La vie Parisienne.

After arriving in Paris homeless, jobless and days away from kindly asking the local homless man if I could share his moth-eaten mattress and disintegrated underlay/doormat/cardboard, I seem to have finally found some luck (and here's hoping I'm not speaking too soon).

After an interesting Disney audition (which I'm going to slot away as 'life experience' and put in a vault I never open, along with my cellphone number and navigational abilities) I met a lovely American girl living in Paris, fresh from an eye-opening trip to South Africa. I let it slip that I was currently homeless and she kindly suggested I bunk with her (in which I became instantly worried about the Parisian style of 'bunking' given that normal Parisian living can include two to a bed) but soon found out she was offering her whole bedroom to me! Bliss. The door doesn't fully open, the large bed takes up more than half of the floor space and my luggage/boxes take up the rest, but there are superb views and its warm. And it has a roof and walls. Bingo.

I said yes before she'd finished and now I'm set up in her cute abode. But alas, I can't stay here forever and have been avidly searching Craigslist and the like (many which are close to being renamed scams.fr) to avoid overstaying my welcome. Finally, I got lucky! (On the apartment search... duh.)

I have nabbed myself my own bed (and room) in the 10th, sharing with 4 other people on the ground floor (ie. no stairs!! Not sure what this is going to mean for my derriere). I have my own bed, bookshelf, desk (think primary school styles) and key! Moving in tomorrow, not sure how. Will tackle that problem, umm, later.

I have also scored myself an interview for an internship with the ECU film festival, but I haven't got my fingers crossed. This may be connected to my last interview yesterday morning, unfortunately and regretfully conducted over the phone, in which I think I told 'Pierre' that I had never handled money, worked in a cafe or in fact drunk coffee, despite applying for a job that only wanted experience cafe workers and people with a reasonable standard of French. I think I made myself pretty clear on both counts. Though not intentionally.

On a side note, the Ice Age is definitely nearing. France seems to think its going to join the charge in showing that it can freeze anything (including homeless man pee that litters the sidewalk. They say don't eat yellow snow? Definitely don't go near yellow frost). I am now an expert at layering so that I can wear as many layers as possible without stretching all my clothing and have also become pretty proficient at stripping my clothes of as fast as possible when arriving indoors to a well/over heated apartment. Not ALL my clothes, obviously.

Tonight I'm off for some drinks with friends. One, to buy beers for a friend that I lost a bet against (the bet involving a sweet-talking, soft lipped French guy) and to bid au revoir, and hopefully a bientot, to the last of my Kiwi friends, off to the bright lights and big cities of London and the US.