A Cajun in Paris--Laissez Les Bons Temps Roulez!: Bonjour!

Bonjour from France! Ok. So I may not be living in Paris, but I’m not far from it. I am actually living in a town called Arras. It is about 50 min. from Paris, 45 min. away from Lille and is on the route for all big train lines. There’s over 50,000 people living here. I’m living on the top floor of an old high school with all of the other teaching assistants in town. There’s 11 that live here in a dorm-style setup complete with communal showers and toilets (yay). But I have to say that I love living here. I have all the conveniences that I could hope for and all for only 75 Euros per month (which for here is unheard of). I get along very well with all of my roomies and it’s never dull.

The school is located smack dab in the middle of centre ville which means that I am literally a block from everything that I could need or want. I’m one block from the Post Office (so I can send you all letters), one block from Les Grandes Places (the central plazas of town where most of the restaurants, patisseries, bars, and clothes shops are located as well as the local cinema), two blocks from the train station, less than a block from a grocery store and my bank, and next door to a pharmacy and a book store where I can buy all my teaching supplies. How’s that for convenience?! Apparently my street is one of the main streets of town where all of the great clothes shops are located too. Yay for French fashion! I have not gone crazy in the stores…or at least not yet, but let’s just say, I have enough stuff to make me look French.

Rue Gambetta--the street where I live

Monoprix--the grocery store right next door to my place. It's insanely expensive, though, so we've started calling it Mono-pricks.

This is the post office also within a block of my place. This is where I send all of those lovely letters that I write. This is also where I almost beat-up a "homeless" woman after a long day of fighting the French bureaucracy. "I already gave you some damn money!"

This is the lovely bus stop where I catch the bus to my schools. It just happens to be about 10 yards away from our front gate. w00t!

The weather here, however, leaves a lot to be desired however. The north of France is pretty much known for having crappy weather and nice people, and I have to say that I agree with that. On most days it’s cold and rainy, very much like England (which would make sense because I’m about 2 hours South of England). The weather isn’t horrible, but it ain’t Louisiana either if you know what I’m saying.

France is wonderful and I’ve loved pretty much every second of it, except for my experiences with French bureaucracy. Think of how awful United States bureaucracies can be (especially) in Louisiana and then slow down the process by 20—there you have French red tape. Pretty much any time that I need to turn in paperwork (which is always because I’m a non-European living in France), I have to literally run all around town like a chicken with its head cut off, just to find out that I don’t have the right documents with me. But I can’t get the right paperwork because the document that I need requires that I have the document that I’m trying to get. I know. It sounds confusing…just imagine what I’m like trying to understand all of this in French. But fortunately, there have been some bright spots in this whole thing. Like my friend, Juliette, who grew up in Arras, helped me set up a French bank account and helped me to purchase a French cellphone my first day here. She also helped me find out info about my lost luggage. (Oh yes, the airline lost my luggage when I first got here. And I left for a trip the next day, so I was without clothes for 2 weeks. Don’t worry, I survived and it just adds spice to my story) Without Juliette, I would’ve totally been lost.