Carte de séjour begins

January 3rd Thursday

Today was the big day of trying to get our Cartes. We get a visa that covers us for three months. Then we need a Carte de Séjour to cover us for the rest of the year. It’s kind of silly and, in my opinion, unnecessary. We had bought some croissant in the bakery on the corner the previous night. They were slightly tough in the morning but pretty good.

We got dressed and took the metro toward the MIJE youth hostel. We are only in our apartment for a month and our landlord said it would be too difficult to give us our housing information that we needed for our Carte. He told us to tell the office that we lived at the youth hostel. Well we headed up there and paid for a night in order to get information from the people there. Then we headed off for the Centre des Etudiants. On the way we stopped off at a post office to get stamps and an envelope.

Once there, we walked in on a lovely line. Luckily, the guard told us that since it was our first time getting a Carte that we went past the line to the girl on the right. Well we went up and couldn’t figure out who the girl was. We went back and waited in the line. Then I asked the officer that had just replaced the last one where I was to stand. He told me to go to the fil on the right. It sounds just like fille which means girl but it’s a masculine word that means line. Nobody had been standing there so we didn’t realize there was a line on the right side of the long line. We finally got it figured out and went up to the man at the desk. Of course, I didn’t have all the documents I needed and of course, I was going to have to go to many other places to get these documents. I knew I was hearing my death sentence when his only response to anything I showed him was “C’est quoi ça?” It was disappointing but rather expected.

As we dejectedly walked out of the Centre des Etudiants, we decided to find somewhere to eat lunch. We cased the area and decided on a little restaurant called Le Garibaldi. We walked in and were seated by a kind white-haired lady. She was rather jolly and was patient when Adrienne and I had trouble reading the hand-written menu. Adrienne ordered the poulet fermier (chicken) which came with French fries and peas. I tried to order the beef but she was out. We also had some tea to drink because it was very cold outside. On the wall behind Adrienne was a very large map of the United States. It didn’t fit with the rest of the décor so I spent much of lunch trying to figure out why it was there. Then, at the end of the meal, the grandmotherly woman asked us where we were from. We told her we were from the U.S. and she got very excited. We pointed out to her on the map where we were from. She asked “Do you know why I have this map up here?” We said no. She told us that it was because she worked with a travel agency in Boston. They send over groups of young tourists. She even had pictures that some of the groups sent to her with their names signed. Overall, I loved the atmosphere and the woman there. The food was okay but not great. I think the experience made up for it though.

After lunch we went to the Franprix grocery store to get a few groceries. We still had and empty kitchen. I bought milk demi-écrémé. It’s such rich milk but it’s the lowest I can find. We also bought some hand soap and some yogurts. I wanted some kind of breakfast to get me through the day. We only got a few things because we knew we’d be going back on the metro. We took the groceries home and then tried looking up information about the American Embassy in Paris. I looked at the website and looked at the services. It didn’t list anything about translations but I thought I’d try anyway.

We checked things online for a while before leaving the house in search of food. It was getting close to 8:00pm. We are just so fashionable. We ended up walking around knowing that we’d come across some place that looked good eventually. As we walked across one of the bridges over the Seine, we saw that the Eiffel Tower was sparkling. On every hour the tower has hundreds of bright lights twinkle for ten minutes. I took a few pictures of the Eiffel tower and Paris at night. We kept wandering until we’d gone past Rue Cler. It’s in an area near the Eiffel tower. We looked at a French restaurant and then looked at a restaurant called Villa Thaï across the street. They had a menu á vapeur at lunch. Then I discovered you could get a mixed plate as a sort of appetizer. I was sold. These were little rice dumplings filled with shrimp, pork, or vegetables. I used to order the menu á vapeur in Tours. We entered and sat down. The restaurant looked much fancier than I thought it would be. Adrienne had the soupe de poulet á la citronelle (chicken soup with lemon) and some rice. I had potage pékinois (hot and sour soup) and the variation vapeur. The dinner was very good. I really liked the atmosphere and the decorations. The table settings were fun too with rustic looking wooden chopsticks.

Once we finished eating, we decided to continue walking and look for somewhere to eat dessert. We found ourselves wandering closer and closer to the Eiffel Tower. Soon, we were beneath the great glowing structure looking up at the elevators still moving up. We made it through the cluster of harassing men selling miniature towers. I saw the carousel and crêpe stand all lit up like a carnival and I immediately wanted to go there. We went and ordered a crêpe chocolat and a crêpe sucré. The nutella was so good. I was in heaven. We watched the woman make the crêpes right there. That meant it was warm and made the chocolate melt while I ate it. We started walking across another bridge with our little treasures. While I was stuffing a large bite in, I looked up and saw a familiar face! It was Alberto. He’s a guy in our program who is spending one module in Paris. We knew he was supposed to arrive that day but didn’t have a way to contact him. I never thought I’d run into someone in Paris.

The three of us walked off toward the tower and chatted. We discussed housing and told him about trying to get our Cartes de Séjour. We talked and walked for a little while but eventually, we needed to get going. Adrienne and I were tired of walking and we weren’t sure when the metro stopped running. We managed to catch the C RER home.

It felt good to get home and rest. We’d walked a lot that day. I checked my email and saw that I had one from our program director, Sarah. She was forwarding a message about an apartment in the Western part of Paris. The pictures of it looked beautiful and the price wasn’t too bad. Plus, it had a bed in a bedroom and one in a living room. The separate rooms would be nice. I emailed the contact information and said that Adrienne and I were interested.

Finally I managed to force myself to shut off the computer and go to sleep. It was rather late. We had decided to go to the American Embassy the next day and I knew it would be hard to wake up early.