Darcy's Paris Blog

Day 2 - more unpacking!

Today was my second day here. I slept in (relatively) and kept going with the unpacking. Also enjoyed the fact that I actually have a bathtub, which I didn't expect in a small apartment in Montmarte. (I forgot to mention that yesterday -- my apartment is in Montmarte. If you know where the Sacre Couer is, at the top of the hill, go down the back side of the hill and you land at my apartment. Very lucky location.) I went to retrieve my car, and voila! My first parking ticket! How very exciting. 35 Euro. That oughta help me get that garage spot. Apparently the spot where I had squeeze in my car -- between two other cars in a long line of them, mind you -- was not legally parked because there was no parking lane marked with a striped line. I guess everybody else just ignored that fact. Oh, well, live and learn.

I took off for Ikea round 2 and bought more hangers and organizational stuff -- there was none of that in the apartment to begin with -- and also one of those giant plastic Ikea bags for 60 cents. I figured that's stronger & easier than buying more sacs every time I need to go to the market. Oh! And also bought curtains for my bedroom, since my windows look across a courtyard at another building (with a very cute boulangerie downstairs, too.) I mean, I know this is France and all and they're much more comfortable with that kind of thing, but I'm American and not so comfortable with the entire building across the way seeing straight into my bedroom. Still haven't figured out to hang them, though. That'll be this weekend's project.

Made my way back to the apartment -- or at least the vicinity of it, anyway -- and parked legally but reasonably far away. Given that street parking is free on the weekends, I figured that's not too bad a deal. (Street parking is also free on public holidays and the entire month of August -- that's a good a statement as any about the entirety of France taking vacation that month, I think.) I hiked -- and I mean it literally -- with my plastic Ikea bag up to my apartment. Since I parked further down the hill, I had to climb the 6 flights of stairs in the Square Coulaincourt to get to my apartment. Plus the 2 flights to get here within my building. Starting to feel less guilty about not having a gym here.

After a few hours of serious organizing and starting to make this place look more inhabited, I took off mid-afternoon to meet a friend of a friend. Her name is Elizabeth -- she moved here a few years ago, and she's the best friend of Jenny (Allaire) Remington who worked at NI until recently. We were going to meet near St. Michel on the left bank -- a fantastic area -- but students have been striking/rioting there. I love it. Even the students strike here. You gotta love a place where even the students are striking over employment laws regarding jobs they don't even have yet. Good grief. So, plan B is Place du Ternes near the Arc de Triomphe. I came by metro and learned the very unhappy news that the metro not 3 minutes from my place (Lamarck Coulaincourt) will be closed starting in a week all the way through mid-June. Major bummer. And sorry for those of you who will be visiting then! It's not a huge deal -- it just means a slightly longer walk to one of the other 2 stations -- but of course, it had to be closed for renovation in the just 4 months I'll be here. Never mind the fact that this metro station is one of the cleanest & neatest I've seen -- but somebody somewhere decided it needed renovation more than the graffiti pit one stop away. Again, go figure.

So -- I got to our meeting place by metro, and Elizabeth by car. She's awesome! Thanks to Jenny for the virtual introduction (and to Sherry for getting me Jenny's email address.) She moved here a few years ago to be with the guy she later married, and now she lives just south of the city (but still accessible by train -- major plus.) She gave me some great inside scoops, including the name of a girl who also works for Microsoft and just moved here from Turkey, and the name of that girl's French professor. I think I'll contact her before I commit to the language classes I was going to start this week. We had a good time together, and I think we're planning to get together next week when neither of us is as busy. My first friend in Paris!

After wine, quick dinner, and hairdryer shopping with Elizabeth -- (I didn't bother bringing my hairdryer, to avoid the hassle of using a transformer and the strong possibility of blowing it up regardless) -- we parted ways, and I hopped into Monoprix for a few household things (kitchen cleaner, trash bags, extension cord, etc.) Note to self: Monoprix gives free bags. Then I decided to walk towards the Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs-Elysees. Funnily enough, I saw a couple there who was on my flight from Houston to Paris. Maybe it isn't such a big city afterall... The Champs-Elysees is strange -- I'm always trying to figure out who's local and who's not. I know it's crawling with tourists, but then I think, which category do I fall into now?

After walking the entire length of it, from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde, I took the metro home. I'm going to miss my metro stop! Every time I see an X over my station on one of the trains I get a little miffed. Oh, well, c'est la vie.

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

posted by Darcy @ 10:28 PM 0 comments

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 0 comments