This is my first post.

Quite a few people have suggested that I blog or write about my experience while I'm here in Paris.  I'm not much of the sit down and journal about what is happening around me type of person.  My ADD doesn't really ever allow me to sit still for long enough to do that, but I thought it might be nice to make a sort of photo blog that I could share with my friends and my family while I'm away.  I'll be here for the next three months and I will have a lot of time on my hands, so it might help to keep me busy.  It might motivate me to go out and do more things if I know people are expecting to see photographic evidence of my adventures too!  I can't legally work, so unless something falls into place, I'll be relaxing and enjoying my time here sans work.  I'm hoping to find lots of things to keep me occupied, and considering I'm living in one of the biggest tourist cities in the world, that really shouldn't be hard.  Peter will be spending a lot of time working, so I'll have to keep myself occupied a lot of the time.

I guess I'll give you a little bit of an idea as to where we're living right now.  We live in the 13th arrondissement, which is just one of the 20 sections (arrondissements) of Paris.  Our street is really very quiet.  We are not in a touristy area of Paris at all.  We live on the 7th floor of our apartment building and we don't really have much of a view.  We apparently live in the mansard roof section of our building.  How very French!  We can see the mansard roof of the building across from us if we look out our window.  We live on the side of the apartment where the sun shines through all day, so I like that.  The apartment is VERY small.  It's pretty much just one room with everything squashed into it.  I took some pictures to show everyone what it looks like!

This is our kitchen.  The top part is a sink/ 2 stove burners combination.  Underneath of that is the refrigerator.  I discovered today that our tiny little freezer inside of the fridge does not work when I pulled out one of my ice cream bars and it was sadly melted.  

This is the desk/dining area.  Peter does all of his work here.  You can see the tiny kitchen to the left!  When Lydia comes to visit we are going to have to fold up the desk so that we can pull out the futon!

This is a view from the door looking at the desk and the futon.  

This is one of the closets where have have our clothes stored.  I decorated the top for Christmas!  We even have some Christmas presents from Peter's mom and his grandparents that we aren't allowed to open until Christmas!  You can also see Peter's egg stack.  He says it's the best place to keep them...  

This is the ladder that leads up to the sleeping quarters of the room.  Yep,  a lofted bed.  I want to hang up a sheet so it feels like we're in a fort.  That would be fun!  There's also a little bit of storage space up there, which comes in handy.  You can see the door to the right of my pink suitcase in this photo too.  That's the door to the bathroom.  I can barely fit in there.  Imagine how Peter feels.

Well, now you have a good idea as to where I'll be spending the next three months of my life.  Hopefully it doesn't rain as much as the forecast says it will in the next few days, so I can get out and take some pictures of my street and some of the places around the apartment.  Who knows, maybe I'll even be brave enough to try and take the metro someplace touristy.  I don't have a cell phone and I speak almost no French, so I'm a little bit afraid of getting lost.  I might just wait for the weekend and take Peter along with me.  Speaking of Peter, he should be getting home from his classes any minute now and I'm sure he'll be ready to watch Game of Thrones.  We've been watching that lately.  He's really into it since he read the books, but I don't know how I feel about it just yet.  It's pretty sad, rapey, and violent.  Not my favorite combination of television show elements.

I hope everyone at home is enjoying their afternoon while I will be shortly practicing some French and getting ready for bed.  Bonsoir!