Les grèves et le terrorisme et les bonnes nouvelles

So apparently France had some major terrorist threats against it lately.  On Sept. 14, they evacuated both the Eiffel Tower and the St. Michele Metro Station because a suicide bombing threat.  So as a response the French Government has called up more the full french police force.  I'm not sure if they are army or the equivalent of the national reserve, or what, but there are a lot of them and they have guns.  Big ones.

Today was also the metro strike.  I decided not to even bother with the metro on my way home from the library so I took a nice long walk from ScienesPo back to my house in the 5th. It was about twenty minutes and I got to see some parts of Paris I had only driven by on the buses.  The strangest thing though, was that Blvd St. Michele was close to cars today.  I'm not sure why.  It may have something to do with the parade of police cars that drove down it today, but it was really strange.  It was kind of cool.  I wonder what Paris would be like with no cars....

Anyway, the whole terrorism scare has some people here a little on edge.  I haven't felt any of the repercussions of it, so I can't really say I am worried.  Plus with the seven police vans parked every other block, I feel pretty safe here.

 But today has been a day full of good news.  I may have found an apartment.  It is just on the other side of Sacré Coeur from SciencesPo and is a 22 minute direct metro ride to the closest stop.  The apartment itself is really nice.  Two bedroom with a pull out couch in the living room, fully equipped kitchen with a washing machine, dish washer, fridge, stove, stove top and microwave.  It is gorgeous.  Plus the bathroom was literally remodeled last week.  The best part is that its less than 1,000 euros per person plus it is eligible for the rebate from the French government.

Also, I found out that my big lecture on Fridays (the one in French?  The one where I took 2 pgs of notes an the girl next to me had 8 pgs?  Yeah, that one) is posted online with the professors outline.  I can watch all hour and forty-seven minutes at me leisure.  I also was granted access to the documents for that class' smaller conf, which I didn't have access to this week.  It was another one of those boulders lifted off my shoulder.

Let's hope the rest of my days are like this here.