Voyage Toujours

So…I was loving my apartment here in Paris.  The neighborhood is great, the apartment size is good and everything works.  The shower pressure is great, I can turn on multiple appliances at the same time and I don’t blow a circuit.  A couple of nights into my stay here, the upstairs neighbor was making noise all night.  I luckily brought some earplugs and wrote the neighbor a note about being quiet after midnight.  I thought my note worked as things were ok for a few more days.  Then, last Thursday, I think it was the 30th of January, the neighbor was smacking a hammer down on his floor – my ceiling – at about 10pm and I went up to talk to him.  Knocked and very well heard him inside…he wouldn’t answer the door.  I knocked several times and thought, maybe he has earphones on?  On my way back down I ran into the waiter at the restaurant that backs into our courtyard.  In French, “Oh, you shouldn’t try to talk to him, he’s sick in he head”.  Codeword – he’s CRAZY!  Well, this brought back horrible memories of my childhood when my stepbrother, who was a very sweet person until I was about 12, got really ill, didn’t sleep and started getting violent.  I immediately started shaking.  Not good times.  Today – at about 1pm, crazy neighbor starts hurling stuff out of his apartment window.  Well, that’s enough for me.  I took photos of the stuff he chucked out and sent them to the owner of the apartment.  I let her know I will be paying for February but will not stay here through March.  Well, this is France, they aren’t going to do anything to infringe on the rights of the crazy guy, so I have immediately started looking for a new place.  On Wednesday, I’m going to look at a place – smaller than this one (about 200 sq. ft) that is just around the corner from my French school, facing the Luxembourg Gardens.  Sounds good on paper and the pictures look ok.  The pickings are getting slim for monthly rents.  As you get into the warmer months and the tourist season picks up, there are fewer apartments that will rent by the month and the prices start climbing or they only rent on a weekly bases, which increases the prices.  For example, I pay around 1,500 EU per month, well in the warmer months, the weekly rents could be between 700 – 1,000 EU per week for my same apartment.   Wish me luck.  Stay tuned…