Montmartre, IKEA, and M. Bost

After a very eventful week I have finally gotten around to updating. Sorry for the long wait.

We weren't able to extend our stay at the old lady's place in Le Kremlin-Bicetre (she wanted to rent it out long term to a student) so we spent a few very frantic days trying to find somewhere to live. After many classified ads and phone calls later we were really struggling, our best options being hideously expensive by-the-week holiday flats or a studio in a really dodgy neighbourhood for 900/m. With all of our friends and colleagues living in tiny studios of their own we didn't even have anyone's place to crash out, so in desperation we had a chat with Dave, the Sandeman's regional manager who sorted us out an awesome deal! This does sound odd, but please bear with me. We are actually living in the company's Paris office which is a 1br apartment in Montmartre. Dave is letting us stay here for the month (Tom did a lot of unpaid work on the bike tour so he did owe us a favour) and its been awesome so far! We are in an amazing fun neighbourhood, on a tiny cobbled street on the hill (just up the road from where Van Gogh used to live) with tons of cute bars and takeout and shopping nearby. We are much closer to work which saves us transit time. We have our own bedroom and bathroom that are separate from the office bit. The entrance (what would have been the lounge room) is the office and the kitchen comes off of that (we share that with Emma, our manager) and then we get our own bit on the other side of that! In the long term this arrangement would never work but for our last month in Paris it is great! The apartment was a bit disused (ie filthy) so we spent a few days cleaning the place up. Then had a day trip to IKEA where we spent a few hundred euros on new furniture and kitchenware for the place. Since Dave is not charging us rent at all we figured we would show our apprectiation by sprucing up the place. It has been really fun and social being here. The ticket seller checks into the office at 9am where they are now met by Tom offering cups of coffee/tea or even eggs on a good day. Tonight was payin night and we had drinks and burgers for everyone. It's such a central location as well compared to where we were.

Living arrangements aside, this afternoon I went out for coffee with M. Bost! He was in Paris for a few days visiting his brother and gave me a call. It was really wierd and out of context to see a teacher here but we actually got on quite well and had a nice chat about whats happening at Ascham and the differences between Paris and Sydney life.

My personal highlight of the last few weeks was going to see the Lion King with Tom. After much pleading he finally caved and we bought tickets to the stage show and it was a really awesome night! Hearing Hakuna Matata sung in French got a laugh out of both of us, but the costumes and the dancing were amazing, they put on a really good show and we were very entertained even from our budget very-last-row seats. I was singing 'The Circle of Life' for days afterward.

I'm still really enjoying work and giving the tours is getting easier and easier. We are slowly saving up the money to start the final plans for our last bit of travel for the year - heading to Brussels and Amsterdam on the way back to Austria.

I'm going to put in a public congratulations to Sarah in here as well for her work on the Ascham forest. I just saw the photos on facebook and I am very impressed with her efforts. Tom and I are very proud of you!!!

Since we're living in the office I have unlimited internet access in non-business hours Paris time (ie. when Emma isn't in here) so hopefully I can catch some of you on Skype/MSN soon!

Bisous
Amanda