Paris So Far

So I arrived in Paris 10 days ago now, I spent the flight chatting to an Australian guy who was over in Europe promoting his surf business. He showed me some pretty crazy videos of the same business in winter going down mountains in cars, going over a jump and landing in a swimming pool!

I took the train into Paris and then met Fred at his metro stop (Fred is the guy I am living with, he is Christine's brother (Christine is my host mum from my year abroad in Geneva)) The apartment is lovely, a large lounge which Fred uses as a recording studio too (he's a musician, check him out on myspace - meetfred) a nice sized kitchen, a bathroom and a bedroom with a little balcony and a view over the Sacré Coeur. Fred made me feel right at home and we went for a walk around the area, there are two lovely parks right nearby. The view of the sunset from his apartment was incredible. I was pretty tired and got an early night ready for work the next day.

I turned up at work after getting a bit lost on the metro only to find no one was there. I waited around for 3 hours before leaving! Then I headed home and attempted to find a phone deal to suit my needs, which is nearly impossible! The French system of pay and go is sooo backwards! The credit expires, so you have a certain amount of days to use it in, depending on how much you put on. 5euros for example will most likely last you 5 days, 10 euros might last you 2 weeks and what you haven't used vanishes! I ended up buying a sim card for 30 euros but it came with 15 euros free credit and 100 texts. The trouble is to get 10 of those 15 euros and the free texts I have to fill in an application form and send them a photocopy of my passport! It's all so backwards! I then went round and round in circles trying to activate the stupid sim card, phoning this number and that number. I eventually left it with Fred and it wasn't until Friday the he was able to register it for me!

Work the next day was a bit more of a success; people were there! The boss didn't apologise profusely enough for my liking though and wasn't the most warm and welcoming of characters; he arrived late and then gave me the task of phoning all the beauty salons in Paris from the yellow pages, trying to sell them our services of creating flyers and other such papery goodies. I quickly became very bored and did not have much success.

The next day was pretty much the same except I was phoning restaurants offering them menus and serviettes. The boss had real trouble grasping that I do actually understand him and that I do speak French. He spoke to me as if I was an idiot, despite his wife shouting at him each time he did it. He also took to asking the other girls in the office to tell me things, when I was standing right by him and heard him tell them what to tell me. Thursday and Friday were the same, but I left early on Friday to go to Newcastle for Richard's birthday. A very tiring weekend!! Lots of partying and it was full of emotions for me, after my awful week at work I certainly didn't want to leave to go back to Paris, but despite doing our best to miss the plane (and the metros being cancelled to the airport) Georgia and I made it to the airport with a few minutes to spare for security checks. I ended up wearing a lot of my clothes on the way back because the easyjet staff took their job way to seriously and wouldn't let me on board with my slightly oversized hand luggage (I say slightly, it fitted into their measuring box, but it was very snug and therefore too big).

Work on Monday was freezing. I began to feel really depressed at work. There are 4 other people who work there; the boss, his wife and 2 girls. I spend all day sitting in an office by myself trawling through the yellow pages repeating the same words in French over and over again. I began to get ill from the cold (and probably from the weekend's antics aswell) as there was no heating in my office. The other 2 girls that work there are really nice but I think share the same dislike for the boss. I'm sure it's illegal to smoke in the office but he seems to think it's ok.

By Tuesday midmorning I had had enough. The boss had asked me to clean the outside window where someone had drawn on it in pen. I felt like telling him that it certainly wasn't my job to be doing that at all, let alone in the rain. He also told me I had the heating on too high (the girls had brought me in a little free standing heater) and that I would get ill. I responded by telling him that I was already ill from sitting in a freezing cold office all day the day before. Shortly after this episode I asked him if I could do something other than telesales and he said that after lunch he would give me something different. Then just before lunch he came in and told me that my french had improved so much that he thought I should continue with telesales for another afternoon. I felt like screaming at him that just because today was the first day that he was ready to admit that I could actually speak French, did not mean that it was all down to his plan to put me on telesales that my French had improved. I went to lunch in a fury and vented it all out to poor Georgia! Luckily he let me go early that afternoon.

Wednesday I was ill. I don't know if I just couldn't handle another day of him but my head was pounding and my throat was sore. I texted him and told him I was taking the morning off and he told me to take the day off, so he clearly has some sort of soul, hidden, deep down inside him!

Other than my work life I have been out a few times with Lauren, Georgia and Sarah for after work drinks but sometimes they turn into all evening drinks! I haven't seen much of Paris as of yet and I have yet to sort out a bank, but other than that I seem to be on top of things. I am also looking for Salsa lessons in the hope that I may meet more French people doing that.

Right, I think I'm up to date now, hopefully posts in the future will be shorter! And hopefully tomorrow at work I will be doing something other than telesales, I checked and it's certainly not in my job description!