Arriving and getting settled

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7^th, 2012

It’s amazing what you can do when it’s necessary!  I had a pretty decent flight to Paris with my parents and got them all settled in their hotel, but then I started to get quite tired.  After we grabbed a light lunch and 20 minutes of shut-eye, we headed off with my luggage to meet my housing agent in front of my apartment building.

We found the apartment building just fine, but we waited and waited – no one came.  With Andy’s help back home, we were able to retrieve numbers to call on my Dad’s phone since it was the only one working!!  After multiple phone calls (with much more success in French than with the other people’s English), we discovered that M. Wamba was in transit and should arrive shortly…  Just two hours after my appointment time.  It turns out that no one at the agency knew about my key-pick-up appointment and the woman who I was supposed to meet had an accident earlier in the day and was in the hospital!!! 

My studio is great.  It’s just perfect for my stay.  It is in a great location and on top of a supermarket for easy grocery shopping!  The neighborhood is quite residential, but full of people close to my age.  I’ll get photo’s up soon!

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8^th

We had an easy morning and picked up a few things at Monoprix for my apartment.  In the afternoon, we went on a stroll through Paris from my apartment, by the Bastille, along the Seine, finishing at Notre Dame and dinner in the Latin Quarter.

We checked out a church I had never visited before - Eglise Saint Severin.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 9^th

We wandered some morning markets before going out to Versailles to catch up with Kallie, Phillipe, Jango, and Amandine.  We had a great time finding out what has been going on lately in their lives and hearing about a few new differences between France and America!  (i.e., how one branch of a bank is not connected to any other branch of the same bank in a different city…)