SO much has happened in the last week that I really don't know where to start. I think I am going to try to post a few different blogs this week about different things that I have noticed since I arrived to try to give a real sense of what this is like. This one, however, will be more of a summary---calendar of events.

When I reread the blog below before posting it tonight, I realize how unsuspecting I was of things to come. I expected to change and grow this year but maybe not so quickly. In one week I have gone from a girl who could barely sew a button on a shirt to someone --only a little bit terrified-- of walking into a mobile phone store only to spend 1 hour communicating in broken English (the salesperson), less then poor french (me), and a broad range of hand motions (both of us) just to set up and UNDERSTAND my new cell service. [ I had originally set up the plan the day before, only to realize that by using my new cell and international phone card in combination that night, I had managed to use up an entire month of phone credit in 2 hours!!]

This week has been less then smooth but definitely the most empowering of my life. There is so much that I want to tell about everything so I am going to write out the course of my week and fill in all of the details when I can find time this week. This week has been so full that I am amazed of the thought of time to write. I won't do this the rest of the year (as I doubt my life will ever be this busy for a while...something that gives me enormous relief), but I feel like many that happened will help to give you all a picture of...well...Paris.

SEPT 1, Saturday
*Arrival, discovery of 'ma petite chambre' (my little room). Like Germany, everything in Paris is small. The buildings, the cars, the streets, the people...so I was stunned to find my room at the Cite U for the month a little bit bigger then small. I have a window that opens up wide to the park below, a bed, a desk, a sink, and 2 closets. The toilets and showers are down the hall and are co-ed as is everything here. There is a kitchen on each floor full of the all the appliances and utensils open to use by everyone and we all have our own dry food locker and drawer in the fridge. The kitchens are surrounded by a balcony that looks out over the park. Though the Cite U is not in the heart of Paris, the student life here is so great that people are on a 1 year waiting list to get a room. A great place to be now but it is sad to think that we will all have to leave here in a month.

The entrance to the Cite Universitaire... notice the bushes.

*Stumbled blindly through the metro en route to see Sciences-Po.
*An evening on the Seine. (wine, baguettes, cheese and my first view of the Tour Eiffel). This is probably a proper time to introduce the people that I have been spending time with over here. There are a lot of international students in the orientation program that we have until September 30Th. Amazingly, a good number of them are Australian. In effect, a good number of the people that I hang out with are Australian. We decided we need to make rules to not speak English until 7pm so that we force each other to speak French. (However, this rule has not yet been enforced.) I've learned 3 languages in the past month: French, German (well, just a few words), and Australian (brecky=breakfast, sunnies=sunglasses, torch=flashlight, jumper=sweatshirt). On Saturday night. Kath and James (Perth), Ryan (Florida) and I wandered our way up the Champs d'Elysees (Paris's infamous shopping street where the Tour de France finishes every year) and stopped off to grab some wine and things for a dinner before sitting down feet dangling over the Seine (the main river that winds through Paris) to watch the buildings light up one by one. There were many tour boats winding through and flooding the banks with their huge lights. I couldn't have come up with a better way to start my adventures in Paris.

SEPT 2, Sunday
*My first run in Paris.
*Louvre attempt number 1. After a morning of sleeping in and organizing our stuff, we managed to take the metro into Paris around 5pm. The first Sunday of the month the museums are open to the public for free so we thought we would drop into the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa before heading to get dinner. (Hey...we are here for a year, we have plenty of time to see the other works of art). We decided to "play tourist" for the day (though I think I have been playing tourist since I arrived) and took pictures and stared in awe for awhile before entering the museum at 5:45, 15 minutes to close. Perfect! When you enter the Louvre you are surrounded by several branching hallways: 3 lead to the wings of the Louvre and the others to shopping areas. We took one wrong turn and turned around 30 seconds later only to find that security had sealed off the entrance to the wings. A failed attempt...but I WAS inside the Louvre if only for 2 minutes.

Right before our attempt to enter...

*Luxembourg Gardens and dinner out. If you ever visit Paris, it is essential to visit the Luxembourg Gardens. The Palais du Luxembourg is the home to the senate but was originally the "play" palace of one of the Medici queens of one of the King Louis'. (Their were several of each and I can never keep them straight!) Supposedly it is a replica of her home palace in Florence and was built for her to visit when she was homesick. Now if only I had my own Louis to build me a few flatirons! The garden is beautiful. There are ponds and statues surrounded be the ever-present manicured lawns, bushes, and trees. People are always out on the chairs surrounding the pond reading, sunbathing and.. um.. showing a bit too much affection?? :). There are a few rules to remember though. There are designated areas for running, walking, sitting, and pique-niquing-- grass in Paris is regarded as an art form and there are plenty of signs (in French) to remind you of the boundaries. After visiting the gardens, we decided to splurge and go out to dinner. We found a great brasserie and of all things decided to order pizza. (It was the most student budget-friendly item.) It turned out to be a very French experience anyway as our plates were filled with crepe-like dough, salmon, goat cheese, walnuts, and pesto... yum??
SEPT 3, Monday
*First day of class.
*Pique-nique on the Seine with 100 other ScPo international students. The school has set up several planned-activities for us to participate in throughout the month. We were supposed to meet at ScPo to walk together to the Seine but grocery shopping is never easy with 6 other people and we ended up deciding to to have our own pique-nique since we missed the rendez vous time. 100 students carrying baguettes, wine, and cheese are pretty hard to miss however...even among Paris's dozens of bridges and we were lucky enough to find ourselves surrounded by them all as we crossed the street toward the nearest pedestrian bridge. We left a walking path to the west side of the bridge but truly covered a good half of it. My favorite part of the whole night however was a confrontation by an American couple. They came right up and demanded to know just WHAT was going on. After we explained that we were all from the same school and on a pique-nique they simply ignored our answer and started again: "Why are you drinking ALCOHOL in public??!!" They were obviously referring to the dozens and dozens of bottles and glasses of wine lining the hands of every other student. It is easy to see why they would be confused of this image so directly in contrast to American laws. I was more suprised, however, at their unusually blunt attempt to inform us of our violation.

SEPT 4, Tuesday
*Cell phone attempt 1. I woke up extra early with a long list of to-do's only to discover one major difference between the States and France. No matter how much you have to do, France is going to get a good night of sleep. After arriving at the Club Bouygtel at 9am, I immediately returned to the metro to go home. Many stores in France open around 9 but it is not uncommon for them to open at 10 during the week....(and EVERYTHING is closed on Sundays)... so much for getting a head start!
*The story of the hair dryer... a story that to me seems to summarize much of the rat race that consumed my first week here. In preparing to come to Europe I made the decision to part with my hair dryer and Velcro hair rollers in exchange for suitcase space (for shoes of course!). I still think it was a good decision but I had no idea at the time what it entailed. Someone had mentioned to me before leaving: a store specializing in hair products in Paris called "Babyliss". On my list of 1st day things to do: visit Babyliss and stock up! Using the handy Google maps, I learned that there indeed was a Babliss location no further then 15 blocks from the Cite U. It wasn't on a metro line (meaning I would have to walk) and was across the Boulevard Peripherique that marks city limits but I was desperate to get rid of the wavy frizz that had covered my head upon arrival. After walking 45 minutes through streets filled with more then a few shady characters and passing through empty pedestrian tunnels, I upon a building, or rather a skyscraper, that boldly stated I had reached my destination. My destination, as it turned out, was the corporate headquarters of Babyliss and contained nothing that resembled the ever-growing solution to my mangled locks. I returned back to Cite U, once again traversing sketchy alley ways and passing SDFs (Sans Domiciles Fixes---ie: the homeless) with empty hands. That night I decided to suck it up and buy a hair dryer at the grocery store. I arrived only to find the aisle FULL of Babyliss BRAND hair dryers. There never was a store...only a product. Still without Velcro rollers (which have proved impossible to find) I was content to finally have my Babyliss blow-dried hair!
*Cell phone attempt 2. One last attempt to get something done before class at 2pm. I wandered back into the Club Bouygtel only to discover yet another lesson in living in another country: How to communicate through hand signals, broken English, and very little French. Some how or another I emerged from the store 30 minutes later with a phone, a charger (that works in France!...I'd also had trouble with my adapters this week...but that is another story), and supposedly a plan that I understood??

SEPT 5, Wednesday
*Bank Account: in short, I signed a 30 page document that I didn't read/understand. I know this is bad and that my Business Law professor back home will probably want to have a long talk with me when I return but I was desperate for some solidarity in my new life and for some reason I felt like this would do it. (In my defense: the bank [Societe Generale] was heavily recommended by ScPo to all students) Now, almost 2 weeks later...the solidarity has not yet come. I have an account. I have a number. I even have a bank card and money in my account (wired last week...). However, I can not access any of this. Not without my "SEH-crut code-UH" that I was informed (upon my 3rd visit to the bank in a week) is in the mail en route to my address at the Cite U and has been en route for the past 2 weeks. I have a feeling I will be making yet another visit tomorrow.
*Imagine R: The Imagine R (which I am beginning to think stands for "Imaginary") is the metro pass for students in Paris. It is a year long pass and is a really good deal. The catch? (of course) is that you have to send it in via mail (with bank account number...) and will not receive it for 2 weeks...at least. In the mean time I have been dropping the equivalent of 20 USD a week. It is due to arrive this Tuesday...which translated in French means...next week Monday.
*Les Halles: My mom and I spent the whole summer in search of the perfect coat (warm and rain proof...and of course chic) for a fall/winter in Paris. After finding "IT" the last week before I left I was pretty excited to break it out upon arrival. Sadly, I'm going to have to wait. The weather here has been suprisingly warm and dry (it sprinkled for 10 minutes one day) but the nights get fairly chilly. My new coat is too heavy to wear yet and I didn't think to bring anything lighter...Paris is supposed to be COLD! So Wednesday afternoon I dragged Carly and Charlotte(from my french class) with me to hunt for a jacket at Les Halles. It is a forum of shops I think 5 or 6 levels above the metro but below street level. The whole thing is covered in glass domes and windows to the garden above. The stores in Les Halles are pretty reasonably priced for Paris and this fact is obvious in the type of people who shop here. Many come from the poorer districts. The garden above Les Halles is also famous for drug traffic and so I was pretty glad to have Carly and Charlotte with me. I'm probably making it sound a bit worse then it really is. You would be fine there by yourself during the day but for me the shopping wasn't quite as friendly as back home. No luck with my jacket but an experience none-the-less.
*The phone card. The final moment of my seemingly-unending Wednesday came with disruptive beep that broke my first phone call home. I had purchased an international phone card earlier that day and planned to use it to call home that night. Here is the point where I finally have to admit that I AM that NAIVE GIRL who doesn't understand the mechanics behind many things. My life has been easy up until now with an accountant of a father who manages my finances and sets up my mobile services, etc... I guess it is common sense that you are not supposed to use a phone card with a cell phone but when the calling card expressly stated "land line and mobile phone usage" I figured it was safe. In short: I managed to use up a 7.5 Euro phone card and an entire month's worth of service (25 Euro) in one phone call. I know I will laugh about this later...but 1 week, 25 more Euro, and 1 more broken english/poor french/hand signal communication session at the Club Bouygtel later...not so funny.

SEPT 6, Thursday
*Adventures of a broken laptop. One advantage of having a dad who really really loves you is that when you have a broken laptop and he lives thousands of miles away, you can still count on him to find a way to fix it for you. After a week in Paris and no chance at making the laptop function on my own, I made a phone call to a guy named “Morgan” that my dad found on the web. The advertisement was something along the lines of: “Speak French and English, live in Paris, can fix your computer. Charge 25 Euro an hour. I have a no BS policy meaning that if I can’t fix it, you don’t have to pay. Call me at xx xx xx xx xx.” Not sketchy at all, right? I dragged Ryan along for this very reason. Of course Morgan’s first suggestion on a place to meet was at a Starbucks. Though I arrived a half hour early, I still couldn’t find it after 35 minutes and had to call him yet again to ask for directions. 10 minutes later he found us wandering the metro and directed us to the Starbucks all the way across the plaza. It turns out Morgan was indeed genuine and that Ryan wasn’t necessary (but it was nice to have him there anyway) and I emerged 1 hour later with a fully functioning laptop….fixed with love from Colorado.
*Making it official--ID and S.S. If you are an EU citizen: getting your student ID and French Social Security is as simple as standing in line for 30 minutes and filling out a form. If you are a foreign student NOT from the US: it is as simple as waiting in the same 30 minute line, filling out the same form and going to an office across town with your passport to get the official form that says you are covered for medical care. If you are from the US: getting your student ID and French SS means waiting in line, filling out the form, forking over 192 Euro, waiting until October 1st, going across town to the office to get the “temporary” medical coverage verification, getting your ‘carte de sejour’ (takes 3 months), and going back again to finally receive your official social security medical coverage verification. This, added to the comments about Bush that I get every time I tell my country of origin have made me think twice before announcing that I am an American.

SEPT 7, Friday
*Apartment search ends! I have been unbelievably lucky in my search for a new apartment. I am writing this post on October 1st, the day that we are officially kicked out of the Cite Universitaire and still have 2 friends who haven’t found a place to live. The Paris housing market is very expensive and for this reason: anything slightly affordable is usually snatched up within hours of its posting. I decided to start my apartment search on the Friday after I arrived so that I could give myself some time to do the other administrative things. Kath began her search about 3 days before me and had called about 20 people and seen 9 apartments already only to be told that they were “deja loué” (already rented). There is a paper that comes out on Thursday mornings called the ‘Particuliers’ that lists all of the new apartments up for rent in Paris. It hits the news stands at 5am and if you haven’t called by 7am, there is a good chance the place is gone already.

On Friday morning I woke up extra early to go to the American Church in Paris to look at their message board (a well-known place for lodging postings). Kath came with and told me about a great apartment that she had seen the night before near the Place de Madeleine (about 2 blocks from the Champs d’Elysees and right down town]. She said the place was perfect but that the proprietor would only rent it for a year and not for the 6 months that she was staying here. She passed the number along to me and after a quick look and a very early wake up call to my parents it looked like I had found my place on the first day. There was one problem though…though the location and price were perfect—the apartment was a shoe box…about 9 square meters that included bed, shower, toilet, desk, closet, and mini-kitchen (a pantry with a sink that doubled as my bathroom sink, a microwave and a burner). If I were to have any visitors, I wouldn’t have been able to walk on the 6 by 1 ft furniture-free floor space. Back to the drawing board.

On Sunday afternoon I posted a profile on Craig’s List in the “Housing Wanted” section. Within an hour I had 7 responses (though a few were pretty sketchy—“65 yr old man renting a room in 2 bedroom apartment, perfect for a student, prefer female…”). The very first response, however, was PERFECT. I went to see it that night with Carly (it is a two bedroom) and we returned on Monday with our down payment of the first month’s rent. We live in a HOUSE… or rather a guest house. A couple (both French though the woman lived in New York for 20 years) own the house and have a guest house attached (as are all buildings in France). We are living in the upper level of the guest house. We have our own entrance, gate, mail box, etc… There are two rooms. One is a bedroom with a single bed, dresser and desk but with plenty of space, the other is a gigantic room with a double bed, more the enough shelving, a desk and an area separated (by shelving) that has a table and a small kitchen fully equipped without an oven or dishwasher. We have a great bathroom (though we recently discovered that it does not accommodate shower…it is a tub with a hose—not uncommon here) and a separate room with the toilet. The couple have a beautiful garden and terrace which we are free to use and our view is absolutely amazing looking over a park across the street. Also, our rent is about half of what most students are paying.

The catch?

Of course there is a catch—but obviously it wasn’t enough to stop us. We are not IN Paris. We are about 200 yards from the Paris border in a suburb called Sévres. It is a really beautiful residential area to the southwest of Paris. The bad part—it is about an hour by metro to the center of Paris…to school. Since we are NOT allowed to be late to class under ANY circumstances, this means that Carly and I will be leaving 1 hour and a half before class. On Wednesdays and Thursdays when I have 8am courses, this will be a really lovely thing!! The good part—the area is really quiet and super close to two of Paris’s biggest parks—perfect for a runner!

*A night to celebrate--the Place de Bastille---VIP treatment. On Friday night, we went out to celebrate the end of our first week at Sciences Po. The school hosted a ‘Soirée at the Bastille’ (a night on the Bastille—a bar lined quarter that once held the prison where Marie Antoinette and Louis XIV were held) and about 70 students showed up. We split up into smaller groups and arrived at ‘Le Iguana’ with 20. Of course the bouncer wasn’t too excited, but after a few shameless name drops…er…Sciences Po…they led us through the pub and into the back room lined with white lounge couches and our own TV showing (what else?) the first rugby game of the world cup. One 11 Euro cocktail later and it was the perfect end to a hectic week..

SEPT 8, Saturday
* Finally a chance to sleep in!
* An afternoon at Oz: Oz is THE Australian bar of Paris. As a majority of the students on the exchange program are Aussies, it was inevitable that I would spend the afternoon surrounded by Toohey and chanting rugby fans. After a 91-3 victory over Japan, it goes without saying that everyone left the bar more then satisfied.

Keep an eye on this blog..I am going to fill in the holes throughout the week. Hopefully add pictures as well.