I'm moving to Paris!

Well hello there! Sorry I've been a stranger around here but life has been hectic, which means that I have lots to chat about, naturally. 

No, the title isn't clickbait (though I can't guarantee for my badly photoshopped photo *it's artsy ok?*), I'm actually moving to Paris. Very soon, in like 3 days. And for just 4 months. Lol, what am I like eh?

Long story short for everyone who admittedly hasn't had the time and energy to sift through my posts and piece information together, I study French and Italian at university and we have to go to the countries whose languages we study in our third year. You can choose to go to only one of them or to split your year between the two. Now, why would I ever make my life easy and go to just one place and have only one accommodation to sort out and one set of documents to worry about? Nope, that's just not how I roll so I voluntarily signed up to split my year abroad. Then hell was unleashed upon my poor unassuming self.

My plan was this: go to Paris from September to December, study something arty and cool  and then move to Italy somewhere (?!?) and take up an internship in something (?!?) relating to the arts and culture. As you can tell, indecision was my middle name. Thankfully, or perhaps unluckily, we have a separate office at university that deals with everything relating to the year abroad and they help us and monitor our progress. They also provided us with a list of all the universities they have an Erasmus agreement with and that we can choose from. On that list was Sorbonne university and I had half-heartedly penciled-in a course in communications there when, 2 days before the deadline of submission of said form, we get an urgent email saying that the École du Louvre had been added as well. Did someone just say there's a school within the Louvre, like the biggest best museum in the world? Come again?! Naturally, I erased the Sorbonne course and confidently inked in what I thought was my destiny to study at the Louvre. My application was received, approved and waiting for the final green-light from the Erasmus body or Louvre itself, I don't really know but it had gotten to March 2016 and I still had no concrete document saying "Yay, you're gonna study at the Louvre in September, pack your bags!". So I emailed the Louvre and asked, certain that it was just a glitch and they were planning on emailing me happy emojis few days later. 

PLOT TWIST: it turns out the Louvre isn't even in the Erasmus scheme, never was and had never planned on being in a student exchange with Cambridge University. You know that feeling of laughing on the outside but internally, you're crumbling like a dry cheesecake base? Yup, that was me, re-reading the email dozens of times in the hope that maybe I forgot how to English or that the lady at the Louvre had a concussion and forgot I was on a secret list of admitted students.  Sadly there was no error in her reply, just an error of communication that costed me my nerves for a good month which also coincided with exam term. Because what else can one do during exams than send emails in French and write cover letter after cover letter?

Me, when anyone would ask about my impending Year Abroad

To quote the university office in charge with year abroad planning *which to this day I blame for not telling me and f***ing me over pretty much*, "All's well that ends well". As if it was magically allright without me lifting a finger or developing yet another white hair... No shade thrown to the École du Louvre whatsoever, they were super helpful and courteous and they accepted my application as an individual request. I will thus only be studying there for one semester, very conveniently avoiding their exam term and just enjoying the artsy ride pretty much. Ideal for visiting Paris and practicing my French in cafes if you ask me, even if my baguette & croissant budget may be a bit curbed by the fact I get no Erasmus grant or external funding. 

In the meantime, I'm stubbornly avoiding trying to sort out my wardrobe that needs to be compactly packed into two suitcases and concentrating on what I need to visit in Paris, off the beaten track of the Eiffel Tower-Louvre-Notre Dame tourist triangle, suggestions are very much welcomed! 

Another chatty blog post on how I found accommodation in Paris will follow shortly, that one's also a hoot!