The apartment!
Christine and I live in Foyer de Jeunes Travailleurs (Foyer for Young Workers). It's an apartment complex for young people. It's pretty cute. There are some strange smells, especially in the stairwell (It smells like the birdhouse at the zoo), but it's nice. There is a computer room downstairs, a lobby, and a diner/gameroom.
We live on the 5th floor, but because the French count the first floor as the "Ground Floor" and the second floor as the "First Floor," we are technically living on the "Fourth Floor" / "Quatrieme Etage."
Here's the view from our bedroom window:
This cathedral rings its bells at the most random times and for soooo long. It also rings them on the hour, I believe. Basically, it loud and noisy and makes it almost hard to appreciate its existence--especially in the morning!
And from our kitchen window:
Residents are allowed to smoke in their rooms...or were at least used to. So our room (and the pillows and curtains) smelled terrible at first.
When you first walk in, to the right is the bathroom door (actually, la salle de bain and the toilette is down the hallway outside of our apartment).
Inside the bathroom (It's reallllly small):
We bought toilet paper (It's pink) because we forgot we didn't have a toilet in the bathroom! We can return it, though.
The shower is to the right. I now believe that there are shower curtains available in France, but Christine and I looked for them and could not find them in either Auchan or Carrefour (two meijer-esque stores). Given that we couldn't find them and because Marianne's house and our apartment did not have them, then all of France possibly did not. I am told that this is false.
I think this is a picture of the shower, but it may not be. The internet is going very slowly, so I am not sure:
Here is the seemingly makeshift shower rod.
After showering, we have to dry our towels on the furnace (?) grating. The furnace isn't on yet.
Anyways, here's the kitchen. We moved the table from the left side of the room to the right side.
Here's our sink, range (no oven or microwave), fridge, and cupboard space under the sink (No, there is no longer a cord plugged in next to our sink--that was temporary!):
We have to brush our teeth and wash our face at this sink, because the janitor is coming on Monday to fix our bathroom sink (It is clogged).
And here's more storage space:
This is our room (That's my bed):
(That's Christine's bed. It's only messy because we had just gotten there and she already was putting things away.)
Here are my shoes. It's not too interesting:
And here's the shelf we have for all of our miscellaneous items, since we do not have any drawers. We have a closet, one side with shelves for clothes and another side for hanging things up!
I'm not sure why this picture is fuzzy, but here is the public bathroom's sink and toilet.
In the past two days, Christine and I have gone to both Auchan and Carrefour. Grocery shopping is overwhelming to say the least! There's different brands, a TON more cheese and other products, and other products either offered in smaller quantities or missing altogether. Also, there are absolutely no free plastic bags for your purchases. Rather you need to buy reusable bags. This is probably a better approach to being more ecologically friendly than the voluntary bags you may buy in the USA (especially if you keep forgetting yours at home--eventually you WILL remember or you will end up buying a million reusable ones).
Because the pillow and bedding was infiltrated by smoke, I bought another bed spread on top of the one I brought and two pillows. Here's my bedspread:
The pillows are square here:
And they look very lumpy when shoved into rectangular American pillow cases:
We bought an air freshener and plugged it into the kitchen. It seems to be working pretty well.
I've had to do some DIY things of my own. I forgot a hamper, so I improvised and took a hanger for pants and the couvert-lit (bed cover) plastic bag and turned it into a small but functional hanging hamper:
We also do not have a tea kettle or mugs, so I boiled water in a pot and used a bowl as a teacup:
And here's me drinking it!
Alas! there is a problem that is not so easily reconcilable: My adapter or converter does not fit into the outlets in our apartment complex (although it did fit into the outlets in Marianne's house)...
Here's the adapter:
And here's the outlet:
So i have been using Christine's extra one--THANK GOD. I almost had a heart attack when my computer was dying and I couldn't plug it in to recharge my computer. Also, they had told us that the WIFI didnt reach our floor, but it does! THE END FOR NOW!
We live on the 5th floor, but because the French count the first floor as the "Ground Floor" and the second floor as the "First Floor," we are technically living on the "Fourth Floor" / "Quatrieme Etage."
Here's the view from our bedroom window:
This cathedral rings its bells at the most random times and for soooo long. It also rings them on the hour, I believe. Basically, it loud and noisy and makes it almost hard to appreciate its existence--especially in the morning!
And from our kitchen window:
Residents are allowed to smoke in their rooms...or were at least used to. So our room (and the pillows and curtains) smelled terrible at first.
When you first walk in, to the right is the bathroom door (actually, la salle de bain and the toilette is down the hallway outside of our apartment).
Inside the bathroom (It's reallllly small):
We bought toilet paper (It's pink) because we forgot we didn't have a toilet in the bathroom! We can return it, though.
The shower is to the right. I now believe that there are shower curtains available in France, but Christine and I looked for them and could not find them in either Auchan or Carrefour (two meijer-esque stores). Given that we couldn't find them and because Marianne's house and our apartment did not have them, then all of France possibly did not. I am told that this is false.
I think this is a picture of the shower, but it may not be. The internet is going very slowly, so I am not sure:
Here is the seemingly makeshift shower rod.
After showering, we have to dry our towels on the furnace (?) grating. The furnace isn't on yet.
Anyways, here's the kitchen. We moved the table from the left side of the room to the right side.
Here's our sink, range (no oven or microwave), fridge, and cupboard space under the sink (No, there is no longer a cord plugged in next to our sink--that was temporary!):
We have to brush our teeth and wash our face at this sink, because the janitor is coming on Monday to fix our bathroom sink (It is clogged).
And here's more storage space:
This is our room (That's my bed):
(That's Christine's bed. It's only messy because we had just gotten there and she already was putting things away.)
Here are my shoes. It's not too interesting:
And here's the shelf we have for all of our miscellaneous items, since we do not have any drawers. We have a closet, one side with shelves for clothes and another side for hanging things up!
I'm not sure why this picture is fuzzy, but here is the public bathroom's sink and toilet.
In the past two days, Christine and I have gone to both Auchan and Carrefour. Grocery shopping is overwhelming to say the least! There's different brands, a TON more cheese and other products, and other products either offered in smaller quantities or missing altogether. Also, there are absolutely no free plastic bags for your purchases. Rather you need to buy reusable bags. This is probably a better approach to being more ecologically friendly than the voluntary bags you may buy in the USA (especially if you keep forgetting yours at home--eventually you WILL remember or you will end up buying a million reusable ones).
Because the pillow and bedding was infiltrated by smoke, I bought another bed spread on top of the one I brought and two pillows. Here's my bedspread:
The pillows are square here:
And they look very lumpy when shoved into rectangular American pillow cases:
We bought an air freshener and plugged it into the kitchen. It seems to be working pretty well.
I've had to do some DIY things of my own. I forgot a hamper, so I improvised and took a hanger for pants and the couvert-lit (bed cover) plastic bag and turned it into a small but functional hanging hamper:
We also do not have a tea kettle or mugs, so I boiled water in a pot and used a bowl as a teacup:
And here's me drinking it!
Alas! there is a problem that is not so easily reconcilable: My adapter or converter does not fit into the outlets in our apartment complex (although it did fit into the outlets in Marianne's house)...
Here's the adapter:
And here's the outlet:
So i have been using Christine's extra one--THANK GOD. I almost had a heart attack when my computer was dying and I couldn't plug it in to recharge my computer. Also, they had told us that the WIFI didnt reach our floor, but it does! THE END FOR NOW!