Never try to find an apartment in Paris, but do eat steak.

I am in Paris with only 2 days until mum leaves and at this rate I am going to be homeless.

I want to love Paris because just look at this stunning sunset from a few days ago....



... but finding an apartment in Paris is near impossible and is ridiculously stressful. Do I want to rent someone's living room for 700+ euros a month? NO. Do I want to share their bedroom for 500+ euros a month? NO. Do I want to live upstairs of a creepy old man who likes to have dinner and conversation with his female students? NO. I just want somewhere to live, either alone, or with people of my own age. I don't want a random room in some random middle aged persons house so that I have to feel like a guest all year. I don't want to live opposite a prison (yes, there is one of these in the 13ème). Why is this so difficult to find?

I had always wanted to share an apartment with french people to improve and practise my french but apparently even french people are hard to find in France. At this stage, I think we have realised that we left this too late and that we should have tried to sort something further in advance. We also didn't appreciate that a) Paris shuts down in August and barely anywhere is open, and b) the whole of France shuts down on weekends meaning two days this week were lost to the french way of life (a.k.a. laziness).

I haven't even had the chance to encounter the problems about not being french or having a french bank account yet because very few people even bother to ring you back about their apartment. This is probably because within minutes of being posted online a listing will have been viewed and contacted many times by other desperate and near-homeless people. It's kind of a nightmare. I am even contemplating renting a different Airbnb studio every month for the year and trying out all the different arrondissements in Paris, but at £1000+ a month i'm not sure how viable this is as an option.

In other news, yesterday we went to an amazing restaurant called Le Relais De l'Entrecôte. I had heard about it on Instagram and we looked in to it and saw it got great reviews so decided to try it. There are a few in Paris and we went to the one just off Boulevard Saint-Germain-des-Prés, but here's the best/weirdest part: there is only one thing on the menu, steak and chips. We had to queue to go in and then once sat down they ask you how you like your steak cooked (à point) and what you what to drink et voilà!

You get salad to start (no choice obviously):

Then they bring you the steak smothered in their amazing famous secret sauce: 

Followed by a second helping! You actually get bought steak twice here, and if that is not a reason to love it (aside from the fact it is absolutely delicious) then I don't know what is. I have ever been to another restaurant that only serves one thing so it was such an interesting concept that they have clearly perfected and the food was amazing. 

So I might not have anywhere to live but I know where I can get a really good steak.