Homeless no more!

I left you all in suspense last week in regards to my housing situation for October. The prospect of being homeless in just over two weeks was not very appealing. I have been looking into flat-sharing for the rest of my year. A few reasons why this appeals to me.

Budget: I would actually get a bedroom a small bathroom and sink and electric burner (singular) for my budget if I wanted to live closer to school. In such a small space all alone, I think I would get lonely and maybe lose some sanity. With a collocation (flatshare) I can actually get into a decent sized apartment with an actual kitchen, laundry facilities, and sometimes even a living room. Plus I figure this would be a good opportunity to meet more people, particularly young French people and practice my language skills.

After rather fruitless attempts at getting appointments to visit some apartments during the first two weeks of September, I caved and payed nominal fees on some housing websites to become a privileged member and get access to phone numbers and personal emails. Then I was able to start visiting (or being stood up) to a few apartments. The housing market here is so competitive, especially in September. An ad would go up, and within hours sometimes, it would be rented already.

Fortunately I hit a lucky break. On Wednesday I visited an apartment in the 15^th (South west side of Paris). A little bit farther from campus than I was originally hoping, but on a direct metro line to school so solid. It will probably take me 20 min door to door to get to my classes, which is overall very good. The apartment itself is on the 6^th floor (top) in a standard lovely French building on a quiet street two blocks from the metro. It looks out over the rooftops of Paris. Two bedrooms, full kitchen with dishwasher, living room and dining room, fully, nicely furnished, I am needless to say very stoked. My flatmate will be a 22year old student doing a music internship for the year. His name is Etienne and he grew up in Paris. He had lived with his mom in the flat, but she has moved back to Bretagne to be closer to her family. After an hour and half visit and a glass of wine later, he has said that I have first dibs, which I accepted on Friday after talking to my family. Just in the process now of sorting out the terms of collocation, next up is a skype date with his mother to meet her (since her name is on the lease) and meet the landlord. Hoping to move in next Wednesday if all goes well!

While house hunting took up most of my free time this week I was also able to hit the town. Wednesday night was the Soiree d’Integration run by our AMS (BDE- Bureau des Eleves). After a lovely, albeit windy pre-drink at Pont des Arts, we made out way to a trendy club, Club 79, on the Champs Elysee for the Soiree. My first impressions of Parisian clubs are correct. These people like to dance. I am also very pleased with the techno versions of songs they play. Normally I am not a fan of these because they take out the best parts of the original song so you can’t sing along and get into it. However, here they have mastered getting the techno into the underbelly of the song while leaving all the good stuff. Bumpin.

Corina and I rockin out again.

Lukas (aka late night navigational genius) creeping in the background

All in all a good night, however, I would say that the Sciences Po crows didn’t seem to be mixing too much, people mainly just stayed with the group of friends they came with and didn’t branch out the meet other people. It is still fairly early in the year though so maybe this will change at future parties. I packed it in relatively early, leaving just before 3 and successfully taking the bus back to Cite with Corina and Lukas, getting to bed just before 4. Good thing I didn’t have class until 10.

Friday was also a fun night. Our Welcome Programme was capped off by a dinner at a local eatery. While most groups apparently had 3-4 people show up, Madeleine, being the champ group that we are, was a party of 11. We had a dinner of traditional savoury crepes for dinner, and sweet crepes for dessert. Very yummy. It was also nice since it was the first time I had actually gone out to dinner in Paris. Afterwards, after hunting down a few bottles of wine, we made our way back to our friend Tom’s flat. Somehow the last metro came and went, so the solution in these cases for Parisians is to wait for the first metros to start running again at 5-5:30. It was a wonderful evening. Talking to international students is amazing because everyone has such different things to talk about. You know it’s a good night when you start talking about politics and social systems and various countries including the US for fun at 3 am after wine, cider and jack daniels. Finally made it home just before 7 and to bed after a lovely chat with my roomie Chrissy on skype until 8am. Oh dear lord.

For obvious reasons Saturday was pretty uneventful, however I took advantage of the glorious fresh fall sunshine on Sunday to go to the Latin Quarter with Rachel. This weekend it was les Journees du Patrimoine, aka Heritage days, which meant free admission to numerous museums, buildings and historical sites. This also meant, however, that there were outrageous tourist packed lines at most of the main sites. After a late snack on a patio on Blvd St Michel overlooking the Seine and Notre Dame, we set off to see just how bad these lines were. Not so good. Being that it was a gorgeous sunny afternoon, we opted to just enjoy the streets and outside views and save the inside exploration for colder, less hospitable days during the winter. Our foot tour took us past the Sorbonne, the Pantheon, a few churches, and the Jardins des Plantes (creatively named Gardin of Plants, which actually also has animals). I then continued on my own after Rachel headed home and strolled through some markets and just got to know this corner of Paris a little bit better.

Above left: outside the Sorbonne, right, inside St Etienne du Mont Church. Like so many sites, picture can't capture the majesty.

Outside the Pantheon

Late afternoon haze in Jardin des plantes

After a bit of time to just wander as I pleased, I headed up to Glenn and Marina’s house close to Montmartre for a joint birthday party for Corina and David, from my welcome group Madeleine. It was nice to see I actually have met a fair number of people, and also met some more. I can’t wait to have my own place to entertain guests. A few too many tasty appetizers were enjoyed, and the macaroons Marina had picked up from a boulangerie that I will have to visit were divine. All in all a lovely evening, and great way to end another week.

Bien a vous les amis!

Back to the Books

After a little bit of playing around the past few weeks, I finally had to start getting down to business with the start of classes. And yes, because I am a bit of a nerd, I was actually pretty excited to go back and learn. I know. After week one, I am still excited about most of my classes, which is definitely a good sign. I’ll start things off with a little preview of the academic fun I have in store from now until the end of January.

For some reason this picture from Musee Carnavalet inspires me of academia

History of Chile in the 20^th Century:

Starts the week off with a bang Mondays at 12:30. This class is going to be sweet. My teacher is young, incredibly knowledgeable and has some really cool guestspeakers lined up for the semester. The focus is on the socialist uprising and military dictatorship that followed from the 1970s onward, and more importantly, how memory has been effected by the traumatic events that went on during that period on both an individual and collective level. I love when courses have a unique angle at which you evaluate a period. This class is a little heavier on the workload with an individual presentation of 7min, a group presentation of 12 and a term paper of 1500 words. No exam. Somehow, I managed to volunteer for my oral presentation for the first session (we had an extra session on Thursday). Smooth sailing – I think I nailed it. 25% of my mark taken care of already and we’re just done week one.

French Politics and Society in the 20^th Century:

My teacher kindof reminds me of a dinosaur, and has a fairly uninspiring lecture style. Not a good thing when I have class from 5-7 at night. Now I understand why people drink coffee. I can forsee issues staying awake in this one. However, she is obviously a pro at her subject and I’m actually looking forward to learn more about the tumultuous past of my home for the next year. Bonus marks for the paper being a book report on a memoir. I am going to do mine on a woman in the French resistance. That and a final exam is January tops it off.

French Language:

What a better way to start your Tuesday than French Language at 8am. That’s right, this is my first ever 8am class of my university career. Language classes don’t actually start until this coming week so I don’t have much feedback on this one yet.

The French Contemporary Novel:

Since my mind has already been awoken with French for two hours, I pass straight on to my only lecture class in French, on French novels. I’m a little terrified. Our teacher has yet to really clarify what exactly we will be evaluated on, except for a presentation done in pairs, dates to be determined. Each pair will present a different novel and author. So everyone will be reading different books. My presentation is on French literary prizes, so not sure what I have to read yet… Going to try and figure that out next class. The biggest problem is the teacher. He speaks kind of like this: THE NOVEL IS THE most significant style of writing. This yelling/whispering combo, spoken in Parisian French, makes it very challenging to catch this important second half of the sentence. Note taking is going to be interesting. Hopefully there’s no final exam based on in class…

After this overload of French language in class I receive a refreshing break by heading off campus for a few hours to Ballroom dancing classes! At Sciences Po, students can actually receive 2 (of 30) credits from participation in a ‘sports’ or artistic class. I have persuaded my friend Daniel from Melbourne, who was in my welcome group Madeleine, to be my partner. Lets just say we are quite the pair. We are very focused. With only four couples in the class though, we get a lot of personal help, which is definitely needed. So far, our Cha-cha is looking promising, but our Tango is in sore need of some revision. We’ll be working on those for the next few weeks before looking at some other styles.

History of Fashion:

Back to school Tuesday night from 5-7 for what I think will be my favorite class, the history of fashion. Before you dismiss this class as a joke because of its title, the key work here is HISTORY. We are going to be looking at the evolution in fashion motivated by changes of (primarily) women in society. How and why people are dressing the way they do in a specific time period and the phenomenon of fashion. This is a class about becoming a fashion expert, not shopping addict. The teacher is amazing, young, blunt, a little harsh, and not afraid to scare students a little bit. Its always refreshing to see a teacher with personality. Kindof love here. Only One presentation in pairs and an in-class final exam sit quite nicely as well.

After 10 hours of class in two days, I get to look forward to having Wednesdays off. My goal right now is to use this time as productively as possible to stay on top of readings and work etc. Some mornings I may try and go to a museum or something, go for a swim etc, we shall see. The afternoons feature sport class number 2: Salsa! Latino beats coupled with an outrageously sexual 40 year old male salsa teacher are certain to entertain over the coming months.

Ethics of War:

My final class of the week on Thursday mornings promises to be very interesting. Lots of great questions to think about. So far the readings have been really good, so that’s a good sign, especially since there are multiple every week. Fortunately my other classes don’t seem to require more than and hour or two of reading a week. I’m already excited about the term paper, even though I know its going to be a struggle to write. The teacher is also very organized and leaves time open for class discussion every session.

And that’s a wrap! Thursday afternoons free for more study, and optional TA help sessions for a few classes will probably characterize. Again, motivation to work during the day to leave evenings and the weekends free for social life. Fridays same thing. Sleep, (Erasmus parties Thursday nights!) study, and possibly take off early for the weekend. Now to see how long my enthusiasm for school lasts!

Getting settled

As mentioned in the last post, I had this entire week off classes, which was extremely nice. Finally time to sleep, eat, explore, run, stand in long lines for various bureaucratic necessities and try to find an apartment. Some of these activities were more successful than others.

This week the number one week the number one priority was to get my carte de sejour. My visa issued by the consulate this summer (which was a huge headache in itself) only lasts for 3 months, and so before it expires I had to present myself to the "prefecture de police" - a division of the authorities that would allow me to stay in France for a full year, and after that year I can always choose to renew it. I was told that it would be a lot faster to get this done at Cite, where I am staying, rather than doing it at Sciences Po or making an appointment with the Prefecture myself. All I can say is I don't want to know what the "less fast way" would have been. I arrived at the office in our administration building at 10:30 on Monday. After standing in line for 45 min to receive my number, I was given #49. By 12:30, they were calling #7. No joke. I proceeded to go back to my room for the afternoon and come back at 3:30 (they are open 8:30-4:30 M-F). They were only at 15. I know.

Needless to say I needed to step up my game if I was going to get my carte. I woke up on Tuesday at 7:30 (which was dedicated since I had been at a wine and cheese the night before) in order to get to the office at 8, 30 min before it opened. Good choice because I ended up being #2 in line for the prefecture de police. Excellent I thought, now I will be out of here quickly. Think again. I wasn't helped until 9:50, and it took until 11:15 for them to complete my folder. And I was #2. Now if that isn't absurdly slow, I don't know what is. The best part is that now that I have my carte, its not official until I get a medical check, with an appointment three weeks away. I love the French.

The administrative building at Cite. Who knew such a beautiful building could bring such frustration?

All this waiting in lines left me a little tired and stir crazy at the same time. This was the motivation I needed to get back to running a bit more regularly. I have now run 6 out of the last 8 days, nothing too special but better than nothing. Being a multi-sport athlete, this has been very different. I haven't run that much in such a short space of time in years. Running here is very different. The parks that are around, while very nice, are very small and full of people. Forget a quiet run all by yourself. Most people will run in these parks. In my runs around the city, I have seen hardly anyone else running on the street. I don't know if its considered indecent to be seen sweating in public or what. I've hardly seen any other females running either. All and all a bit weird. There doesn't seem to be a big sporting/athletic culture, and yet there are hardly any obese people either. And they love wine, bread and cheese. Start puzzling...

Parc Montsouris, across the street from Cite Universitaire, where I go running.

Despite having stood in lines to get my carte de sejour, my carte etudiante and my carte bancaire, I also was able to get out during the week/weekend and do some touring around the various arrondissements (neighbourhoods) to see some of the sights. There are 20 in total, I live in the 14th. Some highlights of the week were Sacre Coeur, which I only saw briefly during a scavenger hunt up in the 18th on Thursday, Chateau de Vincennes in the 12th, and the Musee de Carnavalet in the Marais/4th (where I also had the world's best falafel). The history geek in me never ceases to have my breath taken away by the architecture of these buildings, and wondering about the lives of the various people who lived in them

Sacre Coeur, Corina at Chateau Vincennes and Victor Hugo's house in le Marais

I also have done a bit more sampling of the student nightlife. The best night out so far was this past Thursday. In Europe, there are exchange agreements between many universities to promote exchange in Europe. This program is called Erasmus. Apparently every Thursday in most areas where these Erasmus exchanges happen, they host these international parties. I decided to venture out for my first real club experience in Paris at one such Erasmus

party after having stuck primarily to bars. Good call. Free entrance to all students before midnight, the place was packed and the music was great. It was awesome to bump into a number of familiar faces too! Conveniently I have no class on Fridays, so I think could become a regular occurance :) My new Pit night (shout out to UBC!)

The lower level dance floor at Club Mix

International mix: l-r australian, romanian, canadian and japanese!

Friday I also experienced a very celebrated Pont des Arts. It is a pedestrian bridge over the Seine a few blocks from Sciences Po that overflows with students from all over the world coming to enjoy a gorgeous over some music, wine and food. It has such an amazing atmosphere.

Following our little pre-party on Pont des Arts, I headed to my first ever Salsa Bar. A small hole in the wall close to uni. So much fun! There were two distinct rooms, one with newbies trying their best to follow the beat, and a second room with more experienced dancers.

It was also really cool because these dance rooms were in a converted wine cellar/cave. Very cool ambiance. I am particularly excited to come back later on and show off some new and improved skill from the salsa and ballroom dancing classes I have signed up for this semester through the sports association at Sciences Po. Best thing is I get 2 credits for the classes!

Eva, from Germany, and I at La Pena, the Salsa bar

Tomorrow is my first day of classes, so officially the end of summer. Now back to the grind. All 12 hours of in class Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. I love being an arts student. I'm actually kindof excited, hopefully I'll start meeting some more French students, and learn some stuff on the side. Novel idea. First up tomorrow is 20th century Chilean History. Sounds like fun :)

On the housing front - still nothing :( Hopefully something positive to report later this week!

A la prochaine les amis!

And so it begins!

Step 1: The Departure!

Clearly so ready to go!

My adventures in Paris got underway last Sunday with a successful trip to Montreal with Mom and Tamara to fly off to Charles de Gaulle airport. Gotta love the red eye flight. I arrived bleary-eyed at 1pm local time. Fortunately a direct metro ride took me right to the student residence where I'm staying for September, so not too much of a hassle. Its amazing. Pictures to follow on the buildings, but 40 houses, all with unique architecture thats incredible, house 40 000 students and researchers in Paris. The complex is massive, with parks bordering either side. Not a bad place to start off I figure.

After an early bedtime, I started day one in Paris with a trip to Sciences Po, the school I will be attending this year. It takes about 30 min door to door to get from Cite Universitaire to Sciences Po, about 12min on the metro. Sciences Po is in the heart of the 7th arrondisement in Paris, on la rive gauche. Basically one of the most bourgeois neighbourhoods in Paris. My walk to school goes by Armani, Sonia Rykiel, Dior, Hermes, Crabtree and Evelyn, Burberry, Ralph Lauren...the list goes on. Talk about temptation. Let's see how well I hold out before even venturing inside.

Day one, and all that week is part of a Welcome Program for International. Some social activities including some tours of Paris, as well as instructional classes on class in France, and Sciences Po. Kindof useful, but not so fun to go to 4 straight hours of instruction in French on methodology and language classes from 9am to 1:15 tuesday to saturday. Bit of a shock to the system. Fortunately I had the afternoons off to do some exploring while starting the tedious process of dealing with French administration while getting a bank account set up, a new phone, my carte de sejour etc. There will be a whole rant on French bureaucracy soon, I promise.

With the afternoons free though, I've been able to do some exploring.

Eiffel Tower obviously Sainte Clotilde Church

And let's not forget there has been some socializing. Twice now I've been on the Seine, once for an evening party for international students, and again on Friday for a cruise on the open air "Bateaux Mouches". The canal is amazing, its incredible how many people come and picnic along the Seine. Wonderful.

The Seine at Night

Corina, my Romanian friend, and I on the bateau, going under a bridge

I've met a huge range of people from all over. Many Australians form all over, Americans, and Europeans as well. Not too many French students yet because the official rentree des etudiants (start of school) is not until this week, and I don't start classes until the 13th, so it will be a little bit yet before I am finally among les francais.

So far the best thing: cheap wine. Try a decent bottle for 2 or 3 euro (exchange rate 1.3CAD) Because of this, it is very popular for small house gatherings over baguettes, delicious cheese and a few bottles of wine. Makes for lovely evenings :)

I have this whole week off to try and finish getting settled and find an apartment for october. Wish me luck!