10 October 2015

Didn't realise that two months have passed since I last wrote on this blog! As expected, a lot of things have happened!

First of all, I found a nice place to stay in a nice area of 15eme arrondisement (15th district), which is still part of the central area. I found a "colocateur", which means I'm in a "colocation" arrangement in a 2-bedroom apartment. Now let me explain these French words. A "colocation"arrangement is the equivalent of co-renting arrangement. Hence, the word "colocateur" is someone you live with (either owner of the apartment or co-renting the apartment with you). All the common areas are shared. So I'm very happy that I got this value-for-money arrangement. And what is even better is that my "colocateur" is a very mature French lady, Mme Nicole Marchal, who hardly speaks English! This is a perfect arrangement for someone who wants to learn French (like me) on a daily basis. Plus - market day near my place happens three times a week, so I get to practice my French even more with the local market vendors.  The only thing I'm not used to is my bed, because it is a loft bed/mezzanine bed though it is a good queen-size bed. Apparently this loft bed design is very common in Paris where space is very expensive.

And yes, my classes in Sorbonne have started! The first welcome seminar week was a daily 9am-6pm sessions. We are 22 in our batch, out of whom only five are French and the rest are from 13 nationalities. As you may have guessed,I'm the only Filipina in our batch.  Midway through the session-pack week, the school organised a simple welcome cocktail for us to meet the students from the two batches ahead of us. I was able to upload a couple of photos from the administration site.

At the welcome cocktails.

At the welcome cocktails.

Prior to the start of classes, I was able to make a short 4-day trip to London! I was lucky to have two days of sunshine during that spring time visit :=) Having come from Paris where "love is in the air", I rather found London "cold" - I didn't see any couple hugging and/or kissing, hahaha! In Paris, you'll never run out of these sights.

But the nice thing with London is that most of their good museums are free! I was able to squeeze in two museums during my short visit - the National Gallery and the British Museum.  But i must say that the best historical/cultural experience I had was the guided tour at the Westminster Abbey. Admission is not free,plus there was an additional fee for the tour guide, but it was worth it! I highly recommend a visit to the Westminster Abbey.

Another paid visit I did was the Buckingham Palace. It was also good, but this would come fourth, after Westminster Abbey, British Museum and the National Gallery. I wanted to watch a musical in the West End, but I ran out of time. I will have to go back then some time next year for the show :=)

Lobby of the Natural History Museum,.

One of my fave paintings at the National Gallery: Veronese's Conversion of Mary Magdalene.

Cleopatra's mummified body at the British Museum.

Daily Life in Paris

4 AUGUST 2015

A year ago this time, I didn't know I would be coming back to Paris for a much longer period to study International MBA at IAE de Paris, the graduate business school of Université Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne. My original plan was to enroll in a short summer course.  But the short summer course plan evolved into a 17-month International MBA programme, so here I am again facing the Arc de Triomphe as I stepped out of an Air France airport shuttle called Les Cars!

The French-speaking German lady who hosted me two years ago, Susanne, has kindly offered her guest room (for a fee) as my temporary home for the whole month of August while I'm looking for my permanent accommodation. And her apartment is just a stone's throw away from Arc de Triomphe!

Weather was lovely when I arrived and so Arc de Triomphe was an equally lovely sight.

Stepping out of a Les Cars shuttle was "Déjà vu". I had exactly the same experience two years ago, yet I felt the same excitement when I found myself standing before this monumental structure!

As expected, the 360-degree grounds of Arc de Triomphe are full of tourists! And of course, Champs-Elysées is also packed with both tourists and shoppers!

And my room couldn't be any more Parisienne: high ceiling, grand fenetre (avec des fleurs), wooden floors and a fire-place design marble built-in dresser with a big mirror on top!

That's my Toshiba laptop on the table, still alive after  almost four years!

And this is the living room of the apartment :=)

The house is waiting for you, Chiquit! Sama na Karen,Terrie and Bebeth so we can re-live our Batam Spa experience, hahaha!

5 AUGUST 2015

The first order of the day is, of course, finding in my neighbourhood a supermarket/grocery that sells organic food. And my neighbourhood didn't disappoint - a small grocery store called "Bio C' Bon" is just 3 minutes walk from my place. Organic stuff are named "Bio" in France.

That's my "bio" breakfast :=) -  des fruits et yaourt, tous les bio!

And the best part of this "bio" thing here in Paris? My grocery bill is more or less 50% cheaper than my usual grocery bill in Singapore, ho-ho-ho! That explains why I posted here the grocery receipt:=)

6 AUGUST 2015

Mission for the day: getting my one-year Navigo Pass (for all Paris transport) and my prepaid SIM card.

I went to the metro (the Singapore MRT equivalent) nearest to my place and that is Charles de Gaulle-Etoile at Arc de Triomphe, and talked to one of the staff at the information counter about the best transport card/package I can get for a minimum of a year's stay in Paris. I was directed to the RATP/SNCF office where an English-speaking suggested a one-year Navigo Card Pass, an unlimited pass to Paris and suburbs, which costs 731.50 euros. I was given a one-month discount, so the total transport cost per month is 61 euros. Yeyyy! My Navigo card is sorted!

The Navigo card has my photo and name, so it's non-transferrable :=(
I prefer Singapore's EZ-Link system coz I can lend the EZ Link card to my visitors in Singapore :=)

My next stop was the Orange telecom outlet nearest my place. I would have wanted to get a post-paid line, but a French bank account is needed for a post-paid line so I had no choice but to get a prepaid SIM card for the meantime, as I still have to sort out my permanent accommodation before I can open my bank account.

Between my slow spoken French and the Orange staff's broken English, I settled for a 40-euro loaded SIM card valid for two weeks and usable for all Europe.

So the mission for the day has been accomplished, but I had one frustration when I did my transactions today: people here in Paris now answer me in English when I speak to them in French! There is no way I can advance in French language except by speaking to someone who speaks French only. It may sound funny but I'm thinking of one important and helpful qualification for people I will befriend here in Paris - "speaks French, does not speak English", hahaha!

Armed with my French SIM card and my Navigo (Metro) card, I went to visit the area of my future school, and it was "love-at-first-experience" :=) The little that I saw, because of lack of time and because the school was closed (well, a lot of things in Paris are closed during the whole month of August since the Parisians go on their annual "sacred" August vacation), gave me something to look forward to: a very local area (without much tourists) full of history/culture/art, waiting to be discovered...Here are some photos of the area:

The view upon getting out of the Metro station nearest to my school, Censier-Daubenton.

View from across the Metro station entrance/exit.

Farther view of the square.

Street of one of the campuses of my school.

A street very close to the school.

At the foot of an interesting street called Mouffetard (see Paris' Off the Beaten Tracks section).

One more accomplishment for the day is my "accidental" discovery of an interesting street near my school: rue Mouffetard. It's a small street with small magasins (stores/boutiques) and quaint restaurants/food outlets. When I googled rue Mouffetard, I found out that this is one of Paris' oldest and liveliest neighborhoods.

My first week in Paris was accentuated by two mobile numbers from my two separate encounters with Parisian men, not necessarily French, who approached me out of the blue and insisted on me getting their numbers since I refused to give mine: one is from an owner of a small wealth management company called Pascal and the other is from Karim, a washing machine installer called Karim.  Both numbers have been buried somewhere :=)

7-14 AUGUST 2015
A trip to the weekend market

My lady host Susanne suggested that I check out the Saturday street open market where she goes to buy her food stuff, and so I did.  This is a good place to buy affordable fresh produce as well as some basic dry household items! It's in Boulevard de Reims, near the metro Porte de Champerret (17th Arrondisement).

Croissant here is very good, and it's 10 cents cheaper than those in neighborhood boulangeries.

 

An early morning run by The Seine

 

It's been a week and I haven't had my real exercise so early this week I decided to get up earlier than usual (at 7AM, hehehe) and ran from my place to the Seine river. By getting up early, I discovered new things about Paris: that during the hot summer months in Paris, mornings are relatively cooler, so, it's the best time to run/walk; that my place is a less-than-10-minutes' run to the river Seine; that sunrise by the river Seine is one of the most beautiful sights here in Paris.

From Avenue Carnot, I jogged around Arc de Triomph (which, at 7AM is already filled with tourists!) and then jogged through Avenue Marceau down to the Seine at Pont de l'Alma. I discovered that Pont de l'Alma is where Princess Diana died in a car accident. Here is the photo of the river Seine from Pont de l"Alma.

View of Seine river and the EiffelTower from Pont de l"Alma, Marceau (8th Arrondisement) side.

I also learned that there are 37  ponts (bridges) on the Seine river. Pont de l'Alma was constructed in the 1850s. It was named after the river Alma in Crimea where the Franco-British alliance won the battle against the Russian army during the Crimean War in the 1850s.

My morning jog covered four ponts: Pont de l'Alma, Pont des Invalides (known to be the lowest bridge traversing the Seine, originally constructed as a suspension bridge in 1829), Pont Alexandre III, and Pont de la Concorde, one side of which is the starting point of the  Passarelle de Solférino.
(to be continued)