Ah, Paris...

About this time last year I was still extremely jetlagged, but just beginning to explore Paris!  While I fondly remember those times of enduring the RER B, the crazy lady at the metro, and saving Amber from herself, I will take you on a picture tour of my journey.  First, this was the view outside my window:

Feel free to be jealous.  If I had a picture of the room I lived in, you would definitely be less so.
It took me far too long to find my room once I got there.  In fact, if I hadn't *happened* to be on the same flight as my professor who speaks French, who knows if I ever would have managed to buy a metro ticket and make it to the Cite Universaire at all.  Once I did get there I realized I had left the paper with my housing info back in the States... crap.  So I went to the only building whose name rang a bell - the Spanish house.  Unfortunately for me, the gentleman behind the desk there only spoke French and Spanish.  After a very frustrating conversation (or lack thereof) he made a phonecall and then kept making wild hand gestures while saying, "Avec *raaaaaah*, avec *raaaaaah*."  Once we finally found someone to translate, it turned out he was trying to communicate the presence of ugly gargoyles at the Cambodia house where I was supposed to be.  When Amber finally arrived the next day, I started talking incessantly until we shoved food in my mouth:

All in all, the Cite was a lovely place to stay, despite the lack of food options or even vending machines, the horribly understocked/undersized kitchens, the tiny laundry facilities that barely worked, and the shower that consisted of a hole in the wall that sprayed down the toilet and the sink and if you worked at it, you too.  But it was lovely:

And a bonus, the shorties at Notre Dame:

Stay tuned, next time we visit Maurice Ravel's village.

A bientot...