Homeless in Paris

Paris has a lot of homeless people and beggars (I'm not sure if they are homeless, or just poor)... more than I have seen in any other city. I pass at least 5 a day. They tend to be mostly in or outside of the metro and there are a few different types:

1) The "typical" homeless man: he's usually scruffy and dirty and sits on the stairs at the metro holding a sign and a plastic cup, sometimes you can find him in his sleeping bag on the sidewalk. Sometimes he has a really cute puppy with him.
2) The beggars who step onto a subway train and launch into a speech about how they need money and then wander around the car until the next stop.
3) The Muslim women that kneel with one arm out, hand cupped, eyes closed. Sometimes they have children with them, I even came across a pregnant woman, and a woman who was in fetal position with her hand cupped on the ground.
4) The mentally ill ones, who sometimes ask for money and other times just rant and make abrupt movements. They can be a bit scary sometimes, and are more likely to harass you.
5) The people who wander around outside carrying a small piece of paper with some sort of written plea on it that they show to anyone who passes by.
6) The ones who come onto the metro cars with a musical instrument, puppets or some other form of entertainment and actually put on a show to try and earn some money.

I feel like I've already become very desensitized to the whole situation and it just seems normal to have so many homeless people around. It's strange that Paris has such a wonderful international reputation and is known as a gorgeous, sophisticated city, yet it has such an obvious dark side. I don't really know much about the issue, but from what I gather it doesn't seem like the city does very much about the problem.

I love the Paris Metro

The Metro is one of my favourite things about Paris, here are some reasons why:

1) It's cheaper than in Toronto (monthly pass = 55 euros)
2) It really covers all of central Paris, you can be walking almost anywhere and find a metro station in under 10 minutes. You can also usually go from one end of the city to the other in under 40 minutes.
3) The trains come fairly often, and there are always electronic signs with the time, and next 2 trains shown (Toronto has those new TVs in some stations, but you can usually only read them if you are close by)
4) It is really easy to navigate, there are signs everywhere to point you in the direction that you are looking for.
5) You can usually get a seat pretty easily.
6) It is more economical than in Toronto. Not every door opens at every station; you have to press a button, or move a handle to open them. Also the seats by the door fold up, so that when it's rush hour there is more room, and when it's not so busy there are more seats.

Parisien Style

As everyone knows, Paris is a very fashionable city. In general I would describe Parisien style as elegant and classic. Everything is pretty simple, but it's put together in just the right way. Here are some of the things that I have noticed:

- heels are the most common footwear, followed by trendy boots and flats (sneakers are pretty rare for girls)
- bags are the "it" accessory, everyone seems to have designer brands, even the men
- it's not cool to wear colours... only shades, the crowds on the metro are usually a sea of black, white and grey
- over-sized blazers are a must-have for women these days
- long and loose-fitting tops are everywhere (though they tend to look best on the naturally thin French women)
- plaid is in style right now (one of the exceptions to the colour rule)
- you should have a scarf to go with every outfit

These are just some general observations that I've made. Of course like most big cities, Paris has a pretty diverse population so there are many different styles out there. I might also have more exposure to the fashionable side of Paris because there seem to be a lot of rich, fashion-obsessed kids at my school. It's a private business school, boasting an entire program on the "luxury industry," so as you can imagine, the majority of the students come to school dressed to impress, in heels, dresses, full hair and make-up. It's definitely a change from Canadian universities where it's common to go to class in sweatpants and not feel at all out of place. Though I doubt that I will ever live up to Parisien standards, I'm hoping some of their fashion savvy will rub off on me so that I can return to Canada just a little bit more stylish.

Nice Weather = Packed Parks

People in Paris LOVE their parks. If the weather is nice you can expect every park in the city to be crowded. Maybe their appreciation stems from the fact that the majority of them probably live in small apartments with no backyards. In Canada we are lucky to have so much land, but I've come to see that maybe we take it a bit for granted. I can't remember ever seeing a park as crowded on a nice day in Canada as it is here in Paris. Today the weather was gorgeous, probably 25 degrees and sunny. I went to Parc des Buttes Chaumont (pictured above) with my friends, it's a gorgeous park near my apartment, and it was quite a mission to find a place to sit down. There were families, couples, kids, etc. sprawled out on every inch of grass availiable. This may sound a bit claustrophobic, but it was actually kind of nice to be sharing the beautiful weather with so many people.

Exploring Paris

Paris is an amazing city for walking. You can walk from one monument to the next easily and with and amazing view along the way. Yesterday was a gorgeous day, we were supposed to go to Disneyland Paris, but of course the exchange coordinators didn't manage to organize the tickets in time and things didn't work out. So I ended up walking around Paris with some of my friends. We decided to go the Latin Quarter which is known as a trendy student area. We took a tour of La Sorbonne which was really beautiful inside, bought some delicious paninis and ate them in Jardin de Luxembourg, walked along the Seine past Notre Dame, and then ended up at Rue de Rivoli where we walked past many shops and then down some really cute streets full of cafes. It was a great, and exhausting day and I was glad to be able to take advanatage of the beautiful weather. The picture above is of the libary in the Sorbonne, it was a really amazing place.

The French Education System

I finally had my first class this past Friday and lets just say it was a typical French experience. The class that I had was Supply Chain Management, I know it sounds really boring and it is, but I signed up for it because it was supposed to be in French and I've already taken some classes on the subject in English so I figured I would be able to follow it well while improving my French. But as I have learned nothing at my school is very organized. I went to speak to the international coordinator the day before my class to ask some questions about my schedule and she told me that the SCM course was actually going to be in English because she had talked to the professor and he had said that if even one student in the class spoke English, then he would teach it in English. So the course description was changed less than 24 hours before the class, marking it as an English course. Of course this resulted in half of the class being French students with poor English skills, a quarter being exchange students with limited knowledge of French, and a quarter being students who had abilities in both languages. So as you can imagine the first half of the class was kind of disastrous as the prof tried to switch back and forth in between French and English, confusing 75% of the class. During lunch the prof worked out some sort of other schedule with the non-french speaking exchange students, and the rest of the class was conducted in French. I actually understood a lot more than I expected to and even managed to answer a question (he was asking for the English term for something he described in French). Yet another example of how despite the many delays, complications, etc., things seem to work out in the end here.

Stairs, stairs and more stairs!

I have come to the conclusion that I must climb at least 15 flights of stairs a day. My apartment is on the fifth floor of a building with no elevator, and I leave it at least twice. Then there are the numerous stairs in the metro, some metros have escalators but not all, and even if they do there is usually still a flight or two of stairs to climb. This along with walking around the city has been my main source of exercise so far. I tried to go jogging the other day but I haven't gotten into it yet. Jogging seems to be really popular in Paris though, I see people out all hours of the day, so maybe their energy will rub off on me. I think that once school really starts and I get into some sort of regular routine it will be easier, but at the moment all of my sight-seeing and other activities are keeping me busy and tired. The picture is of the stairs leading up to Sacre Coeur, which I climbed the other day.

Open Bus Tour Gone Wrong

Yesterday night there was a free Open Bus Tour arranged for all of the ERASMUS students. We were all excited to get to see the city of Paris from above ground after weeks of taking the metro everywhere. Originally they told us to meet back at the school at 6, then they made an announcement saying seven (they do this for almost every event here...) so we decided to make our way to school for 6:30 to be safe. We got on the bus and then waited... and waited, and finally found out that there was a problem with the engine. So we all got off the bus and waited for another bus which eventually came around 8. Everything seemed to be going well from there, there was singing and cheering, we saw the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe from many different angles and then it started to rain... At first it was okay, just a light drizzle and we all just pulled up our hoods or scarves, some people even had umbrellas, but after about 5 minutes of that the rain started pouring down and we all rushed to the stairs to try and squeeze into the lower level of the bus. As you can imagine it was not the most comfortable of situations so the bus tour came to an abrupt end. The driver was nice enough to drop us of near a metro station rather than take us back to the school which is pretty far out of the way for most students. A group of us then found a cute little pub to sit in and enjoy a drink. So in the end though things broke down, started late, and left us cold and wet it ended up being a pretty good outting. I've noticed that a lot of things in Paris seem to fall into place like that, you just have to learn how to be patient.

The French vs Hollywood

The French seem to have the need to change most Hollywood films into French versions of the original. If you want to see an American movie that is not dubbed over in French you have to make sure that it says v.o. (original version). They also like to change the names of movies to ridiculous titles. There are posters everywhere in the metro for the movie "The Hangover," which is a comedy about a group of guy friends who go to Vegas for a bachelor party and get into a bunch of trouble. So the French have decided to re-name this movie in English as "Very Bad Trip," with (Hangover) written in brackets below. First of all, I'm sure there is a French equivalent to the word "hangover," second of all if they are going to dub it over in French anyways why would they go to the trouble of re-naming it in English and with such a ridiculous name? It boggles my mind...

Paris is expensive!

I've decided that things are more expensive in Paris. Everything here seems to be the same amount in Euros as in Canadian dollars. For example, a coke from a vending machine is 2 Euros, where as in Canada it is 2 dollars or sometimes less. So at first things seem reasonable because the price looks familiar but then you have to factor in the exchange rate which is not so great at the moment and you realize just how much more you are paying for everything. The only cheap thing that I have done here so far is go to the movies... it only cost 4 Euros because they had a special going on for a week. I'm not sure how much it costs regularly though, probably around the same as it does in Canada. Everything else seems to be a lot more expensive though; food, rent, clothes, and the list goes on...

Pere Lachaise

Today I decided to explore Pere Lachaise Cemetery because I've heard quite a bit about it. It was a pretty gloomy day so it seemed like the perfect atmosphere for visiting graves. The cemetery is huge and I got lost for a bit but eventually found my way out. It was pretty much all stone with huge tombs and a lot of family plots, there were lots of trees but there wasn't much grass and there were many pathways weaving through the graves. I saw the strangest thing while there though. There was an old couple sitting by a grave having some sort of picnic and they had brought their cat with them and it was sitting on top of the stone grave eating from tinfoil. It was very odd and I had no idea what to make of it, I saw some other people peering at them curiously as well, so I don't think that is common practice in France.

My First Fondue Experience

I tried la fondue au fromage savoyarde tonight for the first time, and I'm not sure if I will ever venture there again. First of all, I don't think I ever realized what went into cheese fondue, apart from the cheese. Before the fondue was even brought out I could tell from the smell wafting from the kitchen that it probably wasn't going to be one of my favourite meals but I was willing to try it out. When the waiter came out with the orange pot of fondue I was already ready to dip my tiny piece of bread in. After the first bite I couldn't figure out what tasted so off about it, then someone pointed out that one of the main ingredients in cheese fondue is white wine. When you're expecting something to be very cheesy and salty, the wine ingrediant kind of throws you off. The mixture of various cheeses and white wine was a bit too overpowering for me and I started to develop a technique where I used the wooden spoon to scoop up the cheesy parts (which looked kind of like cake batter) and then put that on my bread, instead of dipping and soaking up the wine flavour. Basically I disgraced that art of fondue... haha, but what can I say? I love the appreciation that the french have for both wine and cheese... but mixing them together? That is going a bit too far for me.

"After Work Before Party"

Last night there was an event for the exchange students called "After work drinks," and I thought it would just be a typical "happy hour" type situation at a bar. I was wrong. We got the place called "Palais M," which was attached to a high class mall, and there was a huge line-up of 20-somethings fresh from work waiting to get in at 7:00 pm. Luckily since we were there as a group we didn't have to wait in line, and we only had to pay 5 euros (I think normally it is 15). Inside it was more of a club than a restaurant, there was a long table set up with a buffet of various foods; bread, pate, potato salad, couscous, etc. From 7:00 - 9:00 there was unlimited food and champagne! The line-up to get to the bar was a battle however and wasn't always worth the effort. On one of the screens that they had up was the slogan "After Work Before Party".. which I guess describes the whole situation pretty well. At around 8:00 the lights went low and they started playing dance music. It was strange because at first no one was dancing, people eventually got into it though and the place became packed with people. It was just a weird experience because it seemed so early in the night to be partying like that. I also didn't expect to see so many people, but I guess that is the place that people go to after work and before the real party! I wonder how many of them made it to the next bar...

Paris really is the city of love...

So I was talking to my roommate last night about how we had both noticed an exceptional amount of pregnant women in Paris (I've seen at least one a day since I've been here), and our landlord told us that Paris is the European city with the highest fertility rate. I guess Paris really is the city of love!

What I like about Paris

1) It is a beautiful city! Paris has 20 different arrondissments (basically sections that it is divided into), I haven't seen them all yet, but each one I've been to has its own charm. The buildings here are gorgeous and there are a lot of great museums, parks, canals, etc. It is going to be amazing to explore throughout the next few months!
2) The metro is super easy to navigate and not too expensive either.
3) The people I've met here have been very friendly and nice in general.
4) It is a great city to walk in.
5) They have those free bikes that you can borrow to ride around the city... I haven't tried it yet, I need to build up the courage to be on the same road as the crazy Parisian drivers.
6) There are endless rows of restaurants and cafes with outdoor patios and delicious food!

The not so beautiful side of Paris...

I love Paris so far and think it is a gorgeous city, but there are a few not so great things that I have noticed about it so far:

1) PIGEONS... they are everywhere! I've had a few near run-ins and it has not been pleasant.
2) There are a lot of people with dogs here that don't clean up after them.
3) There are a lot of homeless people; on the streets, in the metro stations, on the metro itself. I'm also surprised by the number of women that are homeless because that is not as common in Toronto, some of them even have kids with them which is really sad. A lot of homeless people here also have dogs.
4) SIRENS... there are constantly police cars/ambulances/fire trucks blaring there sirens on the streets. They are really loud, probably because the traffic here is so crazy so that's what they have to do to make sure that people get out of their way.

Apartment Hunting Parisian Style

So I have finally found a Parisian apartment! Funnily enough it is actually the first apartment I looked at, but things just didn't fall into place straight away. Apartment hunting in Paris has definitely been a learning experience with many ups and downs. On the one hand it has been a great way to discover the city and get used to the metro. It has also been fun to get a glimpse into different people's apartments. On the other hand it has been a very stressful and tiring experience. The market here is extremely competitive and especially difficult for those looking for an apartment, as landlords often have their pick from many candidates. It is really a lot like gambling. Almost any decent apartment gets snatched up within a day or two, so if you're not one of the first people to view it you'll likely have little chance of getting it. Even the less spectacular places go pretty quickly because there are constantly students, new immigrants, etc. looking for a place in the city of lights. Basically if you see a decent apartment, it is in your best interest to make some sort of spoken agreement immediately to ensure that the opportunity doesn't pass you by. This may sound a bit deceitful, but it is really the only way to go about things if you want to get a suitable apartment. Landlords are used to this kind of behaviour and they usually have numerous candidates waiting in the wings anyways. For the most part as a tenant you can't be sure of anything until keys have been handed over, and as a landlord you can't take a candidate seriously until money has been handed over.

So here are some general pieces of advice I would give anyone looking for an apartment in Paris:

1) Church bulletin boards and FUSAC magazine (can be found online) have the most reliable and quality postings. Some legitimate ads can be found on craigslist but sometimes it is a hassle to sift through all of the fake ones.
2) If you are looking for a short-term place, make sure that you specify that when talking to landlords because many won't rent out a room for less than a year.
3) If you sublet you will probably not get APL (government assistance) and you will most likely be asked to pay in cash.
4) It is common practice for the tenant to pay a deposit (caution) once a deal has been made. This deposit is usually the same amount or more than one month's rent and is supposed to be returned to you before your departure as long as there has been no damage to the apartment.
5) If something is described as a 'studette,' it is probably about 6 square metres or less and there likely won't be enough room to fit your belongings in it.

Looking back on my apartment-hunting experience it was definitely a great way to practice my French and discover different areas of Paris. It has also left me feeling more prepared for any future apartment hunting I may have to do. But during the past few days it definitely started becoming more frustrating than fun. Let's just say that I am relieved to have finally settled in somewhere. It's nice to have a place that I can call home for the next four months, especially one that is so beautiful! More updates on my apartment to come...