Darcy's Paris Blog

Move-in day - St. Patrick's Day!

Today was my first day in Paris. I arrived late, but other than that it was great. Sophie from the office was there to meet me at the airport, which was very helpful. After cramming all my bags into her teenie car, we went back to the office briefly and then went to the mall for lunch with another NI guy. (The majority of my lunches with NI people in Europe have been in malls...and they laugh at Americans for their malls! Go figure.) After heading back to the office -- where everyone was very friendly, by the way, but I think also a little curious -- Stephanie (the woman who helped me get set up with the moving details) and I drove into town to meet the apartment landlord, or landlady as it turned out. And when I say "we" drove -- she handed me the keys to my late-model Ford Pinto-style car and told me to follow her. Now -- I don't know about you -- but somebody saying to me "just follow me" when we're headed into central Paris was a little scary. Not only was I driving a car I didn't know, but I was driving in a city where I've never driven, where they speak a language I don't know, and where driving is practially a contact sport. But it turned out to be fine. Thank God I already knew how to drive stick before I got here. You need skills to drive around this city. And thank God for Stephanie. Not only did she hook me up with the apartment, but it also took both our cars to get my luggage here. I didn't think I had that much stuff for four months, but the French standard for space is a little less than Americans.

After walking through the apartment and signing the paperwork, we lugged my stuff up the stairs to the apartment (2nd floor to the French, 3rd floor to the Americans.) Again, thank God for Stephanie. (One major issue, though: no parking space with the apartment. When someone else was working for NI France for a few months, he also had an apartment in this building, but they rented him a parking space in a garage down the street. I need to get hooked up with that. I would've thought the folks in the office might've Street parking here is very tough to find. It'll get worked out.)

After hauling up the luggage, it was back to the office for more loose ends. I still needed my mobile phone and access badges to the building and the parking at the office. Now -- maybe I was expecting a little much -- but I kindof expected all that stuff to be sorted out before I got here. Stephanie seemed a little surprised when I asked about them -- something like, "Oh, oh, that's right, you will need some way to get into the building" and "Oh, right, there was something about a mobile phone in a few emails." I'm being harsh -- probably just tired. Stephanie's been very helpful. But then the phone person was away from her desk, and the badge person too, so I volunteered to go back to the office a second time after checking out the apartment. Also fine, since I was going to drive the route from my apartment to the office over the weekend, anyway, to figure out where I was going. But I did wonder if the organizational challenges were indicative of the laissez-faire culture -- but then again, our French office has been pretty pulled-together for things in the past. Time will tell.

After my second visit to the office to sort out those details, I went to Ikea, international headquarters of cheap housewares and conveniently located not too far from the office. I'd scoped out the very minimalist offering at the apartment earlier, so I knew I needed a few things, chief among them being hangers. I bought a few basics, just enough to start unpacking, and decided to do a fuller Ikea run tomorrow. I also learned that you have to pay for bags to put your stuff in when you check out here at Ikea -- which I should've known from past French travels, but I figured Ikea is Ikea. Not so. After a terse but fine reprimanding from the cashier, I handed over 40 Euro cents for 2 paper bags. Then back to the city.

I parallel parked the car down the street in a spot smaller than the couch in my apartment -- then scoped out my local market, went in to get some essentials, and used my newly found Ikea-bag-purchasing knowledge to ask for "deux sacs" when checking out. Headed back to the apartment to do some serious unpacking. The cafe on the ground floor of my building had a live jazz band amped out like they were playing Shea Stadium. Luckily they were good. Found my local take-out pizzeria, which is always important. That's about all the effort I could put into dinner tonight.

Unpacking showed me that I still need more hangers. Maybe I did bring too much stuff...

Photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/darcydement/date-taken-calendar/

posted by Darcy @ 11:27 PM