What They Don't Tell You About Being a Starving Artist

Here I am. La France! La vie est belle non?

I may not actually be a starving artist, but one of my major goals while here in France is to take advantage of my laid-back work schedule to write as much as possible. In my head I pictured this: me, in aviators and a really trendy scarf, sitting at a tiny table at Café des Artistes overlooking the Garonne, writing freehand. Maybe there would be an accordion player in the background... I mean it could happen.

What I've been realizing lately is that being a starving, expatriated "assistant de langue," while often charmed, is not quite the life of leisure I'd expected.

Let's start with housing. I've been living for the past week in Hotel F1 Toulouse Ramonville. Wikipedia it. I dare you. The hotel itself is quite good, considering the price is comparable to the hostel in Toulouse (which has bed bugs). However, HF1-- as I shall refer to it-- is at the very end of the metro, and one must walk down a highway, yes highway, and on a dirt path that goes under a bridge by the canal, yes bridge by the canal, to reach HF1. There is a Buffalo Grill next to HF1; even with my basic familiarity with French culture, I knew immediately that this did not speak well of the neighborhood.

I've spent the last 7 days looking for housing in any way imaginable. The upside is that I got over the whole language barrier thing immediately because I had no choice. I have made about 50 phone calls and emails, walked the city until my feet blistered and I had to buy 4 euro "Hello Kitty" bandaids (that's the price of a meal!) and found my way to more than a few addresses not recognized on google maps. It's all been an adventure, but a time- and energy-consuming one!

All in all, I have not had the time to write a postcard much less work on my fiction. I believe I have now found a place to live, the existential equivalent of a crane lifting the anvil off of Wiley E. Coyote, but the red tape still stretches on for miles. Who knew being à l'étranger would require so much danged paperwork!? Okay, I did know, but until now I was in denial.

Must get to sleep. Thursday Toulouse is calling my name and I'll be hanged if I let those Hello Kitty band aids go to waste. Until a more verbose post-housing search time in my life.... Ciao! (French people say it too)