A Tale of Two Fondations

I’ve only been here two weeks and I’ve already had two homes: the Fondation des États-Unis and the Fondation Biermans-Lapôtre. The first one, I’ve already told you about and shown you pictures of. Had I known I would only be staying there three nights, I probably wouldn’t have bothered to put up pictures of it. I also probably wouldn’t have unpacked nearly as much as I did…

When we arrived in France, we were all under the impression that we would just be staying a few nights in the FEU (sidebar - this acronym is kind of funny in French because “feu” is the French word for “fire” so I always have a mental image of flames when I talk about this building). We were originally supposed to move to FBL on September 1st, but we soon learned from a sign on the FBL’s front door (well, main door would be more precise because it’s actually on the side of the building) that it would be closed for continuing renovations until September 17th. This caused momentary panic, as we thought it meant we would be homeless from September 1st to the 17th because we only had reservations in the FEU for the first few nights. After a flurry of emails, we were assured that we would be allowed to stay in the FEU until the 17th.

Turns out all of that was unnecessary because the FBL actually reopened on September 1^st like it was supposed to, so we were told, on the 2^nd, that we could move in on the 2^nd. So after the frenzy of registering for classes, we repacked all of our belongings and moved them over to FBL.

Fortunately the FEU and FBL are right next to each other, so I could lug all 150 pounds of my belongs over in two loads. The fact that FBL has a fully functioning modern elevator was also a major plus, seeing as I now live on the 6^th floor…

So, my permanent address is:

601 Fondation Biermans-Lapôtre

Cité Universitaire de Paris

75014 Paris

So send me things! Just kidding, but if you do send me something and clearly mark your return address, you will most certainly receive at least a postcard from somewhere in Europe!

Here are a bunch of pictures of my new room, which is great! Less color than the last one, but a lot more space.