Je suis arrivé

It should come as no surprise that I did not actually pack until the morning of my departure. And in that craziness, for the first time in many years, I was actually a bit nervous and unsettled as I locked up the house and rushed to the airport to catch my flight.

But as they say, "All's well that ends well."

It's now 10:20pm and I am sitting in my room at the Hotel Cyrnos on Rue Montmartre in Paris. Everything went smoothly - no delays, no lost baggage (thank God). I got to the hotel exhausted around 2pm this afternoon but before taking a nap, I ventured out to survey the neighborhood and determine just how close my apartment really is to the hotel (since I'm going to have to drag 3 rather large rolling suitcases over there tomorrow). Luckily, the apartment building is in fact just around the corner. This should make things pretty easy in the morning.

After a yummy baguette I went back to the hotel and crashed for a few hours. When I got up it was dark and I decided to venture out again to find a Tabac where I could purchase a SIM card for the unlocked cell phone I bought on eBay for $20. After weeks of research, the best (and easiest) way to go seemed to be a company called Mobiho. And indeed it was! The Mobiho Web site had a list of locations where you could buy SIMs and I went to one just down the street from the hotel. I popped it in and... voila! I have a French mobile :-) The only tricky part is the Mohibo Web site is completely in French... but somehow, I figured it out. All incoming calls are free and calls I make to the US only run 18 cents a minute. The SIM card was 15 euro but comes with an 8 euro credit and is easily refillable. If anyone wants my cell number, email me and I'll send it to you (I can send and receive text messages as well). Not sure you'll want to pay international calling rates to chat, but since incoming calls are free for me, call away ;-)

I also found a little market closeby that I suspect I'll be doing a lot of shopping at. I'm looking forward to getting into the apartment tomorrow so I can buy food and cook rather that have to buy every meal out. Of course that didn't stop me from getting a chicken (I mean poulet) pannini on the way back to the hotel tonight!

And that's it for day one: getting over jet lag, scoping out the neighborhood and getting my cell phone working.

Tomorrow will be a busy day. I have to move into the apartment, buy my month-long metro pass and go over to the Alliance Francais to finalize registration and pay the balance due for the course I'll be taking. Tomorrow night I'll be posting photos of my tiny (but very own, at least for a month) studio apartment - yeah!

p.s. It's cold (weather.com says it's 41 and feels like 34), but I love it! I put my diet coke and water bottles out on the window ledge to chill for the evening :-)