APARTMENT, bitches

As I was saying, it's time to tell you about my new apartment.  It's about 30 square metres, a one-bedroom, located in a buzzy, vibrant neighbourhood, but in a quiet street.  It's in Montmartre, historical home of artists, can-can dancers, writers, drunks and debauched deviants of every sort - in other words, it's perfect for me.

And because I moved at the beginning of July, I was able to take advantage of the sales - in France, stores are only allowed to have sales in January and July (they slip a few small sales in under the radar at other times of year, but the big sales only happen twice a year), so I have been running around like a maniac to every homewares store in town to pick up some bargains to kit out the apartment.  If I hadn't done it now (in spite of my lack of money), I wouldn't have been able to afford it until January, and that would have sucked.

So, after all the horrible months of oh-crap-I-have-to-move-again-where-am-I-going-to-go, I have been concentrating on making this place a peaceful little haven that I will really enjoy living in.  Because it's mine - for the next year, it's MINE.  The lease is signed, my name is on it, I don't have to worry about roommates or crazy landladies or sub-lets.  And what makes it all the more amazing is the fact that it's impossible that this could have happened - many landlords in Paris won't rent to you if you're a foreigner, most won't rent to you if your monthly salary isn't at least three times the rent they're asking for (which mine isn't), and even if you pass those hurdles, nearly all of them still want a guarantor (which I don't have).  So the fact that I got this place is...miraculous.  It's more likely that I could have won the lottery.  It's more likely that I could have married George Clooney.  Hell, it's more likely that I could have seen a two-headed giraffe riding down the Champs Elysées on a purple motorcycle, singing "Hello, My Baby" in Yiddish.  You get the idea, yes?

Anyway, so hopefully you'll now understand why the first item I bought for my new, impossible apartment was a cocktail set (which, to be fair, was on sale for 18 euros, down from 65 euros). Okay, yes, the fact that the first thing I did was to set up a bar in my new home does make me feel slightly as though I am a couple of sharp suits and a penis away from actually becoming Don Draper, but like I said, it's Montmartre - drunken debauchery is not only acceptable but expected.  And after the stress of the last few months, it's time to celebrate...

Miss K returns

Gentle readers (assuming I still have any after such a long absence), I'm back.  Of course, it's been so long now that I don't even know where to begin, but somewhere back in the mists of time, I believe the last thing I actually posted about was my then-impending move, so let's start there...

Moving in Paris is a strange experience, as I've mentioned before ( Demenagement) - in this particular case it was even stranger.  I was supposed to move into my flat on 1st July, but the only person I knew with an available vehicle wasn't actually available that day (a Friday) or that weekend, and I had to have my stuff out of the old place by then.  What to do?  Well, I was acquainted with the guy who was leaving the flat I was moving into and asked him if I could move my things in a week early.  It wasn't a lot, but on the other hand, it's not a huge apartment and he also needed to pack up his own stuff, so it was really rather excellent of him to agree to this.  So, on the 25th of June, Tiny Dancer's boyfriend showed up with his mini-van at  9am, we dragged my stuff down five flights of stairs, went to the new place, dragged my stuff up one (just one! yayyy!!!) flight, stacked it up in a corner and left.  The whole thing was done in less than an hour, which I think is a record for just about anyone moving house...

Anyhow, so my things moved to the new apartment a week before I did.  I stayed in the old place through the night of the 29th, and stayed at Tiny Dancer's place  on the 30th.  So, on 1st July, my actual moving date, all I had was a little carry-on and my laptop bag.  So I moseyed on up to Montmartre, signed my lease and that was it, I was all moved into my very first official-lease-holding, living-on-my-own Paris apartment.  More on that next time...

Good news, bad news

All right, my pretties, as suggested by the title, I have good news and bad news.  The good news is that I have sooooooooo much to write about:  my very strange moving/unpacking experience, my new apartment, my new neighbours and their shenanigans, my new neighbourhood (where there is an extremely high level of crazy, which I have been photographing, never fear), the "gay" Austrian, the return of Southern Belle, the heartbreaking loss of Furry Man-Whore and my subsequent addiction to wine and sleeping pills just to get me through the night (okay, the wine is nothing new, but the sleeping pills are), the total awesomeness of Tiny Dancer, aaaaand submarines - no, not the sandwiches, but the big metal things that glide around under the surface of the ocean.  It's a long story. 

In fact, it's a whole bunch of long stories, but here's the bad news:  you're going to have to wait just a little longer for them because a) I have my final work deadline for my second job this week, plus b) I am running around like a maniac trying to get a bunch of essentials for my apartment this week while the sales are still on, plus c) most importantly, I STILL do not have the goddamn internet hooked up at home and my neighbours all lock their wifi networks (inconsiderate bastards).  In fact, I am so constrained in terms of time and internet access at the moment that I am writing this very post from work, so I am going to have to leave off now because when I'm here, they really quite like it when I, y'know, work.  But I just wanted to let you know I haven't forgotten about you, gentle readers, and I will be back with you on a regular basis again soon, just give me a few more days...

A brief pause

Gentle readers, we are nearly at the end of the month - I haven't missed a day of posting yet in June, and I fully intend to achieve this goal.  HOWEVER - I am trying to pack up for my impending move, sort out the move logistics, do a very large and time-consuming project for my new job and do my old job as well.  Hmmm - I have gone from having tons of free time to having none at all.  Never fear, my pretties, I won't neglect you, but for the next few days, it's just going to be photos with no yapping from me.  Sorry, I know it will be hard for you live without my bon mots, but do try to be strong - you'll get through it... Somehow...

My Top 10 (so far)

I was looking at my blog stats today, and it's quite interesting to see which posts have been the most popular with you, gentle readers.  And since it also seems that I've had an influx of new readers recently (welcome!), I thought I would let you know what this blog's  Top 10 All-Time Most Popular Posts have been thus far:

10.  No surprise that another compilation made it into the Top 10 - I had so many left-over photos of crappy outfits from 2010 that I needed to do a whole extra post just to share them all:

Totally crap outfits of 2010 (previously unseen)

9.  Ahh, the glamour of living in Paris.  You seemed to enjoy hearing about how moving is just as stressful here as it is anywhere else...

Déménagement

8.  Not much in the way of writing, but some of my prettiest photos ever:
Jour Blanche

7.  Same again - minimal writing in this travel post, but y'all sure seemed to appreciate the photos:
Charming Chartres

6.  One of my sillier moments, but I had fun writing it and it seems you also enjoyed this story of doomed feline romance:

"Tails" of romance from the City of Love

5. Another post about travel - I personally think you only liked it because you're all now hooked on cheese crack:

Why the Belgians are better than the French (Pt 2)

4. Aaaand you're back to the topic of love (although human this time, not feline); coming in at Number Four, my romantic travails in the most romantic (yeah, whatever) city on the planet :

Paris: City of Love. Really?

3.  Seriously, you guys?  This is what you clicked on enough times to put it into third place?  Jeez.  Glad you were all so amused at my hideousness.  Hmph.  And I'll have you know that my eyelashes are, in fact, growing back - I expect to look human again sometime around the end of...erm...June, or thereabouts...
The eyes have it. Well, they used to...

2.  In second place, one of my more educational and well-written (if I do say so myself - it amused me to re-read it, which is always a good sign) posts, featuring the ever-popular Tiny Dancer (previously known as Miss A before I decided I had to give people proper nicknames):
Nature Capitale

1.  And at Number One, this is hands-down, by-a-mile, the most popular blog post I have ever written - I don't know if it's because it features the awesome Mr and Mrs Redneck, or because I took some mighty pretty photos, or because the subject matter (champagne) is interesting to a lot of people, but whatever the appeal is, here it is again:
Reims with the Rednecks

So, having seen what you like (not all of which would have been in my own personal Top 10 of my best work, I have to admit - which goes to show how little I know of popular opinion!), I must conclude that you're totally down with my pretty pictures, but not so much with my yapping.  Hmmm - I am not sure if I should consider that a big "yay!" to my photographic skills and a giant "booo, you suck!" to my writing skills, but I'm hoping it all just averages out over time.  Regardless, thanks for following/subscribing/visiting, and I'll try to keep up with your high standards, gentle-but-demanding readers!  Much love, Miss K

Sunshine and merde

Gentle readers, it is springtime in Paris once again - the flowers are blooming, the leaves are sprouting, and I think it's entirely possible that my eyelashes have started to grow back after the whole black eye debacle (The eyes have it. Well, they used to...).  Oh, all right - I might just be imagining the whole eyelash-growth thing, but springtime is definitely here.  Yesterday it was sunny and about 23 Celcius, and it's predicted to be like that most of this week.

So, will Miss K be gallivanting around the city like a frisky little spring lamb?  Sadly, no - I just found out that I will have to leave my lovely apartment in a couple of months and find a new place to live,  which will doubtless be an arduous and time-consuming process.  Merde!  On the bright side, if I have to go live in a cardboard box under the Pont Neuf, the weather will be much nicer, but let's hope for better, shall we?  So if any of y'all know of a rat-infested broom closet that might be available for rent somewhere in Paris around the 1st of June, do let me know...

Déménagement

Let's face it, moving is always a hassle.  Particularly so in Paris, where buildings often don't have elevators, where staircases are always curved and narrow, and where streets are usually so tiny that a moving van will block them completely.  Ah, good times.

So yesterday I helped Tiny Dancer and her boyfriend move.  Partly out of the goodness of my heart (yes, my frozen black heart does occasionally contain some goodness) and partly because I am fully aware that I will need help with my upcoming move and I am storing up goodwill and favours like a squirrel storing up for winter.  What?  At least I admit it...

Anyway, I turn up at 11am to help with the packing and, as I've mentioned before, Tiny Dancer lives on a street frequented by ladies who are in a very particular line of work (if you know what I mean, and I think you do) and I must say, I was rather surprised to see the ladies out in force at 11am on a Sunday morning; perhaps it's due to my upbringing as a country hick, but I wasn't expecting that.  So exactly how does this work?  A guy goes to church, gets himself all absolved of this week's sinning, and then gets a quick blowjob on the way home in order to get a start on next week's sinning?  Or perhaps he pays for sex on his way to church?  It all seems a bit odd to me, but then again, I'm not a religious person, so what do I know?

Back to the move - we finish the packing and then, around 5pm, the muscle shows up to do the heavy lifting.  All of that goes well until it's time to move the sofa.  So picture this: three big strong men trying to move one very large sofa down four flights of one very narrow spiral staircase.  Well, you don't need to picture it because I took photos:

The sofa is so big you can't even see the guys

Half an hour later, it was halfway down

Four stories down, it finally got into the van

At the new place - stairs slightly wider but still curved...

And in the grand tradition of helping friends move, they treated us to large amounts of food and alcohol afterward, hence my completely lame post yesterday.  Everyone else was drinking beer, so I had to drink all the wine - yes, a whole bottle on my own.  What?  I'd had a long day...

Filler

Okay,  I totally planned to post about what it's like to move in Paris but my internet connection is crap and loading my photos is taking forever, and quite frankly, as part of my reward (food and booze) for helping friends move, I have drunk an entire bottle of wine by myself tonight.  Normally not a problem but as I've been booze-free for two whole weeks (well, okay, I had three cocktails one night but whatever) it's made me a bit sleepy and I am heading for bed. So I am still trying to do this whole posting-every-day thing but some days you're just going to get what you get. Sorry!!!

One simple task

Do you ever just need to do one simple task and end up having to do eighteen other things just to make that one simple task possible?  So today I decide to change my sheets.  So I strip the bed.   Then I realize that I have no clean sheets to put on the bed because the others are all in my giant laundry pile.  Okay, so I have to do laundry - simple.  Wellllllll, not so much - for me, doing laundry involves loading it into a suitcase, lugging it down six flights of stairs, dragging it five blocks to the laundromat, waiting around for it and then hauling it all back again - an extremely inconvenient and time-consuming affair.  Particularly today, because I don't have a suitcase available.  Why?  Because I've been pretty much packed and ready to move since the beginning of September, which now looks like it won't happen until the end of November (more on this another time).  But the point is that all my suitcases are already full.  So in order to just do laundry, I have to completely unpack one of these suitcases, which I do.  

So I go off to the laundromat.  When I return, I unpack the clean laundry onto the half of my bed which is not already occupied by the contents of the suitcase I had to unpack in order to do the freakin' laundry in the first place.  Then I start re-packing the suitcase, but I decide I should put those clothes into one of those groovy space-saver bags that you shrink down to nothing by sucking the air out with a vacuum.  Then I realize that there are clothes in another suitcase that could also fit in that bag.  So I unpack that whole suitcase as well and transfer those clothes to the space-saver bag, too.  And of course, this whole genius idea of mine necessitates me getting out the vacuum.  Sigh.  You see how my day went?  So I used the vacuum, repacked suitcase #1, repacked suitcase #2, put away my laundry and finally, finally put fresh sheets on the goddamn bed.  That was my day, people.  One simple task that took nine hours.  Even in Paris, that ain't fun. 

Drama queen? Moi?

Last Tuesday, my landlady informed me that her daughter is returning to Paris, and as a result, I am going to have to move out.  My initial reaction was Aaaarrrrggghhhhhhhh!!!  But of course, my landlady being as cool as she is, immediately followed up this piece of bad news by having a solution to my problem - she has a friend renovating a studio apartment in the (very cool 6th arrondissement), which is renting for less than I pay now, and the friend has promised to let me have it if I want it (which I am sure I will, but I can't see it until the renovation finishes at the end of the month).  

So it's all good, but that still didn't prevent me from having the mother of all meltdowns the next day.  I think it was delayed stress at the thought of moving, so I worried about that all morning.  Then I went to see about a part-time job, but of course it had already been filled (so in my mind, that turned into: I will never get another job here and will live in poverty and use up all my savings and become a bag lady), and then I went and sat in the park for a while and there were couples everywhere (so in my mind, that turned into: I don't have a boyfriend and I will never have another because no one fancies me because I'm a hideous hag and I will die alone and mice will eat half my face before anyone even notices I'm missing).  As you can see, I was having a serious case of drama-queen-itis.

But I'm over it now. Mostly...