The past three days have been like a real life house hunters international episode. And let me assure you, the whole thing is less fun from the other side of the fourth wall. It all started on Friday when I went to the housing office at the Sorbonne, immediately after registration, and tried to find an apartment. She was helpful and understanding, and, not really knowing how any of it worked, I was happy to have a single appointment on Monday.
I slept very poorly and It was a disorienting morning as my hostess had to go to her summer cottage in Normandy to address a leak and I was left with her kind and patient but not-a-word of English speaking neighbor who asked me a series of questions which I had to use Spanish and Latin and logic to understand. Exhausting. But well deserved.
Anyway, apt #1:
Within walking distance of school
Private entrance
Private bedroom and bath (note en suite)
Kitchenette, with a coffeemaker! (That I don't really know how to use yet and that I share with the owner)
Sounds perfect, right? Well as I said, I was in a weird mood. And you know how I said that French people have a face for business and a face for life? Well I think she was giving me her business face. It all seemed cold and not quite right and, frankly, inhospitable. Not a place I'd love to live. And I just didn't have anything to compare it to.
So I went back to the office and found #2 and #3. And for a passing moment there was a #4 but it was a 7 floor walk up maids room, which I'll explain in a moment, and the owner would only rent for a minimum of a year. Wasn't really ready to make that commitment since as of right now my visa is only for 7 months.
#2
A maids room in the 16th, just across the sienne from the Eiffel tower. You take an alley off a beautiful sloping boulevard to a lift which takes you up 7 stories and then you walk up the last flight and find yourself in a yellowed hallway with a million doors and you open it up and, oh look, there's the Eiffel tower filling my window. It's like a joke. I'm sure that this is where Pixar looked for inspiration for the chef's apartment. But it's basically half the size. It's roughly the size of my mom's walk in closet, probably a little smaller, and going clockwise from the door, let's call that 5 o'clock, you have cot, shower at 9, jutting into the room, table, plastic stool, window with view of Eiffel tower at 12, sink that's roughly the size of a little tykes sink, glorified hot plate, cabinet at 3, back to the door. I was so shocked by the size that I didn't have time for colorful experimentation, but I don't think that there would have been room for me to do a snow angel on the floor. Maybe with the cot at my feet and the window at my head I could have laid out with my arms stretched up into a straight line, which now sounds like it's not a line but an arrow imploring me to jump. Jump out of the window. I think it would have taken very little time for me to go very crazy in that hovel. But what a view.
#3
an interesting option. I would have paid $650 for the summer basically to look after her house. But I wasn't really allowed to use the kitchen. And my "bedroom" was more of an office or studio. No closet. And she spoke about as much English as I spoke French, which is a problem mostly because she would have had trouble giving me instructions. She said it would not work. I said "d'accord." Which may have been perfect or may have just confirmed her wary opinion of me.
So in the end there was really no choice. And thanks to my science of happiness course I knew that that was an easy route to contentedness. Not a word. But anyway, I knew this was my best, and to some extent, only option. The office had helped me. My goddess of a b&b host had helped me. And it seemed that there was no solution better than the one at hand. Voilà. Happy.
That of course isn't how it really went down. Instead, despite knowing the above, I freaked out and looked for all these other places, which in turn confirmed my choice. And the biggest surprise of all came when I dropped off the deposit. Remember the two faces? Well this time I definitely got the social one. She was friendly and loving and welcoming and kind. Total 180. It was so strange and, honestly, such a delightful cosmic gift that I left her home, now my temporary home, so light that I felt as if I could float away.
You know when something weighs in you so heavily but so slowly that you don't even realize it's been crushing you until it is gone? That's finding an apartment in Paris.
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