My cozy prison cell

I've been accumulating pictures of my small apartment for the last few months, and thought that perhaps you'd like to see my humble abode on the right bank. It's 10m², which google tells me is 107ft². I have a little storage closet down the hall, so all in all I have maybe 12m² at most. It's slightly smaller than the place I had last year, but the layout is different and I have a dormer window, so one of my walls is on a slant. Excuse my lack of architecture terms..in short, it's borderline claustrophobic.

All tidy. You're currently looking at my living room, bedroom, edge of my kitchen, chair to the desk in my "den." Notice my festive little sapin de Noël. (Courtesy of HEMA, a Dutch store in Paris that makes me want to just up and move to the NL)

My bed facing the "kitchen"

Sitting on bed, less tidy..mmm chips

Brittany by my bookcase (during her visit in November), next to the shower AND desk. It's..cozy

View out my window. Rainbow!

View out the window in the hallway. You can still see the Eiffel Tower, but she's itty bitty compared to last year's view. The colorful building in the back is Centre Georges Pompidou, blogged about  back in 2009, when I took more pictures in my abundant freetime. I kind of miss that year, but not nannying for that family!

I love the area I'm in, and the building is very nice despite my Bohemian (mostly) student-filled, paint-chipping-off-the-walls floor. The toilet is in the hallway--something I'm not a huge fan of, but god knows it wouldn't fit in here. I bitch about the seven flights of stairs, the old man next door that snores incessantly, and the constant cold drafts that in turn make the skylights rattle all night, but the truth is that I'm young, living and studying in Paris. I could be a lot worse off. It builds character, right? (And thighs, too.) I'd like to think that later in my life, I'll look back on these days and reminisce about how I had to fold up my futon every day, turn off my heater when I wanted to cook (so the fuses don't blow), and was far too used to grabbing a roll of toilet paper before making my way down the hall to the toilet shared with my numerous floormates. On second thought, maybe I won't miss the last one as much..

Bonne année!

Happy New Year to all. I got a little sad a few weeks ago, realizing that this holiday was the third in a row I'd missed. For whatever reason, I somehow thought I'd only missed two, but then I got to thinking about it, and nope..definitely three. Ah, well. Can't have everything. I would've loved to be home, but perhaps next year (..this year).

Christmas was in the midst of my crazy hours at work, so I was happy for the day off. I watched Home Alone, made a vegetable platter, and headed for the Orphan Party one of the managers at work was having. It was good to not be alone (all my friends were home!) and in good English-speaking company. Mostly Americans, but there were a few Canadians, an Ethiopian, a Frenchman (who let him in!) and maybe another nationality or two, you never know with expats who's going to show up.



We ate, drank, watched movies (yes, that's A Christmas Story), had a white elephant gift exchange (I got a head massager, awesome), played Charades, chatted, etc. Fun times for all. And so much food, as it should be! I stayed a good part of the day and into the evening, but had to work the following morning so headed back to mine to make some calls to the respective families who were still in full Christmas Day mode.

I didn't make it to the Champs-Elysées this year, but a few recent pics from my iPhone around Christmastime:


 



New Year's was pretty last-minute. Hung out with The Great Dane, aka Malia, and a French girl I work with, Flo(rence). She's actually the only French person I can really call my friend--the French are more of acquaintance type of folk; friends are a small, select group of people. She is also one of the most Americanized French people I've ever met, which probably explains our friendship, ha. I'll take what I can get! We ended up at a house party, and for the sake of my own dignity, I'll just post a picture from earlier in the evening when we weren't quite so indecent. It was a moustache and leather party, unfortunately we only found that out right before leaving, so voilà our solution!


Stay tuned for pictures of the closet I call my apartment!