What's cooking in paris?

It seems that we started a trend with the whole moving out of the dorms and getting an apartment together, because now all the cool kids are doing it. Luckily, (for the time being, at least) everyone is still within walking distance. It took about 15 minutes of walking last night to get to cheap bar (3 euro pints!) below a friend's apartment where we watched the third-place match of the World Cup (yay Germany!), and only 10 minutes of walking to help a friend move in today. Half way through the traditional "thank you for helping me lug my crap up six flights of stairs" lunch and beer that followed, we looked out the window, across terracotta chimney pots and the iron balconies of countless crooked Parisian apartment buildings, to see a zebra balloon leisurely floating by. Bizarre. We decided to interpret it as a good omen.

As for life in my own apartment, well, it rocks. It's nice to have a place that feels like "home" to come home to at the end of the day, and the longer we're here, the luckier I feel to have ended up with the apartment that we did. By far one of the biggest advantages to having our own place is full (and exclusive) access to a kitchen. Gone are the days of eating cereal out of the box in my room, of hauling spices and oil to a shared kitchen everytime I want to cook, or of having to compete with irritating, often drunk students for stove space or dirty utensils.

My most recent project with the apartment has been a flower/herb box for the living room window. Its thriving residents are, from left to right, Lehrman, the Basil plant, Gregory, the pink flower, and Monty, the mint plant. Luhrmann and Gregory were presents from our housewarming party, but they seem to be doing much better in the box now than they did in their previous pots (especially Gregory, who survived a six-story drop after a particularly windy storm blew him off the windowsill).
So far we've used Monty in mojitos, mint juleps and tea, and Luhrmann in a variety of sauces, salads and other dishes. They make the apartment smell lovely, and feel cheery. I even used a few Luhrmann leaves in some scrambled eggs this morning (part of a complete breakfast)

The crab towel above and the trivet below were housewarming gifts from my mother, who wanted to make sure we had a touch of Maryland in the house.
Cherries are currently really cheap (about 3.95 a kilo), so I've been buying a lot of them. Last week I made up a recipe for a cherry/orange clafoutis, shown here cooling on the windowsill:

And again, close-up:
And last but not least, our jackfruit adventure. Since most supermarkets are closed on Sundays, we've taken to heading to Chinatown in the 13th on those days. The markets there have a wide range of exotic produce that we've usually neither seen nor tried before, and we're slowly making our way through it. Some of it is successful (pomelos, for example, which taste like a delicious cross between a grapefruit and a melon, or bok choi, or sprouts) but this particular purchase was a little too strange for my tastes. Known as a jackfruit in English, this spiny green Thai fruit felt like a basketball on the outside, and the inside was full of odd, dried-apricot-sized "kernels" of yellow, slimy, starchy fruit. The fruit had to be carved out of a spongy shell that oozed a glue-like sap--literally, it felt like woodglue when it hit water, and only oil could get it off of our hands and utensils. I bravely swallowed a few pieces but couldn't get into it. Tom froze some and insisted it was better that way (the gooey, stringy texture of the room-temperature jackfruit had been the challenge initially) but I decided to just take his word for it.

Chez nous

Bienvenue chez nous--welcome to our flat!

Here's our living room, looking back towards the front door. And my precious bookshelf. The couch folds out into a pretty spacious bed (onomatopoeic french term for a fold-out couch: "clique-claque!") so feel free to turn this photo tour into a real one by buying a plane ticket...
Living room from the door. Note the huge, well-lit windows.
Makin' iced tea in the kitchen. You can see our basil plant, Luhrmann, in the background.
View down into the courtyard from the kitchen window.
Full view of the kitchen.
And again at night, with the master chef hard at work.
View out the bedroom window.
The bedroom. You can't really tell, but our sheets are purple, and our duvet cover has purple stripes. I'm pleased that Tom had no qualms about submitting to my violet whims.

Bathroom, before. Note the brand new washing machine in the corner.
And after, with the pulley-operated drying rack lowered. Cool, right?
And last but not least, the shower. With its cute little window, and its temperature knobs (the left is force, the right is temperature, and it actually shows it in degrees Celsius. Tom does not seem to think that this is nearly as cool as I do).
So yeah, there you go. The photos everyone's been bugging me for. The walls are a little white and bare, yet, but otherwise, it's starting to feel pretty homey.

Plus SDF (homeless no more)

We FINALLY found an apartment. It's perfect: fully furnished, plenty of storage, nice wood flooring and big, South-facing windows with full sunlight. The location is walking distance from my job and convenient access by metro from Tom's. We also have pretty much everything we need within walking distance, and are right on top of three main metro lines. The rent isn't cheap, but it is pretty good for central Paris, especially considering the size (about 35m2) and location. The only possible downside (that we've discovered so far, at least) is that it's on the 5th floor (or 6th floor, in American terms) with no escalator. This made moving in a bit of pain (we opted to just use luggage to slowly transport everything we own from one place to the other via metro...resulting in 5 pack-mule-style journeys, with both of us towing two bags and a backpack) but we're young and able-bodied, so it shouldn't be a bit deal from here on out.

However, what with the simultaneous timing of the renting formalities and the moving and my new job, and now the wedding in England to attend, it's been a hectic last couple of weeks. We're quickly having a crash course in the steps of renting an apartment, from the lengthy 'etat des lieux' form (where you and the landlord go around the apartment together and inspect absolutely EVERYTHING to record damages to be compared to the state of the apartment when you leave), to transferring the name of the electricity account for the apartment (a surprisingly involved and linguistically-demanding 25-minute phone call), to settling the question of a 'garant', to buying renter's insurance, to arranging for a WiFi ("wee-fee") technician to come and install some Internet. On the bright side, I'm learning lots of fun new housing/utilities-specific vocabulary; for example, the word for a set of keys in french is a "jeu", or "game" of keys.

I find myself Internet-less for the short term, so updates might be sparse in the interim. Never fear, I shall return triumphant--and with pictures!--after our housewarming party. Until then, dear readers...

Apartment hunting horrories

If I had to guess, at this point I'd estimate that I've made about 50 calls pertaining to apartments, about 20 emails, and made about 15 visits. We're getting closer to finding the diamond in the rough, it seems, but the process hasn't been without its share of horror stories (horrories!). Sometimes you can tell in an ad that an apartment is going to be a dud. Take, for example, this real life (translated) ad: "Furnished studio apartment, seventh floor with elevator, well laid out, hot water, kitchenette, no shower. Available immediately."

No shower?!? You know it's a pretty pathetic apartment when the landlord is advertising "hot water" as one of its main selling points. Other automatic deal breakers include bathrooms in the hall (meaning shared with other tenants), basement (no windows) apartments, or the bargain apartments known affectionately as "studettes"--ancient maid's quarters converted into closet-like student residences for the poor and desperate. However, sometimes it takes a visit to discover the dark side of an apartment. Here are a few such experiences.

I spent an hour waiting at the first apartment I ever visited, waiting and trying in vain to call a landlord who never showed. I got in touch with her a few days later, only to discover that I had been waiting outside the wrong apartment. An elderly woman, she had given Tom the wrong number on the phone when he had scheduled the visit. Whoops.

The first apartment Tom and I visited together was in a good location and of a good size, but it needed a little TLC. The aged wood floor had deteriorated in a few places, leaving some noticeable impressions in the living room floor. The lights--lone bulbs hanging on cords from the ceiling--were burnt out and a little bare. The toilet had no seat. Minor fixes, we thought, until we asked when the work on the apartment was to be finished. We were told that no, the apartment was being sold as is, and not even by the landlord, but by the twenty-something cell phoning fiend he had selected to sell it on his behalf.

One apartment I visited was everything we were looking for price, space and furnishings-wise. Unfortunately, the would-be landlord there had been sort of illegally squatting himself for about 10 years. Turns out the apartment was some sort of subsidized housing that was legally rented by his sister, but that he had been using as a home base for his Internet-based, English-language advertising company (he never spoke a word of English with me, however). He was ready to move on to a new city but wanted to keep the apartment for his return in a few years and rake in rent in the meantime--"à l'Américaine", as he put it, which to him meant without demanding the same ridiculous amount of paperwork from us, but without providing us with a contract (and thus depriving us of the CAF, the student housing discount, and offering no guarantee of our status as tenants or of the safe return of our deposit). He was aggressive enough to intimidate me into saying I'd think it over, but I didn't give him my contact information, and as soon as I was back out on the street (free!) I got the hell away from there.

One apartment we visited turned out to be about a fifteen walk beyond the Boulevard Péripherique, and thus no longer even in Paris, but in Montrouge. However, since the size (72m2) seemed amazing for the price, we decided to check it out anyways. The landlord met us groggily at the door on Saturday morning, obviously hungover and still wearing his rumpled suit from the previous workday. Once upstairs, he instructed us to show ourselves around and then out, and to call him later. He wasn't kidding--a simple question evoked a wince and hand clasped to his forehead, along with a "no questions! Call later!" Needless to say, we didn't.

When apartments in Paris seem to cheap to be true, they are. One such apartment turned out to be a pretty ghetto residence, with a bed on stilts, a dilapidated wardrobe that didn't quite cover a molding wall and a bathtub that obviously hadn't been white in years. To top it off, it was being shown by its current tenants--two poor immigrants sharing a bed who were, themselves, grumpy with the state of the apartment and disparaging of the landlord's neglect. We crossed that one off the list.

Finally, there was the apartment I visited today. It, too, was in need of a little TLC (moldy fridge, dirty floor tiles, gross shaggy gray carpet), and the thing that really got to me was that the toilet room is so small that it's impossible to fully open the door without hitting the toilet. However, the price is good considering the size, so we're keeping it on the list for now. The good news: for once, the bohemian landlord is very pro-American and seems eager to have us as tenants. In any case, she said we were much better than the next woman she was showing the apartment to: a Chinoise! (Chinese woman!) et avec les animals! Pas ma tasse de thé... (and with animals! not my cup of tea...)

Sunshine, sculptures, soccer and sugar highs

Summertime officially hit Paris this weekend. High spirits, low cut clothing, and brightly colored balls of gelatto abound. What better time to have a three-day weekend?

We rose early on Saturday for yet another apt visit (verdict: huge and pretty nice, but a little too far from the metro) followed by a leisurely stroll around town. We stopped for espresso and baguette sandwiches in the street-side 'terrace' of my favorite boulangerie before heading to Bastille to check out the artisan market, where I bought a pressed-flower suspended in Pyrex necklace.

Then it was on to a friend's birthday picnic (the first of several this weekend) in Parc Montsouris for some cheese, chorizo, wine, kir, and of course, decadent desserts. Stuffed and happy, we attempted to burn off some calories with Frisbee. Afterward we accompanied a few German friends to watch the champions league final football match between Munich and Milan, settling for a Haitian creole restaurant with a huge flat screen when the nearby bars were too packed. (The food was way worth the compromise--chicken in an octopus sauce, with plantains, peanut sauce and some pretty intense peppers...mmm!)

Sunday and Monday called for even more picnicking, popsicles and Frisbee. We also managed to finally make it over to the Rodin museum for a sunny stroll around the sculpture garden:

You could see the golden dome of Invalides in the background:
He had a simple (legible!) but elegant autograph. I particularly like the "N":
There were several statues missing clothing, limbs or even heads that were apparently studies for later, completed statues that allowed Rodin to really get a sense for the anatomy beneath the cloth and the realism of a movement or gesture. Here's a shot of a finished piece with the stumpy study in the background:

And then the obligatory:

Penetrating the System

So I've already written several posts about how stupid, stone-age, inefficient, unnecessarily complicated every piece of French paperwork is. Little did I know that I had only barely brushed Purgatory, and that I would soon be made to traverse all nine hellish circles of French bureaucracy in the Inferno that is the Parisian rental market.

I've spent the last few weeks balancing my normal life with the full-time job of hunting for apartments in Paris. The first step is the search, which is done mostly by Internet these days. I start with pap.fr, the French real estate website of choice, then browse through leboincoin.fr, vivastreet.fr, FUSAC (Paris' anglophones magazine) and even paris.craigslist.org. When I can, I repeat this browsing do this cycle about five times a day, except for pap.fr, which I leave open (set to my search terms: one bedroom apartments under 1000 euros/month in the 14th, 5th or 13th arrondissements) and refresh as often as possible.

Next comes the call. In a market as competitive as Paris, the tenant has absolutely no value. If you want a shot at an apartment you have to call as soon as an ad is posted (literally--no more than an hour later you're often already too late), prove you're serious (and have money--landlords often screen tenants by grilling them about their job and salary) and be persistent (follow up emails/calls/texts, whatever it takes).

Parisian apartments are small, expensive, and bare. If you're lucky (and willing to pay more) you can sometimes find them with furnishings, but that's more the exception than the rule. And when I say bare, I mean BARE. In France, appliances like fridges, washing machines, and even ovens and stoves are things that you lug around with you each time you move, meaning that an empty apartment literally comes with nothing but the kitchen sink.

Then there are the visits. Which, for whatever reason, are usually during the middle of a work day--thank God for my flexible student schedule. This is your chance to check the state of the apartment (mold? double-paned windows? collective or individual heating/water? carpeted or wood floors?) and the landlord's chance to judge evaluate you. This is also when you're expected, if you're interested, to hand over your "dossier"--a fat, expensive-to-have-printed folder, consisting of a lock of your baby hair, the rights to your first born child, etc. In other words, pretty much everything that has mattered, ever, in your entire life.

In all seriousness, a dossier should include: your ID (passport and carte de sejour, for foreigners), your last three pay stubs (from a French job), your contract (for the same French job), your birth certificate, a letter of recommendation from your current lodging, your bank account information, and even sometimes your previous two years' worth of tax summaries. Multiply that by two if you're a couple, and by three if you need a "garant"--a guarantor who declares their income in France, and who must provide pretty much the same paperwork (or, at a minimum, the pay stubs, ID and tax statements). Keep in mind that this is all going to a complete stranger, who is likely hosting about ten more apartment viewings that day and may not even consider you a potential tenant.

If you don't have the time (or sanity) to spare checking ads and calling and waiting on landlords, the alternative is to use one of Paris' many localized rental agencies. The convenience comes at a price, however--stricter paperwork standards, an upfront fee (usually around 200 euros) and often a percentage of the rent as a sort of finder's fee. In short, it seems like a bit of a rip off, not to mention a surrender. I'm still looking on my own. But I'm running out of time.

I did my 8th visit this morning. Out of the 8 there are only two possibles, and only one that I'm in love with. As foreigners, Tom and I are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to dealing with landlords. Even if I can muster good enough French to satisfy them, we are unable to provide the same standard of "Frenchness" as other candidates when it comes to our paperwork, in particular the garant. After trying to muddle through without one, we finally got Tom's supervisor to agree to back us. Unfortunately, he seems to be balking at the idea of all the paperwork he has to present (and I mean really, who wouldn't?)

I will end with the very high-tech graphic I made to illustrate the aggravation factor of this whole process. It shows all of the components involved in renting a residence. The arrows indicate the "price" needed to gain the "product" (i.e., the black arrow from the garant to the house indicates that you need a garant in order to get a house). The fuchsia arrows highlight the many catch-22s inherent to the system (i.e., you need a job for a residency card, but also a residency card for a job) that seem designed to weed out foreigners.
...mais, enfin, ce qui ne me détruit pas me rend plus fort...

hippo bird day to me!

Today I am 23.

As usual, my birthday falls at a less-than-ideal point in the academic year: right in the middle of two finals and three papers. Alas, but no worse than it has been in years past when it coincided with AP exams, then with college finals, and then with the presentation of my senior thesis. The result is that I'm not planning much of a party--perhaps drinks with friends after one of the finals, but that's about all I have time/energy for. Sadly, being éloignée from the States means I can't take advantage of the Mexican food and margarita benefits of being born on Cinco de Mayo (although considering my mixed reactions to tequila the older I get, that may be a good thing...)

Thank you to all the folks who sent me birthday wishes, especially via mail. It's always fun to get letters, and even more so when dépaysée. Your cards have been incorporated into my decor.

There are only two things I really want for my birthday: a summer job and a Parisian apartment. So far I've yet to get either, but the day is still young (unlike me...what a geezer I'm becoming! I'm already at my mid-twenties? Jeez) and I have a rendez-vous with a rental Madame this afternoon. Wish me birthday luck!

Paris, part I: The Apartment Odyssey

Well, I’m here. Wrestling my luggage through the Parisian metro was not fun (I sweated through a shirt even though it was only about 70 degrees at 7am…gross) but it was actually a little more doable than I had feared. For anyone that has seen Auberge Espagnol, I really looked like Xavier…I was wearing a backpacking pack with a little neck pillow bungeed to it on my back, and sling-style laptop briefcase on my thigh balanced by a large purse on the other side—or, sometimes, around my neck, when I needed two hands to carry my baby whale-sized rolling duffel up or down stairs. For those of you who prefer more classic allusions, I felt rather like Jacob Marley, suffering under the weight of my wanderlust. Getting from the airport to the RER is happily elevator-friendly, but as I realized when I took Sam to Paris, the metro itself is stairs stairs stairs. I had to transfer lines twice, and each time meant several ups and downs, which either meant that I had to grunt and use my iron woman skills or rely on the kindness of a stranger to grab the other handle on the duffel and help me carry (which seemed to happen un-requested, happily). I got stuck only once, for a moment or two (one hundred cool points if you get THAT reference) when I managed to get myself and the duffel wedged in a turnstile together for a full minute. I honestly thought I wasn’t going to be able to get out without taking out clothes to make it more mashable (meanwhile I’m holding up rush-hour traffic) but somehow me and the whale both sucked in our guts and muscled through. Haha.

After wandering the wrong way on the street for a while, I arrived at my little two-star hotel panting and frizzy, where I had to wait to be able to check in to avoid abandoning my luggage. Once checked in, I enjoyed a shower and a nap before I started hardcore apartment research. I’ve never done the whole apartment thing before, but it’s a harrowing and bizarre process. Overall I think I’ve sent a total of more than 50 emails, made about 30 phone calls (and gone through entirely too much cell phone credit). I’ve learned that in this market, my buying power isn’t really a commodity and I don’t matter even remotely. The demand for affordable student housing is so high that you have to respond pretty immediately to an ad to get attention, and even then, my lack of perfect French seems too much of a hassle for already exasperated landlords. When I do get a response, it is often to say that the room will be unavailable until (insert future month here, ranging from October to June 2010?!?) or that to be considered I must produce a stack of different French legal documents which, of course, I don’t have. One woman letting a room refused to tell me where her house was located because she wanted to “take her time” to see if she liked me. Lady, I’m living in a hotel—I ain’t got time.

My best hit so far was with a girl who has an apt in the 15th. We met for coffee, then, after I passed her roommate test, went to visit the apartment. I loved the girl, but much to my dismay (and to the contradiction of her ad!) the apt was a one-bedroom, and I was expected to sleep in the mezzanine above the living room. I feel like I can compromise on a lot in terms of housing, but I at least need a little bit of my own space.

Somehow I feel kind of shy and naïve walking around, I think more from inexperience with city life than with French culture. Although I’ve been here before, it’s always been as a tourist, and just the knowledge that I am a) alone, and b) in for the long haul give the whole experience a different vibe. St. Mary’s made me comfortable in small communities with a eclectic sort of routine (if that’s possible) and few variables, and city life is the opposite. It’s definitely stimulating, though. On my relatively brief wanderings so far, the highlights have some of the space invaders mosaic graffiti that my French professor at St. Mary’s has been tracking, a romantic couple composed of a huge, muscled Arab man and an Asian midget, (Word is telling me those races need to be capitalized—as if that makes the observation any more pc…) and an eerily gorgeous black woman with a hot pink fro. The food is also (of course) amazing—as far as grab & go items go, I’ll take a baguette sandwich and pastry over pretty much anything.

Today my shoulder muscles ached from the pack and my hands are red and sore (from pulling the whale handle with sweaty hands) in a way that gave me an odd-sense of déjà-vu, until I realized what it was reminding me of—monkey bar “injuries” as a kid. I will be incurring more of those tomorrow, I fear. Unless I hear something back about short-term housing by 9am, I’m going to be checking out of here and trooping on over to the international dorms at Cité Universitaire. Yes, I thought I was done with the dorm part of my life, but dorms in Paris > living at home, right? Wish me bonne chance…