The Hunt

Well! - It's obviously been a long time since the first post on this site. At this point in time I've been here in Paris a month!!! -- Actually that's pretty hard to get my head around. But the time is, as usual - flying. So! - a quick recap .. . .. . . .. . .. Firstly I should point out that the goal before I arrived was to get into Paris 3 weeks early, find accommodation for the 6 months, dump the bags, and head out for some tourist time around Europe . Unfortunately, it turned out that finding any accommodation here as a student is VERY difficult!!! :)

Options for a student looking for accommodation here include shareflats with other French students ( what I was looking for ) shareflats with French families ( often in exchange for babysitting) , shareflats with the elderly (usually as a means of giving them some sense of security at night), student housing buildings ( mostly further out of town) , studio ( 1 room ) apartments, residential student colleges ( really nice places to live, beautiful old buildings and lots of international students, well catered for etc. ) but harder than anywhere else to get a spot!! - and if all else fails, the French government give the homeless a blue and orange tent to sleep in for the Winter --- So I guess I always had somewhere if nothing else worked out.

As far as the hunting process goes, the average day is spent on the computer for up to 6 hours, scrolling through offers, ads or announcements. Then if ( as Larry says ) the price is right, the location is good, the room is being offered for the same short period of time that you are staying for, the room on offer isn't being shared by a crazy looking French plasterer, and doesn't require you to make a jaffle iron and a kettle the extent of your kitchen for 6 months; you've had a definite win, and it's time to call the phone number.

This is when the second difficult part begins. For whatever reason, speaking in another language on the telephone is really hard. - sometimes up to four or five words spoken by the native person on the other end become a really smooth string of understandable communication. Unfortunately, those few words are usually the useless ones at the very beginning, involving where the person is at the time (usually on the metro, in a supermarket, or other noisy place ) and how difficult it is going to be to talk (what you knew before you picked up the phone) . The rest is a bit hit and miss, but if you manage to get through the conversation and organise a time and place to meet up for a drink or to look at the room, then you're moving on to difficult step 2.5.

--This step has strong links with "difficult part 2." Basically, if you have the meeting time, place or date wrong, it involves another difficult phone call to figure out which part you got wrong, while desperately trying to give the impression that you won't be a burden to your possible flat mates and / or France in general. -If this part goes wrong it can be easier just to go back to difficult step no.1 and start again. ha.

Difficult step no. 3: This involves the face-to face part of the hunt. Usually this would be the most straightforward part, but unfortunately, and as usual, “straightforward” doesn’t seem to get a look-in. (“straightforward” as a general rule in France actually only appears in the giving of street directions).
Luckily for me, I only met really nice people searching for a flatmate; but by and large I was still up against 30 to 40 other nice people wanting the same room- sometimes waiting in the corridor, sometimes in the flat with you looking at the room!! –Hectic.

So this is all very long winded, but I just wanted to point out the reason behind my lack of updates. ---uncharacteristically stressed!

But after 2 weeks of 6 phone calls a day, multiple interviews and even the odd offer from a 54 year old male nudist ( these were recurring ) I fell into a share flat with Marie for a month. A 26 year old fashion designer and Theatre seat directrice, who goes shopping for food but only buys things that look “interesting and different.” - As a result we spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to cook things like the vegemite equivalent of pasta sauce, and orange lentils. Good fun. Just like living in SBS. – So far minus the extreme nudity. Ha ha.

So I’ve been staying with Marie for about 2 weeks, but on the 1st of October I’m off to the next apartment. After placing an add in a local paper I got a call from 2 Italian girls ( Paola and Silvia ) and a French girl ( unknown as yet ) to share an awesome flat near Uni for the next 5 months!! – awesome☺ So the stress is off. Uni starts next week, I’m enrolled in subjects, and now I’ve got a few days to kill – so I think I’m going to head over to London for a look around (2 hours away on the Euro Star- awesome).

Cheers, Tim.