Il fait froid

It's that time in Paris when the weather turns cold and rainy.  Today marked the third day of fall, and boy, if this is any indication of what winter is going to be like...

Today was a lot of fun actually though, despite the bitter chill in the air.  Really it only got down to the high forties, if that.  You know us Southern Californians... We are wimps when it comes to the weather.  Nevertheless, I still triple layered (shirt, sweater, jacket).  I did realize though, that I need a good pair of gloves.  That is going to be my mission for next weekend.  A nice pair of leather gloves I can wear here.

Paige is visiting Paris with her friend Mary.  I felt bad because I was supposed to get together with them this morning, but I didn't really get out of bed until 11:30AM.  By the time I got out of bed, showered, shaved and was ready it was noon.  And Aliya and I had another apartment to look at at 2:00PM.

That apartment was GORGEOUS!  It had 3 bedrooms, an amazing kitchen, large dining room, HUGE living room and it was on a direct line to SciencesPo.  Plus, the rent was less than 1,000 Euros each a month.  The only problem would be getting the rest of the start up money.  Becuase we are foreigners, they needed the caution bancaire which would be 1 years rent.  That means that the first months rent would be actually around 15,000 Euros, most of which we would get back at the end of the year.  But who can get 15,000 Euros together in a matter of days?

So it looks like we are going to be taking the apt. in the 18th.  Which is really nice.  Not 100% done deal yet, but we have another viewing on Monday.

So after the viewing I met up with Paige and Mary.  We walked around, went to that park I feel asleep in (see the pictures I posted a few days ago) and then walked from there up to my area.  By that time we had killed about three or four hours so we wanted to eat.  Just up the street from my host family's apartment is this awesome little square with maybe ten different restaurants and a few bars.  I hadn't eaten at any of them but I wanted to try before I left this area.

After dinner at this great Italian restaurant, the three of us headed down to the Champs de Mars to meet up with my orientation group.  They said to be there around 8, and for some reason I am ALWAYS on time so we were there then.  We ran into Hugo, our French host student, but no one else was there.  After about ten minutes of talking and taking pictures a few others turned up.  The only problem is that the grass made it even colder.  We couldn't really stay that long.

After searching the St. Germain area for a cool place to get a drink, we ended up coming back to my area.  This place was poppin' tonight!  It almost made me wish I drank so I could go and see all these cool bars and restaurants.  But being here has made me more and more excited for my birthday.  I know I want to do something big for my 21st, but I don't know what yet.

I guess I still have a few months to figure out what I should do...