Posts Tagged ‘move’

The Hermit, Period.

November 6th, 2009

I’ve just arrived in this wonderful city and what do I do? Hide in my little apartment. I go to work in the morning, and home at night, and that’s it. Repeat. What? No running around Les Galleries Lafayette? Or heading up the Eiffel Tower? Champs-Elysées? Louvre, anyone? Nah. Not yet. A little wander around my neighborhood is quite enough, thanks. I’ve now been here more than a week and I don’t have much to show for it. Don’t even have pictures for this post. ;)

It’s the Hermit Period: that time when you first get somewhere after a move, and instead of checking the place out you just feel like stopping for a second. You were going 110mph for the past month and then you’re supposed to have a ton of energy to be a tourist, too? Hah! That will come; there is plenty of time to check the place out. For now, I just wish I had a TV and some movies so I could sit on the couch and veg out. Instead, I’m doing silly things like cooking, reading textbooks, migrating the blog, and listening to university courses by podcast. Who knew? Free uni! Love it. Check out Open Culture and MIT for a start.

Soon I will get stir crazy and pop my head out of the den. Uh, actually that’s ‘sposed to be Tonight. Plan is to go out, if I can drag myself by the hair out the door, kicking and screaming… I have no normal going-out shoes to wear, so I’ll be the dork in big brown (and dare I say increasingly smelly) loafers dancing in a club with a group of (sure to be extremely well dressed) Argentinians and Brazilians. We’re not even going to start until midnight. I’m going to want to be curled up in a little ball by then, lovingly held by my mattress and duvet, but I will persist! Oddly, I’m so desperate for some real exercise that the idea of running to music sounds more appealing than a club right now. But…must get out there, ALLEZ, c’est Paris! Oh dear the place closes at what time? 6am? Go on, be Extroverted for christ’s sake! (Pulls hair tighter ouch! slams door)

I’m getting old. Screw it, I’m crawling into bed (opens door meekly and sneaks in before the crazy Extrovert returns). If I don’t go running or climbing tomorrow, she’s gonna kill me.

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Moving to Paris

October 28th, 2009

Let the next adventure begin! I am now starting to get settled in my tiny studio flat in Montmartre, and it’s wonderful. After all the trials and tribulations leading up to this point, I’m glad I came. In a way I feel like this stint is partly about closing the “Europe chapter” on my own terms, without an economic crisis to send me home. When I go home at the end of this (whenever that may be), it will be because I’m ready. And, I’m almost ready. Stay tuned – some craziness first, of course!

Mime in Montmartre

Mime in Montmartre

Getting here was a significant undertaking in and of itself. I had some pretty stressful last few days, packing up and moving from my apartment, wrapping up projects at one job while starting another (they actually overlapped a few days), and of course saying goodbye to friends and family. (See the “Tough Transitions” post last month).

With two bags of moving material (read: climbing and camping gear) I kissed my patient and supportive guy goodbye in the airport and headed to London, where I have about 10 plastic boxes full of, dare I say, crap in my ever so gracious friend’s attic. I decided the gigantic 18-person Peruvian tent, among other things, needs to go home. Why did I ever bring it to London? I’ll be heading home for the holidays, so this visit to London was as much about moving things to Paris as it was about moving all the extra crap back home. Have to take advantage of flights before I book a shipping company to take the rest.

This led to a record amount of baggage, almost none of it with wheels, to heft onto the Eurostar. I now had three large check-in size bags and three carry-on size bags, only one with wheels. If it weren’t for friends helping me at either end, I don’t think I would have made it.

Packing Light!

The looks I got from the very-well-put-together European business travellers were priceless. Amazingly, the only stranger to help me was a short and plump, sweet-faced African woman on the French platform. She only took my rolly bag, but it allowed me the ability to walk more than 2 meters at a time.

My new place is a small studio flat in Amelie’s hood. It’s pretty awesome. I now know where I’ll be for the next few months. Yay. :)

Le Sacre Coeur

Le Sacre Coeur

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