Comfort Zone

On Saturday, I slept in until 3:30pm. I guess the jet lag finally kicked in - if you think about it, I actually woke up at 9:30am in toronto, which I personally think is pretty impressive for a Saturday, n'est-ce pas? I finally dragged my ass out of the house at around 5pm to get some food and go grocery shopping. Last November, when I was in Paris with Caleb and Lidia came to visit, she found this Japanese area by the 1er arr., near the Louvre and Opera. The main street that stretches across this area is called Rue Ste. Anne, and within this little area, there were a ton of Japanese restaurants, ran by actual japanese people, and my favourites are the ramen shops. We had eaten at this really authentic ramen place but while we were in search of it, we stumbled across this place called K-mart (read: Korean Mart). You have no idea how excited I was at the time - they not only had all types of Korean and Japanese groceries, but also pre-made food like banchan and onigiri to take home. I can't remember if it was the same day or a couple of days later, I dragged Caleb back and bought a couple of instant noodle, because Parisien food just hasn't been sitting well with me.

 Alas, the first thing I needed to do now that I'm actually living here is to stock up on things I actually want to eat. I had a pretty good routine back in Toronto. I knew exactly what I wanted and where to go when I needed it. But now that I'm in Paris, it's really a challenge for my comfort zone. In Toronto, I always bought these milk tea. It's the only beverage I really drink besides water when I'm at home. Here, there is less Chinese influence, but more Korean and Japanese, so with the abundant availability of Calpis, will I be changing my ways? For the moment, I just bought all these new types of Japanese and Korean instant noodles. I haven't bought anything new to try yet. But needless to say, I will be figuring out what the French eat regularly and see what I like and don't like. All the restaurants serve really weird things, even the starbucks here.

The place in which I am staying is a bit out of my comfort zone as well, and I need to veer very far from my old routines to feel completely adjusted. For example,

• I never make my bed. Both my landlord/roommate and I sleep on a pull-out couch. If I do not put away the pull-out couch after I wake up, then my room will have no room to move around. So I must make my bed daily and put the bed away.
• I never wear shoes in the house. I can't walk around barefoot here at all, so I am always wearing a pair of water-proof flipflops in the house.
• I never do my dishes right away. She does, so I have to. 
• I would never let an animal that roams outside regularly also roam freely in the bathroom. The cat here roams around outside and inside wherever she wants. The only place I can keep her out is my own room. Seeing pawprints all over the tub and the sink makes me cringe so hard.

Among other things, there are things like, i can't have a stand-up shower here, there are no clothing dryer here, the kitchen is tiny and cluttered, etc., etc., etc. But the bright side about all of this is the fact that i live in a gigantic penthouse apartment between the eiffel tower and the invalides. The penthouse, of course, is not a penthouse we see in the playboy magazine or anything but just the upper floor of an apartment building. For Paris, this nearly 1000 sqft apartment with back to back terrace is probably worth over 1M Euro, despite how dated the apartment is. A coworker of mine had mentioned that what i am paying to stay here is extremely expensive, but after she saw the place, she said it wasn't expensive at all. 

 
I will eventually go apartment hunting and see what my options are, but I wonder if I were to find my own apartment, I'd learn nothing about stepping out of my comfort zone.