The start of the REAL Paris

September 4, 2010

On Thursday I was SUPER jetlagged—I barely slept through the night and kept waking up. In the morning we had orientation at the NYU campus, and then a super long lunch break. Me and a couple friends did the French thing and went to a very long lunch, complete with wine. They drink wine ALL the time. It’s great. In the afternoon I went back to campus to get my housing assignment, which was so nerve-wracking. They called us out from a big group, roommates by roommates. I’m living with two girls, who are pretty cool. They both go to NYU—one is a Psych major who already did a semester abroad in Shanghai (Maria), and the other is a Comp. Sci and Math major at NYU as well.  At first when we got our housing assignment, we were so stoked. The NYU coordinator said that we could move in as soon as we wanted, because our landlady spent the year in New York and had already left. We got the key, and it was like an old school treasure chest key. So of course, we went to go see it immediately.

The apartment is in the 9^th arrondissement, which is known for its theater and opera. Our neighborhood is cute. The actual street is very residential, but it’s near a street that reminds me of Bleecker  Street in New York, and a pretty busy shopping neighborhood with tons of stores, cafes, grocery stores, boulangers, a metro, etc. We’re on the 6^th floor, and we have an elevator thankfully! When we see the apartment, we loved it at first. 3 bedrooms, a full kitchen, a living room, a balcony, and lots of floor space. It’s bigger than anyone else’s apartment that I know, at 110 square meters. Definitely bigger than anything I’ll ever have in New York.  However, it appears that there are no sheets or towels for us, so we decide to move in on Friday after we get a chance to buy them. On our way back to the hostel, we stop for another glass of wine. C’est la vie francaise!

I get back to the hostel for dinner, and then a bunch of us decide to go out. We don’t actually leave the hostel until about 11:30pm, which sucks because the hostel closes its doors at 2! But it was our second night in Paris, and we needed to celebrate no matter what. We go to Avenue de Mouffetard, a pretty hoppin’ cobblestone street with a lot of bars and restaurants in the Quartier Latin, in the 5^th arrondissement.  We find Brick in the Wall, a bar that my friend Anne had been to last summer. There were tons of cute guys there, and it was the kind of place where it got more and more fun as the night went on. But we only really had time for one and a half drinks, because we had to be back to the fucking hostel…but the first taste of French nightlife was amazing.

Of course, it was probably a good idea that we had to be back because I had to wake up at 7:30 am for a placement test. Fuck that. It ended earlier than scheduled like EVERYTHING else here (they really don’t seem to have much to say to us/care much about anything at all here, which is kind of nice). All my grammar has gone out the window, obviously, but I surprised myself at how well I did at the reading comprehension and writing—and on how functional I was after sleeping less than 6 hours the last two nights. Plus, the placement test is only for the “Language and Culture” class that we take for the first two weeks, so it doesn’t even matter.

So then we had a three hour break. Me, Anne, and Anne’s hostel roommate Maya went to the Champs Elysees (the really famous street in Paris), and saw the Arc de Triomphe.

 Super touristy stuff, but it was BEAUTIFUL. So much prettier and more amazing than any tourist stuff in New York, that’s for sure. We stopped at one of the best macaron places in the city, La Duree, which was amazing. Obviously. 

Then  Anne and I continued wandering, and walked past the Palais Royale, le Grande Palais, and across the Seine to the 7ieme arrondissement. We stumbled upon Rue St Germain, another famous street in Paris, which we walked down for awhile. We stopped for lunch at a café—they’re fucking everywhere here. It’s amazing. Anne and I spent lunch talking completely in French, and were able to spend the whole day without talking to anyone in English, which I consider an accomplishment. Especially because the French would usually rather they speak English to you than hear you butcher their language. After another delicious meal with more wine, we went back to the NYU campus for more orientation stuff—filling out forms, etc. Then the day was done!

My roommates and I were all set to move in to our apartment, having bought sheets near the NYU campus, but that’s when the bad news started coming. Apparently our landlady hadn’t ACTUALLY moved back to NY yet, and we couldn’t move in that night. And she had somehow broken the lock between the night before, when we were there, and that day. So we had whole new keys, and had to stay in the FIAP one more night. K. There was way more apartment drama later, but that was the start.

So we go back to the FIAP and nap for a couple hours, then have a quick dinner. Then it’s time to go out! Although we had to back by 2, again. So we go to some NYU kid’s apartment who have already moved in, after stopping for some champagne to celebrate! They live in the 15^th, which is not the most exciting neighborhood, but whatever. Its three guys, and they have a good sized apartment. There were about 10 of us at the place, and we were all having a good time.

We decide to go to a bar in the 7^th that someone recommended to us. We finally get there, and it’s PACKED. It’s one of those bars where you have to sit at a table (pretty common in France), and there is no room to sit. Which means it was a good bar. But we still make friends with a French guy there, and he tells us to go to a bar a few blocks away where you can make your own drinks. We follow his advice, and stumble over to Le Pixel. They seat 10 of us, and we start staring at the menus. But b this point it was already around 1 am, and at 1:20 people start freaking out that we won’t make it back to the hostel in time. So 6 people bounced after they put in their drink orders (although they were waiting for like 20 mins and they hadn’t come yet). They leave, and the waitress was PISSED. She kept telling us how it really wasn’t cool what our friends did, because they already put the drinks in the computer, etc etc. We felt bad but like…not our fault. The four of us who were left had one delicious drink, and then we had to go back and sleep ourselves. I was so tired I passed the fuck out, and finally slept through the night.

But I still slept less than 6 hours, because I had to wake up to move out of the hostel by 9 am. We go to our apartment, and that’s where things get complicated…The new key doesn’t work. We catch our landlady leaving on our wayi n, but she insists that they key is fine and speeds off in a taxi to the airport. She was a crazy bitch—clearly just plain mean, and we only talked to her for 5 min. She looked insane and had hairs sprouting out of her face everywhere, and was generally disgusting. Our neighbor later confirmed that our landlady is indeed crazy and mean. We go upstairs on her word that the lock is fine, but it’s NOT. Our super-nice neighbor comes out and helps us, and after an hour, we get it to work ONCE. We move all our shit in, and try to practice opening and closing it while someone waits inside, just in case. But no. One of our keys gets stuck, so we can’t even close the door or anything. Fuck. So I’m waiting for the locksmith to come now—he was supposed to be here around 4 or 4:30pm, and it is now almost 6. Jesus.

Anyways, we decide to move our stuff in, despite the broken door. But with some of our excitement worn off, it becomes clear that the apartment is clearly a shithole. There is literally POO on the toilet seat. And trash under the beds. And dust and dirt everywhere. The bitch left us dirty dishes and trash everywhere. So gross. And we can’t get the internet to work after like 2 hours of trying to follow the instructions in the box (she of course left us no instructions). She left her gross pantyhose, so we threw it out the window.

We call NYU, because clearly this is not okay. The only other available apartments are singles in homestays, so we try to figure out what we can do. They said they would help us with the internet on Monday, and would send a professional cleaning service free of charge tomorrow at 1pm. So that’s better. And now we’re waiting for the stupid locksmith, and whatever we pay him will just come out of our rent.

Tonight I hope I can go out, because fucking someone has to be in the apartment at all times until the lock is fixed. I’m writing this post without internet on Word while I’m waiting, hence the essay length.