Mes nouveaux amis Europeans

My new European friends

Sorry for losing so much time between posts! It’s been BUSYY since comin back from Bangkok. Please note my other new post qui a ferme’ les lumieres directly below this one.

I’ve been spending all my free time trying to get an apartment for when I return from Mexico/NYC, but to avert any suspense, I’ll still be homeless (aka in the Union apartment, which I am SO grateful for!) upon my return.

Monday and Tuesday I sent a million emails to “landlords” and people looking to rent out a room in their apts, mostly from Craigslist. I also Googled a million websites for colocation (just like it sounds), apartager (to share), apartments in Paris, etc.
At one point, I found the “housing wanted” section of Craigslist, as opposed to the “housing offered,” and decided to have a look. That day, there was a post titled “21 year-old American exchange student looking for roommate” or whatever. I decided to click it, and the girl seemed to be in exactly the same situation as me, so I decided to send her a message of solidarity rather than of housing, as I didn’t really have much to offer in that department. Also, she didn’t mask her email address, and had “@ucsb.edu,” so she had to be a real person and not a scam (at least that was my reasoning – turned out to be correct in this instance).

After exchanging a few messages and our phone numbers, we decided to meet up the next night for a drink. So the next day, after the electrocution, I went and met up with my new California exchange friend. She turned out to be this really great, funny girl. We had a lot to talk about (thanks Fine Art of Small Talk!) over our 1-1.5 hour mojitos (stupid place had no Long Island iced teas – my fav when I’m ‘homesick’ :p), and parted ways.

Next, I went to have dinner, and walked around the Latin Quarter a bit to find a place. I have this little rule that I try not to go to the same place twice just to keep things fresh around here (Paris), but this one place I had already been (my food was mediocre the first time...) had a live band this night (+1), and they were playing “Lonely Day” (fitting) by System of a Down (+10). I decided it was fate that of all the bands, and of all the songs, there prob wasn’t a better match for going to eat dinner alone :)

I sat down and ordered my vin rouge, poulet roti, et frites (red wine, roast chicken, fries) and enjoyed the music. They were pretty good (the band -- the food was mediocre again).

After a few minutes and a (mediocre) chicken thigh, four British girls came in and sat down next to me. I was sorta listening to their convo and complaints about American girls in their class and sorta minding my own business, sorta making eye contact with the cute one, sorta just drinking my wine, etc.

Eventually, two of them got up and went to have a smoke outside, and the other two remaining had a lull in their convo. Feeling nice from my mojito and wine, I jumped in with a friendly, “so where are you guys from?” They both immediately lit up and slid down the bench to chat. Turns out one was English and the other Welsh (you NEVER call a Welsh person English I learned). Again, really sweet girls, got along well, so after a while, we exchanged numbers and parted ways for the evening. I wound up hanging out with them the next night in Bastille. Got back after 2 which was bad, as I had to be up at 8 for work the next morning.

Anyway, during all of my emailing throughout the days, I wound up at clickflatshare.com, and emailed some Dutch guy named Damian. He actually got back to me and sounded like a real person. He was coming to Paris this past weekend (19 Sep) just to search for apartments, so we decided to meet up too. Why not?

Friday night I was having dinner with a friend of a friend, so I invited Damian to meet up for drinks after. He didn’t have a functioning French phone, so we were keeping an eye out for the guy in a black jacket and white hoodie. Finally we saw him, so I ran out to meet him cause it looked like he’d been waiting a while.

When I got there, he mugged me. Just kidding. HE turned out to be really cool too! We wound up hanging all weekend, going apartment hunting, and more. Saturday, we actually met up with Sarah, the girl from Cali, and all three of us went to see one apt I had made a reservation to see. That guy was kinda crazy as the moment we walked in, he’s like “OK, normally, I require that everyone who enters removes their shoes immediately.” Totally caught us off guard. Obviously I was NOT taking that place…despite the fact that he had met Jeff Buckley and Ice-T (he’s a photographer).

That night, the three of us met up with the two British girls (+ 1 of their visiting boyfriends) from the past few nights, and all 6 of us went out and had a great time! It was really awesome, I’ve never been the nighttime activity coordinator before, and everyone got along great :)

So it seems the lesson HERE is that you can ALWAYS trust people you meet on the Internet!



A bientot,