chômage

france has a national unemployment rate of about 10%. for certain age groups (under twenty-five), it's significantly higher, and for some other social groups, it's absolutely ridiculous (young men living from the suburbs with immigrant parents - up to 40% in some places).
i'm an immigrant too, albeit a white american one. plus, my student visa expires at the beginning of july... which isn't a problem in terms of living in france, but it might affect my ability to get a work visa for the whole summer. and then who's going to hire someone who can only work for one month?
getting work authorisation in itself is a pain. first i have to find someone who's willing to hire me. then, they need to give me a promesse d'embauche, basically a letter to the labour department saying they want to hire me. i bring this, along with my passport and some other papers, to the labour department in paris, who hopefully give me working papers.
the catch is that, at least according to this one restaurant owner who wanted to hire me, they probably won't give me a work visa that extends past my student visa. although i can stay as a tourist for up to ninety days without a visa, i can't work (legally). and finding something under the table is not as easy as i thought it would be (nor is it entirely safe). i'm having trouble finding a babysitting job, and besides, i'm not great with children anyways. i'm a good waitress, i speak english, and i have a charming smile. soooo why can't i find a job?

in other news, we climbed onto my roof the other night. they're replacing the roof and the facade of my building, waking me up with a wonderful pounding noise every morning - anyways, so there's a bunch of sturdy scaffolding outside my window just begging to be climbed. the sun was setting and we could see all the left bank monuments.

the pantheon and la sorbonne



la tour eiffel



having nothing to do in paris is really not so bad.