Arrival to the Paris

I arrived to Paris close to high noon on the 1th of August. I took RER-train from Charles de Gaulle airport. RER was hard to locate at first because all signs are in french and there wasn't any RER-logo at the gate of arrival flights. I thought that it was because they wanted more customers for taxis. Ignorant tourist who is first time in Paris (like me) can easily get a taxi and blow away good hard-earned money. Taxi fare is about 45 euros from airport to center of Paris - on comparison ticket at RER train was only 8,5 euros.

I luckily found station just by accident. When I got out of arrivals gate number two I went to the left. I walked about 100 meters and found the station for RER and metro on a lower level. Puplic transport is quite complicated because there are like 14 metro lines and five RER lines going crisscross all over the town, but color coding and numbers of different lines help a lot to figure out which line to take. The trip was quite long and on top of that I left off on a wrong station (Gare de Lyon) - closest would have been the Hôtel de Ville. I just walked the rest of the way to the Cité Internationale des Arts.

I arrived to a big iron gate which was locked and beside the gate there was a buzzer with a loundspeaker and a sign which readed: "Cité Internationale des Arts" I pressed the buzzer and listened to the loudspeaker... No sound. Nobody sayed anything. I pressed again. Nothing. Then someone came outside and I got in at the same gate opening. I went to the desk and informed my arrival to the clerk. Later I found out that visitor just presses the buzzer on the gate and walks in - no questions asked! In similar situation in Finland there would be someone in the other end asking: "Who are you here to meet?" I guess french take security more lightly that finns.

Nice guy by the name of "Joseph" told me about the Cité in plain english - which was a nice surprise because I've heard that french don't like to or can't speak english. He showed me the room 1546 which would be my living quarters for the next month. The Room was quite spacious - roof was about at the height of 3,5 meters. Ventilation was good thinking of hot days or painting with oil colors - which I planned to do. Standards weren't the same as in Finland especially in the kitchen area - but still place was good enough. View opened to the backyard - you could see rustic old walls and a couple of trees. Notre Dame's roof was visible only partially. It was very exiting to be finally in Paris.