Greetings from Paris! I've been here since last Thursday morning, but it still doesn't seem real that I'm here for an entire year. Since arriving, the only thing that has been on my mind has been finding a permanent place to live. I was seriously stressing about not having a permanent address, and so the last few days have been spent doing nothing but apartment hunting and worrying about being homeless. Thankfully, yesterday afternoon I got an e-mail from a woman who had interviewed me on Friday, offering me a room in her flat, and I am now happy to announce that I have a home for the next nine or ten months. I'm going to be living in a four bedroom apartment with a lady named Beatrice, and her two kids who are only there two nights a week (they spend the rest of the time at their dad's), located in the 19e. Now, originally I had been hesitant about this particular place because I had wanted to live with people who are a little closer to me in age and spirit, but after having spent a couple of days looking at some real dumps/apartments, I was feeling pretty discouraged and the anxiety was beginning to set in. Besides, the room that I'm getting is the nicest room I saw (it has a fireplace!), in the cleanest apartment i saw, AND comes with a fully stocked kitchen AND an in house washing machine (rare for Paris). The only downer about the place is that it's definitely not walking distance to my school, and the location is a little out of the way. That being said, I am supremely relieved to have found housing, and am now ready to relax a little and enjoy Paris before classes begin in three weeks.

On one final note, although it's been five years since I was last in Europe, it's nice to see that some things never change: it seems that Parisian couples just can't seem to keep their hands off of each other, and everywhere you turn there are people practically falling over each other in the streets and walking into oncoming traffic, passionately engaged in the art of tasting each others throats.