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!