Exploring Paris

Firstly, I found somewhere to live! After the longest week of desperately searching and seeing some of the weirdest/worst options in Paris we have finally found the perfect apartment. I am going to be living on my own, which was never the plan, and so i'm going to have to force myself to make a real effort to be social in order to speak as much french as possible, but the apartment is great. It's in the 14éme arondissment, just a bit down from Montparnasse, and on a direct metro line to university. It's in a traditionally parisian old building and it has a separate bedroom and living room which means there's lots of room for family and friends to come and visit. Once I have moved in tomorrow I will take some photos to show you all, but mainly I am just relived that i'm not going to be homeless tomorrow!

Whilst we have been on this crazy rollercoaster of finding a place to live, we have actually got to see quite a few different places in Paris so I thought I would share some of these with you. I have only been as far north as Notre Dame so far but I have plenty of time to explore the rest of Paris. 

This is Montparnasse, slightly north of where I'm living now. It's not an area that I know well, or think I had ever been to before, but there was a nice food market when we were there and there's some cool little shops, lots of places to eat so definitely going to be an area I explore some more. 

We also found ourselves in Les Jardins des Luxembourg where we stopped for a bit of lunch on one of the days. All the days this week have kind of blurred into one because of the stress and being so busy. The gardens are beautiful though and I think I'm actually going back there tomorrow with my welcome programme group. 

   

We squeezed in a quick tourist visit to Notre Dame, said a quick hi to Quasi Modo, marvelled at the cathedral. I have never been inside so that is on my list of things to do this year but when it is less touristy and busy. 

I also bought my first macaroons in Paris. Not from Ladurée but still delicious. We tried chocolate, salted caramel, passion fruit, lemon, pistachio and raspberry. These will be the reason I come home 3 dress sizes larger.


Mum and I have been doing a lot of biking in Paris, partly because it is often the most direct way to get somewhere, and also because it's fun. We even biked home from our amazing dinner the other day, and nearly got lost. It's so easy to hire a Velib' from anywhere in the city and then just put it back somewhere else and its so much nicer than the hot and dirty metro.

 

So there is just a few of our little excursions and adventures that we have squeezed into what has been a really busy week. Its a shame we have been so stressed about accomodation but I'm so grateful for having had Mum here to help with everything and there will be lots of time coming up when we can do proper Paris things for an entire weekend.

This evening we're going to sign the contract on the apartment and then I'm going to celebrate at a boat party. Life living on my own in Paris begins tomorrow...