Going parisian ... Not my intention, though.

    I began my studies living in a 160 square meter flat, for free. I'm on the verge of continuing my studies in a 9 square meter flat (well, a more appropriate description would be «cupboard»), which I pay for 400€ a month. I don't want to imagine in what I will finish my studies. 

    Anyway, how can 9 square meters reach such a price, and what's more, be considered to be cheap ? One word : Paris. 

    Sadly for people living there, this town has the (bad?) luck of being the most visited in the world. So, on the living costs level, one of the most expensive one, even more than London or New York according to a study I read about last year. That means that for a university student with no money, it's a nightmare. University is almost free (for a governement funded student - anyone who can't be fully aided by his family - the university fees are 4€ a year. Yes, 4€, the price of say, 3 breads at the bakery. For a "normal" student, the uni year cost between 200€ and 400€. Which is about nothing as compared to what goes in any english-speaking country). 

     I'm about to take a huge loan at the bank, like most of american or british students, in a country where university is so to speak free, not to pay uni fees, but to pay the city in which the university has been built. That drives me crazy. I can almost accept the idea of paying a university (though I strongly believe that education should be free) because it pays the professors' salary and the staff's, but getting indebted to pay a ridiculously expensive rent, ridiculously expensive food, in a ridiculously expensive city ...  

      A city which I always wonder what is so special about it, seriously. "Paris, the most beautiful city in the world". That makes me laugh everytime. Because it's obviously not complicated to take a map, and plan a trip in any country where there are some reaaaally beautiful cities, way more than Paris : Italy, Spain, Morroco ... (for my personnal taste I would add any middle eastern country, and asian countries too). And any of these cities have also a strong important feature that Paris doesn't have : nice people. If you're a foreigner, that you had the strange idea of wanting to visit Paris, and met there someone who actually smiled at you, or even spoke to you nicely, there's only one explanation : that person was also a foreigner, or possibly, a frenchman/woman from outside Paris. (that second option is debatable, french people as a whole are not known for their smiling at strangers). 

     So here I am, moving to Paris, in the cliché Montmartre (the one with the painters and Moulin Rouge and that stuff), but then, I didn't see anything in Paris that was not rendered cliché by a whole lot of movies, french or foreign (the latest being "midnight in Paris" by Woody Allen ... I usually like his movies, but not this one. It's just a huge cliché from beginning to end. Couldn't stand it. "I dream of walking in Paris under the rain with a baguette under my arm" ... Who in the world want to get bread wet with rain ?! Not even telling that there is a lot more interesting stuff to do in life than waking in that city under the rain.) 

     Anyway, I'll just write posts about stuff I do find interesting in that city, but it won't be the Eiffel tower... But I'll try to write positive posts about it, promise.