Doors, tourists, and snooker

Yesterday was epic. Arianna and I moved out of the Fiap and into the wonderful French House yesterday morning. After waiting for a taxi for quite possibly the longest amount of time I've ever had to wait for a taxi in my life, we were dropped off outside of our building only to find that we have no idea how to work French doors. For whatever reason, each door is garnished with a knob-type object, which, as it turns out, is not a knob at all, but rather a mere decoration. So, after spending 10 minutes punching our code in and trying to turn the "knob" to open the door, turns out all we needed to do was push the door and it opens quite easily. Thank God Arianna was there with me because I probably would have been standing outside of my building for twice as long.

Once inside, we were faced with the difficult task of lugging all of our baggage up to the fifth floor. We took turns taking one suitcase to our apartment at a time, but after three trips and nearly 200 pounds of crap I wanted to die. I could hardly stand, but I did find the energy for a photo-op.

My bedroom.

My window and balcony.

The view from my balcony.

Dining room.

Living room.

View from the back balcony.

The front door. Note the deceiving and pointless knobs directly below the glass.

Once we finished unpacking (Arianna unpacked, I plan to live out of my suitcases until I care enough to put away my stuff) we decided to walk to campus from our place to see how long it takes because I've decided that taking the metro everywhere, although convenient, is a complete waste of money. On our way out we had another run-in with the stupid front door. Turns out it is equally as confusing to get out of the bulding as it is to get in. We had to spen another unecessary 10 minutes trying to open the damn door. I wish I could say things have gotten easier since then, but they really haven't. I think you need to be a native to ever feel comfortable with the doors in this country.

We figured the best way to get to campus is to walk along the Seine and through the 1e arrondissement, crossing over the river into the 7e. What probably would have been a 45-60min ended up being a 4-hour epic journey across Paris. We saw the Bastille, the Louvre, the Jardins des Tuileries, the Opera and a bunch more. I love it all; everything's so beautiful and like nothing I've ever seen before. I also came thisclose to getting hit by a car while trying to get to the Opera. The guy had the nerve to honk at me even though I had the green and he was running a red light. I thought I was back in Boston for a second.

I think my next mission is to head to Pigalle. I walked most of the Champs d'Elysees today and didn't like it that much. Too many tourists and such. Reminded me of New York. We stopped in the Monoprix for a few items and I was disappointed to see how much of the market was filled with American food. Who comes to France and buys Kit-Kats, Smuckers jelly, and Twix bars? Uhhh.

In other news, I've learned a new sport. It's called snooker. It's apparently British billiards and may be even more pointless of a game than billiards but like three times as complicated.