France: Arrival and apartment hunting

And now, we arrive in France! I flew into Paris in the morning on Saturday, September 22^nd, and made my way to the same hostel I had stayed in before I flew back to the States when I was here in 2009- the Aloha Hostel. It’s well located, almost right between the Gare Montparnasse and la Tour Eiffel, and it’s a good spot for transit through Paris. As soon as I got checked in and dropped off all of my stuff, I headed out into the city!

I wandered around town, eventually making my way to la Tour Eiffel, and enjoyed my first genuine French crepe in quite some time along the way (ham, mushrooms, egg, and emmenthal cheese).  It was exactly what I had been craving. Once at la Tour Eiffel, I took some photos, sat on a bench in the sun for a while, people watched, and enjoyed the general splendor of being back in the City of Light after what felt like so long. I then made my way over to a classic Parisian coffee shop, “La Terrace”, and read a book while savoring my first café crème in a long time (a shot of espresso with one little sugar cube and a generous splash of milk). They have wonderful lattes in the States, but they don’t make café crème, which is a shame, because it’s quite delicious.

A good book and coffee. Perfection!

Anyway, more wandering eventually led me back to the hostel, where I caught up on emails and such before taking myself out for my first French dinner at a nice neighborhood joint; grilled entrecote, sautéed potatoes, and salad. YUM! What an excellent way to start my food adventures in France!

My first French dinner!

The next day, I woke up, re-packed my backpacks, and headed to the train station to go to Nantes! The train ride through the French countryside was lovely and relaxing, and I was happy to finally be returning to my home away from home. I stayed in a hostel for the first two nights after I arrived in town, and then I stayed with a French fellow for the rest of the week. The first week is kind of a blur, but I met several other English teaching assistants and was able to get to know them and show them a bit of Nantes. I was also taking care of various errands, such as getting a new French phone number and looking for a place to live! The former was easy, the latter? Not so much…

I knew that I needed to arrive in Nantes well before work started, and I thought that one full week would be sufficient to find a place to live. It turns out that it is extremely difficult to find apartments here in late September, as all of the University of Nantes students snatched up all the good places in late August/early September for school. It is also extremely difficult to actually GET an apartment if you are not from France or the European Union. Yikes. I was in for a heck of a week.

Originally, I was looking for a two-bedroom place with one of the other assistants, but then we couldn’t find anything, so we started looking for places on our own. I was finding lots of places, but then I would email them or call them and leave a message (sometimes several times), and they would never get back to me. Boo. I did hear back from a few people, but it was to tell me that the apartment had already been let. Blast. However, I managed to visit two apartments one day, and really liked the second. As I mentioned before, though, it’s hard to actually get into an apartment if you are American, because the French require SO MANY documents to prove you’re legit, and Americans just don’t have most of them…

First thing the next day, I dropped as many of the needed documents as I could provide off at the real estate agent’s place, and the gentleman working with me told me that he would have to contact the landlord to see if he would let me sign a lease without something called a “guarantee” in France, which is basically a parent, relative, or family friend who will provide their bank information so that rent money can be withdrawn from their account in the event that the renter doesn’t pay rent one month. If you don’t know anyone in France, however, you can’t provide this, and then they usually don’t want to deal with you because it means more paperwork and hassle than normal. Anyway, the agent said he would call me as soon as he heard from the landlord, but he never called. I called the office back three times over the course of as many days, and still, “they were having difficulties contacting the landlord, so there wasn’t any response and you should keep looking.” It’s a good thing I WAS still looking!

In the meantime, my accommodations with the French fellow were over on Friday (9/28), and I still didn’t have a place to live. I wound up having to drop several hundred dollars on a hotel for four nights while I continued to search. Fortunately, that Friday, I saw a brand-new ad online for a studio apartment downtown and was able to get in touch with the landlady and make an appointment to be the first person to see the place on Sunday. Sunday came around, I went to see the place, the landlady was nice, the apartment was cute, the building itself was OH-SO French, and I said, “I’LL TAKE IT!” Wahoo!!

The only problem was that the current tenant wasn’t going to move out until mid-week (this week), so the lease wouldn’t start until October 7^th (today). Hmm. Well, I had a hotel to stay in until Tuesday, and then my old friend Juan (from when I was here in 2009) let me stay at his and his girlfriend’s place for two nights, which was very kind. I cooked them dinner as a thank you. :)

The landlady said that there was a possibility that I would be able to move in earlier than Sunday, and luckily, that came through. The current tenant called me on Thursday evening and told me he was all moved out and that I could pick up the keys anytime. At 9pm Thursday night, Juan drove me over to the new place, and I moved right on in!! Success! The landlady is very kindly letting me stay here for free for a few nights until we sign the lease on Sunday evening. I’m settling in here, and I think this will be a great spot for the year!

A few notes about the place:

1) I live on Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau (HOW FRENCH IS THAT?!), which is perfectly located downtown, about a four-minute walk from Commerce and Place Royale (those two plazas are where the Christmas Market is held each year; I love the Christmas Market!).

2)  I’m also about a five-minute walk from the tramway, which will take me close to the school where I work (I have about a 25-minute commute).

3)  Bouffay, the old part of downtown Nantes and the part of town with all the best bars and restaurants, is less than a 10 minute walk. Talensac, my favorite market, is about 15 minutes away on foot, and there’s a big grocery store about 10 minutes away as well.

4)  I’ve never really explored this side of downtown before, but there are literally dozens of cool-looking bars and restaurants within two minutes of my place! I will need to be doing lots of exploring on that front. Additionally, I’m just south of Place Graslin, which is where the Nantes Opera House is located, as well as “La Cigale”, a classic French/Nantes restaurant.

5)  Have I mentioned that I live on Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau?? I freaking love that. I think I need to have stationary made with that address and my name at the top.

And finally:

6) 135. I counted, and that’s how many steps I have to climb up to get to my 5^th floor apartment. The building is from the 1890s and has no elevator, so that means that I’m climbing and descending several hundred steps multiple times a day. I think I will be staying in shape this year, even if I do nothing other than walk around town and go home every day.

AWESOME!!!

I kept telling myself before I left the States that the first two weeks I was in France would probably be pure chaos, and I was pretty much right on. Things finally started to come together at the end of this week, and now, after several trips to the grocery store, Talensac, and IKEA, I’m feeling quite settled in and am looking forward to calling this apartment and this city “home” for the next 8 months.

I LOVE FRANCE!!!!!!!!

This is to show you two things: 1) Doing laundry in France is EXPENSIVE,
and 2) The French are adorable. "Bon Lavage" means "Happy washing"! Ha!