February 3rd Sunday

I ended up getting up at 5:30am to go with Karuna on the RER to the bus stop to find out where it is. We sleepily chugged along on the train to Porte Maillot. We got out and went to the bus stop. It was good that I came because I had to walk around to the other side of the Palais de Congrès and I didn’t know if I would have understood it from just directions.

After I saw Karuna off, I got back on the RER and headed home. I got back home and into bed around 7:00am. I got to get some good hours in until 12:30pm. We had to get up and get ready for our meeting with our landlord. He was supposed to come around 2:00pm. He had called that morning to confirm.

I showered and managed to clean up the apartment. I ate a bit of cereal and nervously looked across to see if he was coming over yet. He finally came around 2:00 and we discussed staying in the apartment. He explained to us how the utilities work and when he expects payment for rent. He also brought us the forms that we needed to get a Carte de Séjour. We also did an inventory of the apartment including how many dishes and pieces of silverware there were. I tried to bring up the idea of a checklist for each month’s rent but M. Choupin got very upset because I’d asked for his initials. He said “I told you that I will not do a receipt.” He got very upset and acted very offended. The reason that some French landlords don’t do any kind of receipts is that a lot of them are not claiming the rent on their taxes. If we have a receipt we could take it into a court and get him in trouble. I do understand that he doesn’t want to be discovered by the state. I just wanted some kind of reminder between us that the rent had been paid for each month.

After that though he seemed to warm up to us again. I told him my idea of trying to put the sari up as a curtain. We would need to install a curtain rod. He said that he already had a curtain rod and a curtain. He got a ladder and tried to see if he could install it for us. He was very sympathetic to the fact that the window is in front of the toilet and faces right into his dining room. The ceiling isn’t strong enough for the screws so he needed to get other parts. He should be able to come back during the weekend.

M. Choupin asked us if we had explored Paris and if we knew where to go for walks. He told us a funny story about some of the parks in Paris. He said, “In the Luxembourg Park, this is where men go to meet women. If you walk here the men will bother you.” We live right by the Tuileries. He said, “In the Tuileries, this is where the gays go to meet each other. If you walk here the men will leave you alone… but I don’t know about the women.” It made me laugh a lot that he was advising us where to go to avoid being bothered by men. That’s the kind of advice I’ve been looking for.

For lunch we ended up heating up a little of our vegetable soup. I also made some grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. The bread is so small that I made two. It was gooey and delicious.

It was a nice day and I thought of going to the Tuileries for a walk but it was already 4:00pm. We had to get a few things set before going out and by the time we made it out the sun would be going down. I left the trip to the Tuileries for another day.

We did some more cleaning up around the apartment. I got on my computer and got to talk to Kyle and Karuna. Karuna managed to make it back to Spain but almost missed her flight again because of a delay with her bus. This made us nervous. We’re thinking now that we’d like to take a taxi so that we can get to the bus stop earlier and therefore have more time to get to the airport.

We also got to talk to Kyle on Skype. It’s fun to be able to talk to people across the globe.

For dinner we tried a frozen dinner that we’d bought at the store. It had chicken and two kinds of mushrooms that cooked up in a pan. They had a kind of sauce frozen on them that melted into gravy. We also mixed the rice that came with it. It turned out pretty good. The mushrooms were interesting. I hadn’t tried one of the kinds before. After dinner we ate the macaroons that Karuna had bought for her Spanish roommates but then left behind. They were yummy.

I got to talk to my parents for a little while. I settled into bed and read. It was about midnight and I could hear it raining outside. It’s funny because even if there’s a steady rain, it only sometimes makes it to our windows because of the way the courtyard is shaped. It makes it sound strange. It’s like the rain doesn’t have the same beat as usual.