Today's Ma Meilleure Journée post is from Laura at The Everyday Life of a Young American Girl in France. Laura's blog was one of the first blogs I started reading when I moved to Paris and even though she's living in beautiful Lille our questions and confusions about living in this country always seem to parallel one another. In her guest post, Laura shares the difficulty of finding housing and the great feeling of accomplishment and belonging she felt when she finally secured her own apartment. Read below to hear more about what made Laura's best day in France. Thank you for contributing Laura!
Laura's Meilleure Journée
When I started my second year living in France, I moved into FBF's (my boyfriend) mom’s house. It was going to be a temporary set up while I looked for housing. Although finding a place to live had been a nightmare my first year in the country, I was confident it would be much easier round two.
This time I already had French roommates all lined up. We simply needed to find the location and we’d be set.
Unfortunately, nothing is ever simple or easy in this country. Over a month had gone by, and we still didn’t have a place to live. Worse than this, my supposed French friends were not only not helping me look for a place, they had stopped talking to me altogether.
What happened to make them go from really wanting me to live with them (they had been the ones to ask me if I would live with them), to clearly just giving up on the project was something I could not understand.
So I too gave up on living with them, and started looking for a place myself. The main problem was this: there are more people who want housing than there is housing available in Lille (this is apparently a problem all over France).
I tried to find new people to become roommates with, but for whatever reason people kept telling me that I was their second choice and wishing me good luck on my search.
The second problem was I was looking for a place to live in November, and because Lille has a big student population, most people get their housing in June.
I was looking at studios, but most of them were either ridiculously over priced, or in unsafe neighborhoods because all the good ones had already been taken. I was definitely not going to live alone in a bad part of the city.
The third problem was the fact that I am a foreigner. A couple of times, I got hung up on or people would not show up to rendez-vous with me. This is because in France, you cannot kick a tenant out in the winter months, and so a foreigner
could live in your building and not pay the rent, and then move back to their home country, without the landlord ever seeing a penny of the rent money he/she was owed.
So when I finally found the perfect studio, within my price range and exactly where Iwanted to be located in the city, I pulled out all the stops in order to get it.
I made sure my interested was known by talking to the landlord and sending him emails (all in French, of course), getting him the documents he wanted as soon as possible, and keeping my fingers crossed at all times.
When he picked me as the tenant out of all the other applicants, I couldn’t believe my luck!
Moving into my studio was one of my meilleure journées for two reasons. It was a meilleure journée in the sense of an Ah-ha moment – I proved to myself that I could get through all the French B.S. and speak the language well enough to be able to find a great apartment. I felt like after that, I could take on anything else France decided to throw at me.
But it was also a meilleure journée in the more traditional sense. It was so nice to get my independence back. I have loved city life, and I love living in France all that much more because of my studio. It’s the meilleure journée that
keeps on giving.
Be sure to visit Laura's blog for more about French customs, things to do when parents visit you abroad, and finding amazing pizza!
Have a wonderful day! Tomorrow is Friday, yay!
Laura's Meilleure Journée
When I started my second year living in France, I moved into FBF's (my boyfriend) mom’s house. It was going to be a temporary set up while I looked for housing. Although finding a place to live had been a nightmare my first year in the country, I was confident it would be much easier round two.
This time I already had French roommates all lined up. We simply needed to find the location and we’d be set.
Unfortunately, nothing is ever simple or easy in this country. Over a month had gone by, and we still didn’t have a place to live. Worse than this, my supposed French friends were not only not helping me look for a place, they had stopped talking to me altogether.
What happened to make them go from really wanting me to live with them (they had been the ones to ask me if I would live with them), to clearly just giving up on the project was something I could not understand.
So I too gave up on living with them, and started looking for a place myself. The main problem was this: there are more people who want housing than there is housing available in Lille (this is apparently a problem all over France).
I tried to find new people to become roommates with, but for whatever reason people kept telling me that I was their second choice and wishing me good luck on my search.
The second problem was I was looking for a place to live in November, and because Lille has a big student population, most people get their housing in June.
I was looking at studios, but most of them were either ridiculously over priced, or in unsafe neighborhoods because all the good ones had already been taken. I was definitely not going to live alone in a bad part of the city.
The third problem was the fact that I am a foreigner. A couple of times, I got hung up on or people would not show up to rendez-vous with me. This is because in France, you cannot kick a tenant out in the winter months, and so a foreigner
could live in your building and not pay the rent, and then move back to their home country, without the landlord ever seeing a penny of the rent money he/she was owed.
So when I finally found the perfect studio, within my price range and exactly where Iwanted to be located in the city, I pulled out all the stops in order to get it.
I made sure my interested was known by talking to the landlord and sending him emails (all in French, of course), getting him the documents he wanted as soon as possible, and keeping my fingers crossed at all times.
When he picked me as the tenant out of all the other applicants, I couldn’t believe my luck!
Moving into my studio was one of my meilleure journées for two reasons. It was a meilleure journée in the sense of an Ah-ha moment – I proved to myself that I could get through all the French B.S. and speak the language well enough to be able to find a great apartment. I felt like after that, I could take on anything else France decided to throw at me.
But it was also a meilleure journée in the more traditional sense. It was so nice to get my independence back. I have loved city life, and I love living in France all that much more because of my studio. It’s the meilleure journée that
keeps on giving.
Be sure to visit Laura's blog for more about French customs, things to do when parents visit you abroad, and finding amazing pizza!
Have a wonderful day! Tomorrow is Friday, yay!
RSS Feed
