L'arrivée

I arrived in Paris two days ago at 7 in the morning, landing in Charles de Gaulle airport.  I've spent a lot of time in CDG, but I've never actually stepped out of the airport (it's always the connection hub for Nantes and Rabat), and the other three times I was in Paris, I arrived by train or car.  After explaining to the surprised program manager that my big suitcase was in Nantes and I was not going to be living out of a carry-on, I was tucked away on a shuttlebus and ferried through Paris morning traffic from the airport to the 13th.  After about an hour commute, I got to the apartment and was met by two American Comforts of Home workers, who kindly introduced me to the apartment.

I paid the extra deposit for a single and I ended up with one roommate, Kathy, and we also ended up with an apartment meant for four people.  Alongside two enormous bedrooms, we have a dining nook, a kitchen, bathroom, and a living room with too much extra space.  Since I showed up first, I got pick of the two bedrooms, and chose the dark one with the large closet.

I slipped downstairs after unpacking so that I could hop over to the tiny grocery store just to the side of our apartment building.  I bought the basics, namely tea and puff pastry, and then tried to get back into the building.  I got past the front door easily enough, but right when I'd arrived, the Comforts of Home staff had switched out the key I'd been given at the airport for one in a brown envelope.  It turned out to be the key to the old lock, and after struggling with the key for about twenty minutes, I finally called the staff.  Quite frankly, I'm glad I had this issue so early in the visit.  Also, Comforts of Home arrived almost immediately and helped me back in and were so sweet that I didn't even mind.

Our welcome program at Sciences Po started today, and instead of allowing us time to adjust to Paris and explore the city, they herded us into a lecture hall and managed to find thirty dozen different ways to say "we're so happy to have you here at Sciences Po" and spat business hours and email addresses at us without offering corresponding papers.  We finally made it through a frankly useless tour with a guide whose words barely left her mouth and sprinted off to Monoprix to stock up on supplies.  One electric kettle, a collection of green teas, a hairdryer, two laundry baskets, and a whole bunch of food later, we walked out and braved the metro.

With the mushrooms, ham bits, eggs, creme fraiche, and a sheet of puff pastry, I tossed together a little quiche in our new pie/cake pan and Kathy boiled up some ravioli and we felt especially grown up and plan on continuing our cooking adventures.

Paris so far has been limited to an odd tour and a lecture hall, but I know that after a few weekends I'll discover a few gems.