Au revoir, Bonjour

Another summer come and gone, and I found myself at the airport on the morning of September 26^th giving a heartfelt au revoir (oh ray-vwa: goodbye) to those I love at the San Francisco airport. As far as goodbyes go, I'm not a huge fan, and each time I have to say goodbye seems harder than the last. So, true to fashion, this past particular time also particularly sucked. Watching my family wave crude sexual gestures to me from the waiting area at the security line, I found myself thinking fondly about the amazing family and friends I have in the States, and all the inconnues (in con ew: unknowns) waiting for me in Paris.

Luckily, as I stepped onto solid ground and said bonjour (bone jewr: hello) to France once again, it wasn't long before the City of Lights decided to offer me some charity by providing me with a pretty sweet housing situation. After a day of frantically emailing every housing offer I came across online while sitting in the dimly-lit and smelly common rooms of a hostel in Montmartre, I managed to set-up a meeting with a family in the 16^th arrondissement (arrow dees mont: neighborhood) of Paris searching for an English speaking babysitter for their three enfants (on fant: young children) in exchange for housing. Three days later, I was lugging my 60-pound valise (val eez: suitcase) up seven flights of stairs to my chambre de bonne (sham-bruh duh bone: converted maid's quarters) overlooking the top of le tour eiffel (luh toor ay-fel: the Eiffel Tower) and hundreds of other quaint stone Parisian apartment buildings similar to mine, rent free for the “simple” task of spending ten hours a week looking after a 2 year-old boy and his 3 year-old and 5 year-old sisters. I'll probably have a mental break-down and reconsider motherhood completely by the end of this year, but for the moment I'm content at least at having a place in Paris to call my very own.

In the meantime, I'm spending most of my days running back and forth between Paris fashion week tents to see if I can stalk any celebrities of Paris Vogue fame, opening French comptes bancaires (kompt ban-kair: bank accounts), and going to primary school orientations. Then, at night, I sit in my room alone listening to the traffic go bye rocking back and forth hoping for some copains (ko-pan: friends) to share the city with. Yes, un peu pathetique (un pu pa-tet-iq: a bit pathetic). I'm just hoping Paris hasn't given up on me as a complete charity case at the moment and still has some amazing, funny, witty French friends in store for me not too far down the road before I end up turning out like some really pathetic hermit Parisian stereotype, like Quasimodo or something.  The sad part is, I already have the scoliosis so a life of freakishness probably isn't far behind...sigh.