I'll be honest. My apartment is not all roses and kugelhopf. The shower drips incessantly and the lady upstairs apparently enjoys salsa dancing at midnight. If anything, it's less "la vie en rose" and more LA VIE BOHÈME. But, following my brand new "Eh, that's France" mantra (my France-tra?), I'm taking it in my size 5 stride. A trip to Ikea and one massive cleaning spree later, I feel ready to let MTV into my crib and show then what I keep in the fridge (clue, pâté and bread.)
I feel especially 'Strasbourgeoise' living above a café bar. Le Chat Perché likes to sit everyone outside my window and they have a soft spot for playing jazz in retort to Mrs Second Floor and her moonlight salsa-thon. It would be fair to say its lively. The one dilemma I currently hold is transportation. For those of you who may not know, Strasbourg has an IMMENSELY good tram system. One shows up every two minutes and unless you hit rush hour, you'll get a seat. But it's costly, like a bus, eventually it adds up. So I thought "I know what's a great idea, a bike!"
Me on a bike, cycling through the city like Victoria Pendleton on her Sunday cycle. Foolproof right?
I discussed the idea at length with my friends who all actively encouraged the rental of a VelHop, joking that I would be a wannabe Amélie, filling my bicycle with baguettes. But they don't know me yet, clumsy, awkward, accident prone me, constantly one step away from knocking over a line of people, breaking the drippy shower and tripping over a pram. Sounds of my failed Cycling Proficiency paper being dropped on a desk in front of me ring in my ears and all of a sudden everything's a little bit too Twilight Zone and I speedwalk straight past the bike rental shop. I am not now, nor have I ever been a strong cyclist. If you've met her, no doubt my mother will have told you about the time I cycled straight into a stationary, parked car.
French life, it appears has changed drastically to the retro-lomography Paris we're so used to Ikea selling us in a nice white frame. I have seen one, yes just the ONE beret since I've been here, not a single onion necklace and hardly any chatter of crème brulée in the street.
The trams run, as I have mentioned - impeccably here, and there's always one little weasel at the back of the coach playing Avicii at full blast, nodding at the long haired handbag wielding pouting girls stood on their iPhones in the corner. I naturally went virtually undetected as I hauled my two suitcases, three bags and pillow cross-city from my hostel to my studio. It appears no matter how much France has modernised, there has not yet been the mass -produced invisibility cloak. But there has been Vine. So look out for the video of a girl with a rucksack on tripping over some tramlines, I'm sure I'm there. IT APPEARS CLUMSINESS IS INTERNATIONAL
This whole post has apparently too been a bit haphazard. I suppose it's just a bit of an update of the goings on of the day, along with some witty anecdotes about my own terrible centre of gravity and desire to appear cool.
So no, my hip French life is not totally macaroons and Madeleine's. It's pesto flavoured crisps and peaches. An odd one, but you'd never turn one down.
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