I’m Here
It’s 9 :38 pm and I and my three roommates at the hostel are tucked safely into our bunk beds. This room is the size of a closet and if I lived here permanently I’d get claustrophobic, but right now, it’s cozy. We all arrived in Paris early this morning, and we all made an effort to stay up as late as we could to stave off jet lag, but this is the latest we could do.
My flight was uneventful. The only movie playing on the plane was that Marigold whatever old people film (to be fair, every single actor in that film is amazing, but even that couldn’t get me to watch it). I tried to sleep, sort of dozed off for an hour, listened to lots of music and watched episodes of The X-Files (“Pusher” – I’ve seen every episode more than once but this one appeared on a “Best-of” list recently and I’d forgotten why—it’s wonderful, not one element of the story is there that doesn’t need to be, it’s practically minimalist– and yet we get that piece by piece character development for Mulder and Scully that makes the show so beautiful. Ok there you go my 1 run-on sentence review) and Strangers With Candy (also have already seen every episode, but never fails to make me laugh). It all went by really quickly and I was relieved when we landed in Paris.
I got a taxi to the hostel. My cabdriver was hilarious. Sort of crazy, but hilarious. I had my first French conversation in France with him, and despite my many mistakes he didn’t switch to English, yay.
He started with the usual small talk (“Where are you from? Oh, US? I thought you were Australian,” “Oh, I thought you were at least 25!” Yeah sure okay.) I told him I was studying film as an exchange student.
“On doit coucher pour ca, non?” You have to sleep around for that, right?
“Um…no…?”
“Oh, I guess that’s just the actresses then.”
We talked about Jean Dujardin and The Artist and the OSS 117 films (which he starred in, watch them, they too are on Netflix instant and they’re hilarious).
“How is it that you’re called Gabrielle?” he asked after learning my name.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s not an American name.”
“Oh. My mother is Belgian.”
“Ohhh Belgian! Does your mom like French fries? Have you heard any Belgian jokes?”
Sigh. I have heard many Belgian jokes… let’s hear it.
“Why do Belgian women have square nipples?”
“Why?”
“Because they breastfeed their babies french fries!”
I guess you had to be there, but I laughed that cringing kind of laugh where you know you shouldn’t laugh but you have to, because hey, my mom’s favorite food actually is French fries with mayonnaise, and they’re delicious, and, I don’t know, I was tired and I’m still tired.
He sang along with the radio, we talked about French music,… I love Serge Gainsbourg a lot. So does the cabbie. He’s seen the biopic about him 4 times (Gainsbourg: Une Vie Heroique, also on Netflix Instant, see it if only to be introduced to his amazing music, but anyway it’s a great film) and he starts singing “Je T’aime… moi non plus” right there and then. He told me he was convinced I was named after the Johnny Hallyday song, “Gabrielle”, which I’ve never heard before, so he sings that too. Off tune, all of this!
But I was just really happy to have someone speak to me in French and to semi- be able to carry a conversation… my first in Paris!
I arrived at the hostel, and met some nice people while we waited for our rooms to be ready. When they finally were, we discovered that there were no elevators. 4 flights of stairs with 50 lbs+ suitcases? So much fun! The showers also only work if you hold down the button for water. If you let go the water stops. That doesn’t make it easy to take a shower properly, but I suppose they’re saving water that way… At least the water isn’t cold.
We’re right by the Louvre, which is the 1e arrondissement. It’s a beautiful neighborhood near a lot of the major landmarks—the Louvre, Notre Dame, etc etc. We ate dinner at a café, walked around for 2 hours or so and now… sleep.
Tomorrow, we have a huge orientation meeting and then our search for housing begins. I’m not excited. It’s going to be hella stressful. (Yeah I just said hella deal with it *sunglasses* oh, I haven’t been on Tumblr in a while…) But I am excited for, um, hopefully less than 10 days from now, when I find an apartment? Bon courage, Gabrielle, as everyone says after they tell me their apartment was already rented, or it’s no longer available, or whatever I just can’t have it too bad, bon courage!
