The Apartment

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There's No Place Like Home

   
    I don't know how, but sometimes I forget how beautiful this city is. The other day, I walked by the Pont Alexandre III and looked up at the gold statues on top and thought, Shit, this town is so legit. For real. It's easy to forget how amazing every little thing is when you're focused on métro signs or watching out for dog shit on the sidewalks. Looking up is a risk you need to take, or you'll miss it all.

    Looking up is also something I have to do to get into my new apartment, which is on the top floor sans elevator. On Monday, I had my housing appointment and the order of appointments depended on the order that we submitted all our housing documents over the summer. Clearly, I did mine right away, because my appointment was on the first day possible and I obviously got the good picks. In the database, we could filter the apartments that AUP has relationships with by our own criteria. My only stipulations were price and location. After living in my foyer last year, I was prepared for anything. All I wanted was to be within the périphérique (The highway that borders Paris from its suburbs) and not have to pay the price of a small car each month for rent. Luckily, I had the advantage of knowing exactly what I wanted, compared to other people who had never even been to Paris before. Choices varied, but mainly options were in the sixteenth, seventh, fifth and sixth, with a few randomly placed in the other arrondissements. First, off I'm a Lefty (In more than one sense), so the Right Bank was ruled out, though I'm thinking it might be fun to move to the eleventh or third next semester when I'm legally allowed to end my lease. I really didn't want to live in the seventh, because, albeit very beautiful and the location of my school, it's just too privileged for my taste, as is the sixteenth. I decided today that I prefer a grittier Paris and I've had conversations with people and we've agreed that Paris is not just the sum of its monuments- it's much better than that. I actually love the outer arrondissements. To me, these are the real Parisians; people who don't inherit their wealth and don't hold prestigious government positions. What's life without struggle? Boring. And life in Paris is never, ever boring for me.

     Since I know my way around, I didn't worry about commuting and instead chose to look primarily in the fifth and sixth. Even though the sixth is also a pretty wealthy area, I think it has a lot more character and atmosphere than the seventh and isn't so pretentious. I picked a place on the avenue de l'Observatoire and a student advisor went with me to meet the landlord, see the apartment and ultimately make a decision. It was a yes once I saw the view at sunset-I can see the Observatoire de Paris, the Sorbonne, the Tour Montparnasse, the Eiffel Tower, Saint-Sulpice, the Palais Garnier, La Défense and Montmartre. And the Jardin du Luxembourg is literally my front yard.

My first night at home

     My landlord is a sweet, elderly woman named Pierrette and she owns the rooms above her own (amazing and gigantic) apartment. Concerned about my satisfaction, she asked me countless times, "Tu es contente ?" and then warned me about the dangers of Paris and its pickpockets. She chuckled and put her hand on my arm, saying in French, "I feel like you're my daughter." I think she's got my back.

Pierrette's staircase

My staircase. It's extremely steep.

     When I first entered my building, I saw a beautiful staircase with molded plaster. When I moved in, Pierrette showed me my staircase.It's not much better than a ladder. It's that steep. I guess I took my foyer's ground floor room for granted. Six or seven flights, two suitcases (one of which was fifty pounds), a backpack and exhausted lungs later, and voilà, my "apartment," if that's what you want to call it. You should have seen me carry that up. I started laughing because I always laugh when I lift heavy things and I was inches from falling to my death, probably. I can't get to my place without feeling like I'm having an asthma attack and I don't even have asthma. The lights are also on timers so they usually turn off when I'm on about the third floor so I have to feel my way over to the wall to turn it back on, trying my best not to plunge to the ground floor. I feel bad for the nineteenth century maids who once lived here.

      My apartment, a chambre de bonne or old maid's quarters, is in the building's mansard, the top floor which is gray on the outside of a Haussmann-designed building. It's about nine or ten square meters and has a small kitchen, futon, bed and terrace that will need a bit of TLC but should be perfect when everything's finished. Luckily, I don't care one bit about having a ton of space, because honestly, that's just a big waste of money in this town when you could use that money to actually do something.

     Now I can step out of my apartment, go run or study in the Jardin du Luxembourg or have a bottle of wine on my own private terrace. The word "terrace" should be used liberally because it can only fit my desk chair. But, damn it, I'm calling it a terrace. That's another place from which I'm hoping I don't fall to my death.

Come visit me, y'all. The futon is waiting.

Bisous,
Rachel

Oops!...I Did It Again

   "I'm not sure what I'll do, but- well, I want to go places and see people. I want my mind to grow. I want to live where things happen on a big scale."

               -F. Scott Fitzgerald

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     Well here I am again. Paris is as I remember, and in some ways I am, too. People are walking around in the 70 degree weather in scarves and what I’d consider winter jackets. I’m still the métro pro that I once was- I haven’t had to pull out my trusty Paris Plan even though I always have it on me and I’ve been riding it all over the place in the less than 24 hours that I’ve been here. The only things that have changed are that southbound on line four is now called ‘Montrouge’ instead of ‘Porte d’Orléans’ and Notre-Dame has what I can only describe as giant bleachers in its square (Maybe something to do with its 850^th anniversary?) Oh, and that my friends from Central aren’t here. And I also have no friends to speak of. Yet.

     I got into Paris at around 6 P.M. last night after my flights were delayed about three times, thus screwing me out of the €40 I spent on a pre-arranged shuttle and another €60 for the cab ride I had to take instead. The cab driver immediately started in on wanting to talk about the U.S. involvement in Syria and turned up the radio commentary he was listening to. I had no energy to give any input.

     I got to the FIAP Jean Monnet, where I’ll be staying temporarily until my housing is decided, dropped my things off in my room and went to Bir-Hakeim to see the Eiffel Tower. I don’t know what the hell kind of athlete I used to be, but that is a long walk compared to what I remembered. Alone, I found a patch of grass on the Champ de Mars and watched as it sparkled at dusk, then I bought a sandwich and sat up at Trocadéro. In Paris for mere hours, a woman sat down next to me and asked me when it sparkles because I guess I seem like I know my way around. (My cab driver had even asked me “Vous connaissez bien Paris?” Yes.) It was perfect, but lonely.

Pont de l'Archévêché

Park behind Notre-Dame. Paris is so empty!

Quai de la Tournelle

Bleachers. Am I right or am I right?

Place des Vosges

In Paris for an hour or two, and this is where I head.

Central's Office on rue Henri Barbusse

         I had to be out of my room for the night at the FIAP by 9:30 this morning so I left the building with no plans and métro-ed it from Glacière to Vavin and then spent all morning wandering on foot to familiar places since I don’t have any familiar faces- my internship placement agency’s office, Central College Abroad’s office, St-Michel, my internship office at French Travel Partners, Notre-Dame, the Pompidou, Place des Vosges and all the way to St-Sébastien-Froissart. I don’t know if it’s a morning thing, a Sunday thing, a basically-still-August thing or a hungover-from-Saturday thing, but the city felt empty to me. I also searched for the padlock I put on the Pont de l’Archévêché for Central. No luck. The search will continue.

     In the Place des Vosges, I sat on a bench, dropping crumbs on accident for the pigeons like old times, and I wondered if this is what I’m supposed to be doing with my life. This is the part I hate about going abroad. The being alone part and the initial panic. I really don’t feel any culture stress other than feeling very, very alone. I think this is almost harder than last time, because this time, I was aware of how lonely it was going to be and it takes a lot of energy to not succumb to how sad it is.  I know it’s only been day one and orientation hasn’t even started, but I have doubts. Am I smart enough? Do I know French well enough to study translation? Will I have friends? Is this worth my time and money? Should I have just gone on a trip to Paris? I’m not sure. This is the biggest adult decision I’ve ever made and I don’t know if I should trust myself.

Sidenote: I have to remember to drop the habit of smiling as a means of being friendly. A woman came out of a door on the empty rue Chevreuse and I was standing nearby, so naturally, I smiled when we made eye contact. She looked at me as though I’d pulled a knife on her. 

Girl From the North Country

 

     "I've spent this morning looking up jobs, internships and graduate schools that could lead me back to Paris sooner rather than later, but I know I won't be able to return until this time next year at the earliest. It's exciting to throw around ideas and not know what career I'll have or where I'll live and it's especially exciting to imagine I could be back in France in the future. I know for a fact that I need to go back one day as a resident again, and not just as a tourist. I think four months gets to you deeper than a Paris Visite pass. Even though I already miss France, I know that it will always be there waiting for me, and above all else, I will miss the people I met there who really account for the bulk of what made this experience so special to me. This semester was absolutely the best time of my entire life and I'm grateful I was lucky and privileged enough to make my dreams come true." - I Left My Heart in Paris, France, June 6, 2012


    Well, I'm leaving (again) for Paris. I've been here before, at this point where the excitement of moving away takes a backseat to the shock and sadness of leaving my life in Minnesota. I wish I could have bypassed the whole moment at the airport in which I had to say goodbye and just be asleep in my temporary bed at the FIAP Jean Monnet in Paris. I wish I didn't have to care so much about leaving everyone and everything, but I do. I think it's been just enough time since my last Paris adventure for me to become reattached to my life here. Thinking back to last summer, I would've done anything to be in my shoes at this moment, but now that the moment is here, I'm not really sure how I feel about it. Confused, maybe.

     I know I owe this new adventure to myself because I made a promise last May that I would come back to Paris again as a resident. The thought of never again owning a Navigo card and schlepping through the métro or counting croissants as a key part of my daily diet was too depressing. I've spent too much time on fulfilling this promise to myself to not follow through on it. I studied for and took the GRE, worked with an advisor at Augsburg on writing a really good essay, somehow got all the application materials together, got accepted (miraculously), graduated from college with two degrees, went through the harrowing, soul-crushing experience of CampusFrance for the second time in my life and put myself through the Megabus shitshow to get my visa in Chicago. I spent my time at my summer job--which allowed a lot of time for reading-- putting together my Paris bucket list, which includes restaurants, museums, parks, churches and monuments, complete with their address and nearest métro stop. I was even dorky enough to, honest-to-God, put it all into a Moleskine journal with tabs by arrondissement. I am on another level when it comes to Paris. And those are only the things I can immediately remember that I did to make this whole Paris business happen.

     So off I go, leaving Minnesota once again for a period of time three times longer than I did before. I'm currently sitting at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport and I just said goodbye to my sister and my parents. The goodbye happened almost exactly the same as it did last time (awful) and I think I'm even at the same gate as before. I'm wearing a Twins baseball cap because I know that'll look stupid once I'm in Paris, so I'm getting my Minnesota pride out of my system now. It's hard seeing traces of home that I know will be gone once I land at Charles de Gaulle (But at this rate, after two delays, that might be in quite a while), like all the awful Minnesota t-shirts, a restaurant called 'Hot Dish' on the way to my gate and picking a cat hair or two off of my clothes. It's hard because, unlike last time, I know what's going to happen. This is going to be very hard for a while and and it takes a lot of energy, but somehow I did it last time. I think back on the girl I was last spring and I'm just hoping I can be her again and make this work.

Au revoir et on se verra très bientôt à Paris !

(Here's me in Paris. But not. I just really like this video.)

Rachel

Almost in Paris

I try my hand at video blogging....

Summertime Sadness

   

   

  The long-standing joke in my family is that I'm a cat lady, which is rooted back in my second or third year of life. The farm where my dad grew up was the place where I was first around animals and cats in particular. My sister and I rather creatively named several of the cats Lovey, Maddy and Scared-y, based on their temperaments. At that age, I was scared of dogs, but I ended up loving cats. In preschool, I came home with drawings I'd done of yellow cats with purple collars.

At the farm with Lovey, Emily and Maddy in 1993

     One day when I was five, my mom and I somehow ended up at the Animal Humane Society looking at cats. I was smitten with a tiny kitten, but Mom had her eyes on an almost full-grown cat with a "raccoon tail" who was said to be good with children. We went home that night to discuss getting this cat and by the next day, my infamously good convincing skills worked- we were getting a cat! Finally!

     The four of us brought her home the next night in a cardboard box. In the car, Emily and I dangled our hair in the air holes and giggled as the cat batted it around. Name suggestions ranged from Sassy (My suggestion since the only cat I could think of was Sassy from Homeward Bound.) to Tiger (Emily's suggestion). My dad quietly suggested 'Ribbons' since she had stripes like ribbons. We got our name.

The story of bringing her home "rittin"  in probably 1997

Her first full day at home after a bath.

Easter 2013

     Over the years, Ribby and I grew up together and I let her occupy a bigger piece of my heart than anyone else in the family did. She became my little shadow in the house, following me everywhere and waiting outside my bedroom door in the morning. Whenever I was sad, I think she understood because she always came to me, looked me in the eyes and stayed.

    I always felt that people who say they hate cats would have had a hard time hating Ribby. She was an anomaly to the hissing, attacking, reclusive archetype that gives them a bad reputation. She only hissed once in front of me and it was pretty pathetic (When getting her temperature taken at the vet). She was also a lap addict. Her favorite thing to do was to fall asleep on one of us. All she ever wanted to do was eat, purr and snuggle. She was my living, breathing stuffed animal.

     Unfortunately chronic kidney disease in cats isn't really something a cat can just live with forever; it will eventually kill them. She was diagnosed in June 2012 while I was in Italy and the vet told my dad that she had about two years left in her. Life went on and she was fine. On July 24, 2013, I found her with severe dehydration and diarrhea in the basement and we rushed her to the hospital. We opted to not euthanize her and instead get her treated and back home the next day. We weren't ready for goodbye and also, what about that two-year estimate? It had only been about a year. On August 9th, I realized that we'd been in denial about her health. I noticed she was walking funny and she eventually stopped walking altogether. She stopped eating. She stopped purring. She stopped looking at me in the eyes when I was sad. So I made the decision to let her go. On the night of August 13th, I tucked her in and told her the story of when we got her all those years ago. The next day, we wrapped my little girl in a towel and took her out of our house for the last time. I held her paw and her fur looked so soft and we kept saying through tears how cute she still was. "You all are making me cry," said the vet. The end was peaceful and it broke my heart. The last thing I said to her was "I'll love you forever" and I tucked her tail around her.

     Losing a pet is harder than a lot of people give you credit for because they probably haven't been lucky enough to have one of their own. They don't get it and that's fine. Though she wasn't conscious of it, Ribby taught me how to love and how to be responsible. She provided so much comfort from hard days in Kindergarten to the stresses of junior high to preparing this summer for graduate school in Paris. She was patient with me when my five-year-old self tried putting her in a dress. She stayed calm when Emily and I took her for joy rides in the car in high school. She constantly warmed our hearts and made us smile and laugh and forget about our problems.

     It's sad that I know that specific details about her will start to go soft in my mind over time and I can't do Ribby justice in all the ways that she impacted my life for the last seventeen years. I know she was just one out of millions of cats, but she mattered to me.

I'll love you forever.

Things I Will Miss About America

I've done it before. I've lived in Paris and it was great. Beautiful. Fun. The best experience of my life. And because it was great, beautiful, fun and the best experience of my life, I specifically picked it as my base for my graduate studies.

However, life in Paris is not perfect, contrary to how I rave about it.

With my days left in America entering the single digits, I've been taking note of the things in my daily life that I'll likely miss a whole lot, other than simply friends and family.

(I'm perfectly aware that these could all be classified as "first world problems," Mom.)

THINGS I WILL MISS ABOUT AMERICA (In no particular order)

1. Owning or having access to a printer. Last spring I had to print my internship report and three copies cost me a total of twenty euros at a local print shop. That seems excessive.

2. Proper chips and salsa. I'll have to manage with the meager offerings at Franprix.

3. Owning a washer and dryer that not only produce fully-dry and wonderful-smelling clothing, but are free to use, too. I'm already cringing thinking about all the hand-washing I'll end up doing because I won't want to deal with it.

4. Driving. Yes, the métro is easy to use and environmentally efficient, but I'll miss the selfish freedom that cars provide.

5. Peanut butter. Yes, they have tiny Skippy jars at Franprix, but they're expensive and elicit a lot of curious staring from non-Americans.

6. Air-conditioning. Again, it's better for the environment to go without, but climate-controlled buildings are a wonderful thing, my friends. And France just doesn't really do them.

7. Personal space. I'll have to once again readjust to having significantly less personal space in a city whose population is four times that of Minneapolis-St. Paul. No more freely swinging my arms while walking or being able to fit in cramped cafés. Or showers. I think I'm unusually tall in France, which is weird.

8. Being able to buy shoes if I want or need to. Sigh. I wear a women's European 43, which I think is just an urban legend in Paris. Let me know if you ever see a pair.

9. Ice-cold drinking water. Yeah, carafes d'eau (water carafes) don't have ice in them.

10. Dollars. The exchange rate is painfully tipped in Europeans' favor. Ouch. But thankfully it's not the British pound. Double ouch.