Flat hunt - update

Success! We have a flat, and it has electricity and (hot) running water and locks on the doors and everything! Turns out the answer to the question "how do you get a flat in Paris when you don't have the paperwork most landlords seem to desperately need, because you're a foreigner" is "find a sane landlord who has two braincells to rub together who can see that you're not trying to trick them into letting you give them large amounts of money in exchange for a shoebox, you really are going to pay the ludicrous sums of money they're asking for".

It's actually a beautiful little flat on a courtyard about half an hour from my new job, with skylights and big windows and a lovely open-plan kitchen living room, and a big bedroom. And I love it, til something goes horribly wrong, of course ;-)

We've gone and bought a whole load of food, and TATI has provided pillows, a duvet, cups, a chopping board, knives, pans, everything one could ask for in a new flat. And the rest of our stuff is coming at the end of this week, so soon we'll have a flat full of things again, and it will be glorious.

Our next major task is to find internet. At the moment, aside from very brief trips to internet cafes, I have no way of finding out what is happening in the world. No telly, no internet, no phone. It's quite liberating, in a way. But I do feel rather cut off from the Real World - I should now go and look at the news in case anything exciting is happening...

ETA: See, I go offline for one weekend, just one, and in it I miss a Royal Wedding and Osama bin Laden being killed. What else could happen while I'm lacking in news and internet? (Readers of the latter part of my last expat blog will remember how many long, long months it took for me to get internet in London. The whole world could be different when I come back online properly!)