Checking in and Moving House

Hello everyone,

Sorry for my recent step away from the keyboard. I've been undergoing a lot of upheaval and chaos over the past week.
The root of this chaos was my decision to move jobs and homes. I left my suburb for my own studio in the centre of Paris, right next to Madeleine to be exact, and to work with a girl living where the crisp cream architectured buildings of the Marais meet the grunge bobo (bohemian bourgeois) of the Bastille.
This decision had a lot of repercussions: good and bad.
The Bad
I had to buy out my Navigo (375 euros) and my french lessons (355 eruos). Coupled with the fact that my old job paid me at the beginning of the month and my new job pays me at the end of the month, meaning I don't get paid until November 12th, I have $200 (yes, Canadian dollars) for my Scotland trip next Monday and $100 for October 27th, when I get back, to November 12. Manageable, as I've seen my friends do it, but annoying. And difficult. And a wee bit scary.
The Good
I now live in the centre of Paris, so anywhere is a 25 minute jaunt. I step outside to beautiful buildings and crisp air and my view is of rooftops and clouds.
I have my own place, which means cooking my own food, lazy mornings in bed with a bowl of weetabix, skype calls in the middle of the night, and having friends over to drink wine and gossip until the wee hours of the morning.
The girl I look after is an absolute dream, and the area she lives in is postcard worthy.

So basically it works out better in my favour in the long run, but october/november is going to be a lot of me spending money I shouldn't and going to pubs without buying any drinks.

And this is the part where I tell you my moving in story.

I agreed to meet my wonderful friend Isabelle at my suburban train station at 7:30pm Friday night. I had to walk from my old house to the train station, which is a 15 minute fast walk, with all my luggage. Being the optimist that I am, I thought I could surely carry a massive suitcase, a duffel bag, a smaller duffel bag, a garbage bag, a backpack, and a couple shopping bags, all my myself. I got about a fifth of the way there in 15 minutes, before a small car pulled up to the curb a couple meters ahead of me. The following dialogue was in French, but I will translate for the sake of my anglophone audience.

"Hey, do you want some help?" A friendly looking man hopped out of the car and headed towards me. Red flags popped up in my brain, thinking yes he could kidnap me and take all my stuff and sell me to human traffickers in Romania, but what were my options? My luggage contraption tumbled forwards whenever I hit a pothole, and cabs were few and far between in the desolation of the suburbs. Plus, I now had no phone and very little money.

"Um, yeah, sure, thanks." I handed over my luggage, which he stuffed partially in his trunk and which I partially crammed into the small passenger seat with me. We exchanged conversation all the way to the station, and he turned out to be a really nice guy, with family in Canada.

At the station, he carried all my stuff to the entrance and I stood, phoneless, surrounded by bags as the evening bled into the night and sketchy characters started infiltrating the station. My heart sank when at first Isabelle's train said cancelled, then I didn't see her as the second train docked and its passengers fled down the stairs and into the night. I began to panic as I pictured myself trying to get all my luggage into Paris to get the keys to my apartment from my employer, then to my new apartment itself.

And then like magic, Isabelle appeared from behind me. She had gotten off at the wrong station and gotten the next train. I was flooded with pure relief as we hobbled all my bags onto the train and then the metro. At my wonderful new employer's apartment, I was given breakfast food (english muffins and weetabix) and instructions on how to get to my apartment, as well as the key and the door code. Instructions???? You might ask, why would one need instructions to get into an apartment? My instructions were to take the elevator to the fifth floor, then walk up a small flight of stairs, down a hallway, turn left, and my door is the second to last on the right.

So we arrived at the apartment and got inside to find the elevator, one of those 20th century cage numbers that I mentioned in an earlier post. I was ecstatic to see it, until I realized the doors opened inwards and I had all my luggage and Isabelle. So I hobbled in with half my stuff and noticed there were only four floors in the elevator. I pressed the button for the fourth floor, and the elevator shot upwards with a groan. I had just began to exit the elevator when the lights turned off and the elevator shot downwards. I arrived at the ground floor where a confused Isabelle told me she had pressed the "appel" button to get the elevator back down. So I told her to wait a couple minutes next time, went back up, and waited for the elevator to announce her arrival with a depressing groan.

We located the staircase to the fifth floor through a little doorway, and climbed up. The sight I saw when I arrived in The Hallway was one I will never erase from my memory. The ceiling rose about a foot above my head, and the narrow walls were snaked with exposed pipes and peeling paint. To top it off, a horror-movie esque sink stood at the end of the hallway with a huge faucet looking like a hand was going to slide out of it at any moment. I braved The Hallway and entered my room, which is a lovely little attic studio, painted bright creams and newly renovated. At least it's one hell of a lot less scary than The Hallway, which I have to walk down whenever I need to use the toilet.

Isabelle, my other friend Megan, and I sat on my futon and drank wine while I sporadically unpacked. They were the reason why I didn't break down that night.

All in all, it was a very hectic weekend, with Fete des Vendages on Saturday and a lovely day out sipping (4.95 euro!!!!!!) pumpkin spice lattes. But I have nested, and I'm happy here.

Hopefully this will be the start of another great adventure.

Love and miss you always,
Coral