Livin' in the burbs

Life in the hostels has been quite a transition coming from an apartment for a month. After I get off the métro to go to my new home for a few days, I realize I’m not in inner Paris anymore. I’m in the burbs.
Paris is surrounded by Le Périphérique which is a circular freeway thus, Paris literally can’t grow outward. And everything outside of the freeway are the suburbs of Paris. During orientation for CEA they told us 1) not to smile. Easy enough, no one in Paris ever looks happy. 2) never go to the suburbs. Why not? Back home when one lives in the suburbs it’s usually a lot safer than the inner city. Downtown has the homeless people living under the bridges, walking downtown at night couldn’t be any more sketchy and if you’re smart, you never walk alone at night. And if you live in the suburbs, you live around lovely little houses with kids playing in the yard and street. In Paris it’s the complete opposite. In the inner city, you’re more likely to live next to a lot cafés and brasseries and a lot of little shops at every corner. You could walk down a whole street and probably find several restaurants, multiple patisseries, a pharmacy or two, and a Monoprix with people walking around at anytime. And you’re only five minutes from the métro stop. In the suburbs of Paris, there’s a lot more crime and generally just not a safe place to be.
The first hostel I stayed in after I get off the métro, I look around and see they don’t even really have street signs. No worries! I got my map. Um...wait...all it shows is the stop and that’s where it ends. I wrote down my directions but how am I going to get to this hostel? Luckily a generous guy from Normandy helped me out and walked me all the way to my hostel. As we’re walking, I notice that I haven’t seen any shops, maybe the occasional Japanese restaurant and a sign for McDonald’s but never actually found it. Never found a boulangerie either...where will I buy a baguette?!
Once I reach the hostel I get settled in and come time for dinner, I sit down to meet an array of people from all over the world, young, old, couples, lone travelers, and we enjoy a traditional Korean dinner. And for breakfast? Bread, jam, coffee or tea, and a hard boiled egg. Staying in this hostel was probably one of the highlights of the trip so far. It was so interesting to meet people and hear their stories of where they came from, where they’re going, and why they’re even traveling in the first place. It would take about 15 minutes just to walk to the fruit store/métro and upon arriving, it would be expected to see a couple of odd people walking around, more often at night especially since the epicerie was also the liquor store. Despite being in a not so safe part of town, the experience and people was so beautiful and I was truly sad to leave. C’est la vie, I had to move on to my next hostel which wasn’t too far.
The neighborhood is much nicer, there’s quite a few old people walking around, I live in an alley but I haven’t seen too many scary people...yet (knock on wood). Luckily, this is a more residential area than the previous one with an elementary school nearby and all the Indian or pizza food I could possibly want. Best part? There’s a boulangerie and fruit stand right outside the alleyway from my hostel. Going for a run every morning smelling the fresh bread...ah. There’s simply nothing else quite like it.
Most of the people staying here find it extremely odd that I’m traveling by myself, but at this point in my trip, besides waking up to five British girls singing Hakuna Matata, I find it the most relaxed I’ve been; wandering around, sleeping in Centre Pompidou watching movies, or taking a nap under the sun in the Luxembourg gardens and reading On The Road by Jack Kerouac that I bought at Shakespeare & Co.
I have 10 more days to spend in Paris, who only knows where I’ll end up wandering around and getting lost. No matter if I get lost, I somehow always manage to find my way back.