To catch up: I arrived 2 weeks ago Friday to a much colder Paris than expected Check it out, it's like a southern winter here already! I arrived with my father sans an apartment but with a perfectly placed hotel (Hotel du College de France) to springboard my search.
Maybe you knew this already (and if you did WHY didn't you tell me?!) but apartment searching in Paris is a constant, relentless, exhausting struggle which seems in all ways like an infinite uphill battle. En bref, I am so thankful my dad was here to help me, remind me that eventually something would break free, and to occasionally distract me from the quest with delicious food, bike tours, seine cruises, etc. Looking back, I wish I would have made a list of all the things that didn't go right the first time--from credit cards refusing to work to spending all day looking at scary closets, I mean apartments, with ladders to "beds" in neighborhoods that smell like mothballs. The aforementioned apartments would be described as "dazzling" "large" "with all modern conveniences" but would inevitably prove to invoke phrases and questions (and some expletives I will leave out) such as "stinky" "I can't fit my suitcase in here" (here being the entire apartment), "what's up with ALL the Chinese trinkets in the Bulgarian's apartment overlooking the Parisian gutters?" and "I need to leave before I gag."
BUT ALAS ALL OF THAT IS OVER! (full apartment blog to come!) Just when we thought Dad would leave me in the "Young and Happy Hostel" with nothing to show for our work, 4 embarrassingly large international bags, and some ramen noodles-- the skies opened and revealed the glorious apartment from which I am currently writing.
Despite "kissing a lot of frogs" as Dad delicately put it regarding our quest for housing, we punctuated our days with touristic, even gluttonous distractions...It goes with out saying, no matter the apartment search struggle, everyday we managed to enjoy every bite.
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