L'arc de triomphe... et moi?

WELCOME to blog number 4 on the Meg O'Halloran blog list. The others have included my environmental blog (which I hope to continue to add to), the Macalester EcoHouse blog (which contained all of my environmental blog's entries), and "Look what you're missing Simon!" a blog designed to make a certain Simon sorry that he'd ever abandoned his friends in Minnesota.

This blog is to narrate my time abroad in Paris, France (as opposed to the equally appealing Paris, Texas). The title of this blog "Parisienne ou vie quotidienne" is translated as "Parisian, or everyday life." The hope is that in my time here, this blog will not merely be about my life attempting to be Parisian, but about my transition into truly living here, and no longer visiting.

I'm here! I've been fed (thanks to the lovely boulangerie down the street), have successfully obtained wifi for my room, bought a cellphone, and taken a tour around my neighborhood. People are really nice, and they don't automatically assume I'm American! I think that's a good thing.

When I finally managed to figure out how I was going to get to Paris (silly me didn't read the nice instructions IFE gave us) I still didn't really believe I was in Paris. Sure, everything was in French, all the women looked like super models, and everyone wanted my Euros, but the country side didn't look that different. And everyone was driving on the RIGHT side of the road, not the left. Is that only in England? I'm on this big bus, totally at a loss to where I'm supposed to be getting off, only that when I do I HAVE to find a taxi. We stop once. Not my stop. The nice french man looked me in the eyes and said "Place d'étoile, le 15me arrondissement." (Place of the stars, fifteenth district). This was not that. The people got off. The taxis drove away. Was I even in the right city? The bus pulled away again. The architecture was shabby, old, cheap. The streets were dirty. Where was this Parisian Paradise I'd been promised?

And then we were driving around l'arc de triomphe. Suddenly it struck me, "Oh God I'm here!" And I finally felt excited to be embarking on this adventure.

I guess what they don't tell you in Study Abroad orientation is that you haven't really left until you're off the plane. Until then, you're still in the United States, or some sort of international buffer zone. But when I saw l'arc, I knew that I was here. The carved stone statues along the side towered over even the tall bus, gazing off at nothing, at everything. There were gates around, and a whirlwind of vehicles desperately trying to navigate around each other, in a traffic circle where lanes don't seem to exist.

The taxi was waiting for me right off the bus. It took me straight to my new home, a foyer in the 4th district, five minutes from Notre Dame. I became scared again, since the doors to the building where large and wooden, and the place didn't seem very inviting. But when I pressed the buzzer and opened the doors, I found a beautiful garden waiting for me.

I live on the 5th floor (they say it's the 4th, but they also say the 2nd floor is the 1st, so I know what they're up to). There's no elevator, so it's a great source of exercise (so I'm telling my aching thigh muscles and my puffing- out of breath lungs). The single is slightly smaller than my room in the EcoHouse. I have a sink in my room, a bookshelf, plenty of closet space, and a small window looking over a playground. They also don't tell you how adorable it is when little children are screaming in French.

After napping for 5 hours after I arrived yesterday, and sleeping for 13 hours last night, I hope that I'm sufficiently recovered from my travels and that jet lag will not plague me.

I've had plenty of adventures so far: Using the shower (the water would not get hot), finding a pharmacie where I could buy soap and shampoo, and finding a boulangerie where I could get some food. The big adventure was today, when I endeavored to buy myself a cellphone. This took me off the safe ile Saint-Louis and over into the 1st district. I found my first French Mall. It was huge... and pretty much the nice version of a target. And by nice, I mean NICE. Imagine if Nordstroms decided it needed a hardware store, kitchen department, electronics store, and toy store.


Tomorrow will involve me searching for more necessities, and hopefully braving the metro. More soon!
Pictures soon!