touristy at all, because it doesn't have any tourist attractions in it, but it does have a lot of Parisians in it, of every imaginable appearance and age and ethnicity and religion and socioeconomic status, and sometimes you take the Metro into the more touristy or especially beautiful parts of the city to get felafel at that one place in the Marais, or to meet friends, or to go to Musee d'Orsay because it's your favorite, or just to wander around because you live in Paris, and no matter how much you wander through Paris, you will never see or understand or experience all of it. After your time in those places, you come back to your Metro stop and get off with everyone else who lives in your quartier, walk a few blocks from the Metro, type in your Digicode, enter your building's courtyard, type in your Digicode again, enter your building, and climb six flights of stairs back up to your small apartment to wash your face, hop in bed, and call it a night.

Because you live in Paris. And you don't have to do everything in Paris in one day. Because you know you can't.

Or maybe that's just me. I just got back to my apartment after the aforementioned dinner in the Marais, and I realized as I crossed the Seine in the Metro that this is how it's going to be. It's not too different from my life in Seattle, really, except that I got to stop and stare at the Bastille before catching my train back to the 13th.

God damn. I love it here.

161 Rue du Chevaleret, 5eme DD

I got the apartment. My landlord is the gnome. I moved in today, and I am no longer in the hostel from hell. This is good, but also a little weird. I've never signed a lease for nine months before, and what if my apartment ends up having no hot water or being overrun with roaches? What if I break my leg and I can no longer walk up six flights of stairs to get to it and my claustrophobia prevents me from using the lift? The type of commitment involved here is very strange to me. I guess I feel a little strange because this is my first apartment and it's in Paris. And Paris is a city of infinite options. And in a city of infinite options, I am committing myself to only one, and to a very tiny one, with a futon for sleeping and sofa-ing, a kitchenette with a fridge and hot plates and a sink, and a bathroom with a French-style shower. I also have a big window with a wrought-iron rose over the bottom of it, and I love my view of the other apartment buildings. It's just that making decisions is something that I have never been particularly skilled at, and it's something I did yesterday, without knowing too much about the surrounding area.

And the 13th arrondissement is really confusing me. It's like a combination of every other neighborhood in Paris, but only glimpses. There's a bigger immigrant and low-income population here, because this arrondissement, and my quartier, is where a lot of low-income housing was set up in the 70s and 80s. So there are a lot of ugly high-rise apartment buildings, set up against elegant classically Parisian, classically expensive Haussman-style buildings. A few blocks away is the train to the suburbs, and thus, the train tracks, so if Paris has a wrong side of the tracks, it is probably the 13th, except that I'm pretty sure the wrong side of the tracks is actually the suburbs, and the 13th is generally accepted to be not much of a tourist attraction, but pretty safe, so... I'm getting befuddled here.

Okay, so there's a huge mix economically among the people here. There are a lot of families and a lot of single people my age, which also confuses me. And it's basically Chinatown, so there are a lot of Asian restaurants and the population is a lot more diverse than, say, in the Marais. There's a lot of construction going on too, and a lot of buildings linked to the university.

My neighborhood is in the left bank, across the Seine from the Bastille (I'm going to walk there one day) but it's pretty nondescript. Except that out of nowhere, there are a bunch of art galleries in the midst of the residential and business buildings. None of this makes sense to me. It's like pieces of Paris all jumbled up together in one place, and in a city where they have rules about building height, it's a bit jarring to suddenly be in a part of Paris that is so full of contrasts. I also tend to get disoriented when I'm in a new place. I'm sure by next week I'll have some favorite spot in the 13th that I will probably wax poetic about annoyingly for hours on end, but for now I'm just getting used to it.

Also. Try moving using only the Metro. I did that today. It was actually not that bad, and pretty much reminded me of when I moved houses at Smith my first year and I just walked my stuff across the lawn from one house to another. It took three trips and now I know my Metro line really well. I could have taken a taxi, but it made me feel very Parisian to use the Metro, and now that I'm paying rent... well, I'd rather save my taxi money and just use my Navigo pass.

Tomorrow is a trip to Ikea in the suburbs to make my apartment feel a little more like my apartment and also because I need sheets. Apparently you have to take the RER and a bus to get there, but I honestly don't really mind. I'm really excited about making my place feel more like home. Buying groceries today was fun too, because a branch of Paris's cheapest grocery chain is just one stop away on the Metro. There's nothing like cereal and new sheets to make you feel at home.

Attrapper-ing un rhume with the unaccompanied majors

And the time has come for Hostel #3. I was staying at a really nice, kind of pricy hostel in the 14th, but they ran out of space after two nights, so here I am at Aloha Hostel in the 15th, which reminds me of the unaccompanied minors room I once spent a few hours in before my connecting flight to Paris when I was eleven. It was a chaotic little room in an airport where a bunch of unaccompanied minors ran around wearing stickers declaring their unaccompanied minor status and watched movies until they were allowed to go to their gates. It was a little chaotic. Here everyone is my age, but because Paris is having a torrential downpour day, everyone is inside watching Lord of the Rings or checking email. This, compounded by the fact that Aloha's color scheme is neon and they also have a beer vending machine, makes it like a grown up room of unaccompanied minors. Only, instead of catching a flight, I'm waiting to get an apartment.

And I found the perfect studio in the 13th yesterday, so I have my fingers crossed that it will come through. It's in a nice old-ish building, not Haussman, but still pretty, with a courtyard/parking lot and views of other buildings around the courtyard. The studio is on the fifth floor, and it's being rented by a man who honest to god looks just like a gnome and kept on extolling the virtues of the building's lift, which is so small it could probably be an effective torture device on the claustrophobic. It fits three people leaning between two uncomfortably close walls and you can't turn around in it. And the gnome man kept telling me that the building is great because you don't have to take the stairs.

Um. If I get the apartment, I will only take the stairs. But I appreciated the sentiment.

Anyway, the studio itself is a good size, with a bedroom with a huge window and furniture (!) and an equipped kitchen and even a nice bathroom. It's the same price as the studio I saw in the 10th, and I wouldn't have to buy any furniture for it. This is a plus.

The area it's in is the 13th, which isn't as swank as a lot of other areas of Paris - it's a bit more working class, but all in all I don't think it would be a bad place to live. And the building is just off the Metro and it was really lively when I was there and felt really safe.

The other people visiting the apartment were mostly students, and the gnome said he wanted to rent it to someone who doesn't have to get their parents' permission first to rent it. He also seemed reassured that I have a job and a contract for a specific amount of time. He said that I am one of three people he's considering for the apartment, and I am really hoping it works out. When I told him I was American, he told me that I don't have an American accent, and that my accent sounds more Italian. I took it as a compliment.

This was after I looked at an room in the suburbs that is being rented by yet another middle-aged Frenchman. He kept talking about how the suburb was rich and white and conservative - all of which he presented as major pluses - and he was really nice but seemed a little bit racist. And after seeing the apartment and the surrounding area (it's like Bellevue in Washington State - comment dit-on "no way in hell"?) I know that I want to live in Paris no matter what. It might mean staying in youth hostels a bit longer or subletting or living in a less fancy district, but there is no way I am succumbing to the suburbs. I hate them at home, and I hate them here too. I'll take Paris any day, with all its grime and noise and air pollution. I mean, I kind of like those things.

Nuit Blanche was also a success. I went with some other assistants, and got crepes and watched a video installation outside of Centre Pompidou, which had free admission on Nuit Blanche, so we got to go in and see an exhibition of work by women artists, including Rachel Whitereade, Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, Nan Goldin...basically everyone who was included in the feminist art unit of my art history class last spring. It was really cool to see the pieces in real life, though, just because when I see art in class I never think that I'll actually get a chance to see it in real life. It was a really good night. There was also a giant disco ball hovering over the Luxembourg Gardens.

Oh, and I managed to get a cold the next morning, so now I'm sniffling around Paris, discovering the joys of French cold medicine and tea. Last night I had dinner with some family friends, and they sent me home with both. It was great to see them, and to have all of my dumb Paris questions answered, although by the end of the night my French had seriously deteriorated. I've been spending a lot of time with the other assistants, and the program has some oversight, and the directors are doing their best to get us acclimated, but sometimes it just helps to talk to a French person who isn't paid to tell you that the children will love you because you're American.

Things are still a bit disorganized - I was supposed to meet the contact person for my school(s?) today, and I'm not scheduled to meet with him until Monday. But given that this is France, I am just glad there's a meeting at all.

I hope it stops raining soon. But this hostel is playing Nico and the Clash in the lobby, so it's an okay place to be stuck with a cold for now.

Ruminations on a Futon and Shopping Under the Influence

It's officially cold in Paris, as of yesterday. The wool jackets are out, and the only place where it's warm is the Metro. Right now I'm at one of my coffee places in the Marais - the front of it is totally open, so everyone is huddled inside wearing coats and sitting at their laptops.

I saw apartment #2 yesterday in the 10th arrondissement - it was about the size of my dorm room last year, with a tiny kitchen that at least had hot plates, a fridge, and a small sink (some of them don't!) and a really big bathroom. It wasn't furnished though, and it's just a little out of my price range, and I don't really want to have to buy and deal with a futon at the moment. Plus, the guy who's renting it is a little more legit than many people in France who rent their apartments - he's taking dossiers from applicants, and then he'll pick a few to follow up with. I wouldn't mind living there, but at the same time...futon. C'est complique. Tomorrow I'm visiting an apartment in Antony, which isn't actually Paris, but it might be an okay place to crash for now - we'll see. It's a colocation with some other people, none of whom I think are incredibly old. And on Monday I have an au pair interview with a British woman who rents out a room in her apartment on the cheap in exchange for some baby-sitting. It seems a little intense, but I only work twelve hours at my job, so it might be a good option. Plus it's centrally located.

Also, people keep asking me for directions. Most of the time, if it's in the Marais and they're tourists, I can usually help them out, and they're usually pretty excited when they find out I speak English, but on Thursday when I was at an RER stop, totally lost on the way to my orientation, a French woman asked me for directions. While I was lost. This struck me as being particularly funny for that reason alone, and then I was a little concerned that Parisians get lost on the RER too. I mean, they live here. Like, all the time.

Anyway, the apartment search continues. And tonight I'm going to Nuit Blanche, which is basically a city-wide art exhibit and an excuse for everything to be open incredibly late, including department stores, who I think will do pretty well. I like shopping when it's daytime and my judgment is totally fine. Imagine how many impulse buys must occur when everyone's judgment has slid by 3 a.m., and that's not even factoring in that Nuit Blanche is basically an all night party. Drunk shopping strikes me as being a little like drunk knitting. Friends should not let friends do it.

I'm headed to a new area in Paris and I'm really going to miss the Marais. After living here for a week, I really do feel like it's my neighborhood. Underneath the touristy thing, it's really a cool neighborhood - it's the old Jewish quartier, currently Paris's gay neighborhood, and it's just a really interesting mix of people, including tourists and Parisians. I'm going to miss its little cafes and patisseries and being so close to Place des Vosges. It would be really nice to live here, and who knows - maybe a tiny little studio is around here just waiting for me.

Or maybe I'll move to the tiny apartment in the 10th, and I won't be too far away on the metro. The good thing about Paris is that with metro, you're never too far away from anything.

...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.