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Published: September 30th 2004
La Tour Eiffel
Tyler took this photo from the boat during our cruise of the Seine. Well I don’t know where to start. Today’s actual date is the first of March. Yikes! That means I have 6 months worth of activity to sum up, for posterities sake. Okay. Well, over the last 6 months, I have sent out a few e-mails, so some of this will be old news to you all, but bear with me.
So, I guess I will start in the beginning. After months of preparation, we arrived in Paris on the 23 of August. We each had two large pieces of luggage and a carry on in addition to our laptops. Of course we decided not to get a shuttle. Our flight was coming in pretty late, and that made it difficult to find a shuttle service that was willing to pick us up (a slight lack of planning on our part). So we took the metro. It was an interesting introduction to Paris. Apparently, I had forgotten how many stairs there are in the metros. About three hours after we left the terminal, we arrived at our hotel in the 14th district of Paris. Three days later, I moved into the program provided housing at Cité Universitaire, and Tyler moved on
Carousel at the Eiffel Tower
Also taken during our boat trip, this photo is one of our favorites. to a series of new hotels.
The two first weeks of our stay were pretty much consumed by the search for housing. We thought we would have a head start on everyone by getting there a week early, but unfortunately, the MICEFA (the exchange organization that works with my school) wasn’t yet open, and most of the landlords were still on vacation along with the rest of the city. After a long and depressing line of too small and too expensive studios, we finally found our apartment through the MICEFA in the 14th arrondissement in Pairs.
Actually, it is very nice considering the price, our landlords are excellent, and it has an actual stove so I am now a seasoned French chef (ha ha-damn you dad).
After we got our studio, things got considerably easier. September was still a difficult month, there were a lot of things to set up (telephone, internet, bank accounts, and visa stuff) and of course the way the French bureaucracy works, you can’t get one of those things until you have all of the others. It was quite maddening, not to mention frustrating, as Tyler needed the internet to work. During this time Tyler
Vaux le Vicomte
One of the Chateau's that we visited with the PLP. This was actually the model for the more famous Versailles. had to treck an hour across Paris the town hall of the 3rd district, the only place we could find that offered unlimited free wifi access. I did however learn to be much more persistent, and I think that any bureaucracy in the states should now be afraid of me; I’ve survived the French system.
In addition to all the set up stuff, September was the month of my preparatory language program. So, from 9-12 every week day, I headed over to Cencier (Paris University III) to learn French. It was actually a lot of fun, and quite a big help. Also, with the program, we got to do a few touristy site seeing field trips, which my professors kindly let Tyler participate in. We went on a boat trip on the Seine, to the Musée D’Orsay, and to the Château at Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
The last bit of September was spent preparing for Lisa, (Tyler’s mom) and all our other future guests. We got to go shopping for house stuff and even went out to IKEA (there are actually 4 near Paris) and bought a ton of stuff including a chair that turns into a one person bed. September was a
Fontainebleau
One of the other Chateau's that we got to visit. This one was worked on over so many years that differnet parts of the castle are made in different styles. busy month, but we got most everything set up in a fairly short period of time so we could enjoy the rest of our stay.
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