After Phinéas showed me the apartment, his sister -- whose name I've already forgotten D: -- came by and volunteered to show me around the quartier of the 18th arrondissement where we're staying. We spoke almost entirely in French and it was pretty easy to understand and communicate with her. She doesn't speak as fast as some other French people, but I don't know if that's intentional so I can understand her better or if that's just how she talks. Starting tomorrow I think I'm going to start trying to speak almost entirely in French and only break into English if I absolutely have to.
There are a lot of metro stations near where we live so commuting should not be a problem at all. There is also a Carrefour in the area so I don't have to go far to do any grocery shopping.
I didn't have too much time to spend with Phinéas' sister (whose name I will learn!) because I had to meet everyone else at the API center in the 1st arrondissement. According to API the commute should have taken about 20-25 minutes, but I gave myself an hour just in case I got lost. Thanks to the tour of the quartier, I found the metro entrance without a problem. And it was extremely easy taking Metro Line 4 to where I needed to go. Finding the API center from its nearest metro stop also wasn't hard, so I don't have to worry about commuting anymore.
The metro seems to be really easy and convenient. But just in case, we're going on a tour of the metro tomorrow as a group -- the API coordinators want to show us how to reach our universities for when the time comes.
I finally "met" my flatmate, Nathan. I knew he looked familiar but I couldn't place my finger on it. Apparently he was in my French Literature class I took last semester. I don't know how I didn't notice that. There were only like 15 people in the class, hahaha. Ooops.
Because he arrived today and still had his luggage with him, API called us a taxi to take us back to our apartment. That turned out to be a disaster. The traffic was completely backed up and there were police cars everywhere -- I don't know why though cause we couldn't see any accident or anything. What should have taken 15-20 minutes took about 45 minutes to an hour. The entire time the driver kept muttering "pute!" (whore!) as other cars and scooters cut us off. Maybe he didn't realize Nathan and I could understand him? Or maybe he just didn't care? Either way, driving in Paris looks so terrifying! If Nathan hadn't had his luggage, it would have been much, much easier to just take the metro than to get a taxi.
I still haven't met the two Swedish students who are also living with us. Apparently they're high school students and not university students and they're on their winter break for a couple more days.
I'm not worried about taking the metro anymore, and after tomorrow's tour I think I'll be pretty confident I can find my way whereever I want to go.
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