An American Girl In Paris: Moving on up

After I left my hostel, I lugged my stuff down to the 13th Arrondissement in order to move in. I had tried calling my "host mom" a few times, but always got no answer, so instead of telling her directly when I would be showing up, I conveyed the information through the home-stay service ATOME. I said I would get to her apartment at noon.

I arrived at the location I had scouted the day before and searched through the buzzer system for the name "URBINO". It wasn't there. So I dialed her home phone number. No answer. Her cell number? Answer.

My host mom does not speak ANY English. She speaks some, but about as much as my real mom speaks French. I tried to explain to her that I was outside her building, but I couldn't really understand what she was saying back to me. I blame this partially on the crappy cell-phone reception, the construction noise in the background, and the fact that Parisian French is the fastest thing ever spoken. She kept saying "Ou etes-vous?" (Where are you?) She finally understood that I was standing outside her building.

(in French) "But ATOME told me you were arriving at the airport at noon!" I said back, "No, I've been in Paris for two days already."

She was at work and couldn't get away until 2, so she told me to go sit in the cafe down the street (since it was raining) for awhile.

This was not really a cafe, but a brasserie (bar). During the day it sold coffee, but it also sold lotto tickets and smelled a little like smoke. I was just happy to get out of the rain and to know that someone was coming for me, so I ordered a coffee (un cafe, s.v.p.) and sat watching the flat-screen tv in the building that was probably intended for football matches, but at the time was playing pop music videos. I also decided to take out my trusty French-English dictionary to remind me of some of the words that I had struggled to find on the phone.

After an hour and a half, I paid for my coffee and walked back out to the place where I had been waiting before. I lot of people were giving me quizzical looks, and I don't blame them. I had two huge suitcases and I was sitting on a stoop under an umbrella.

About 40 minutes later, a woman approached me laughing and shaking her head. This was Madame Urbino. She apologized over and over for leaving me stranded, and helped me bring my bags up the steep drive into the building. We got in the elevator, and ended up at her apartment. She showed me to my room. A DOUBLE BED. I almost died of happiness. I put my heavy stuff down and started unpacking.

She showed me the rest of the apartment. It's a normal-sized apartment for four people. Kitchen (very European), living room, bedrooms, toilet, separate bathroom. (In fact, the toilet and bathroom are at separate ends of the hallway. Strange.) I returned to unpacking.

Mme (madame) Urbino has two kids that she has every other week. Renaud (11) and Laura (12). They had both come over to meet me and to go school shopping with their mom because their school started the next day. I was introduced to Renaud, and he leaned forward.

In France, when you greet someone, you do that air-kissing thing (bis). I must have looked taken aback, so the three of them laughed, but I cooperated despite the weirdness-factor. Mme. Urbino asked me, "do you want something to eat?" I said, "no, I am not very hungry, but thanks." Next thing I know, Renaud comes into my room saying "Your pasta is on the table."

So I ate a huge plate of spaghetti while watching the TV in their kitchen. Who thought that The Love Boat was worth dubbing over in French?

The family had gone off school shopping, so I finished unpacking and collapsed onto my bed. It was dark by this time, so I figured I would take a few pictures of my room and the view from my window. I am on the 13th floor of a high-rise apartment complex. My window doesn't really face any typically Parisian attractions, but it is still very cool.

(Pretty blurry I know)

When Mme. got home, she told me that she had bought me an office chair for the desk in my room, but that it needed to be put together. We bonded over the incomprehensible directions.

I eventually got to sleep, knowing that I had class in the morning and that I would be meeting tons of new people the next day.

I woke up to see this view out of my window.