Reddit reviews The Paris Mapguide

Moving there in January will be interesting. Winter in Paris is grey. And rainy. Mostly grey. Super grey. It was really hard for me because I was from the countryside of Ohio, and not accustomed to living in a city where each street was bordered by two grey 6-story buildings and a grey sky. I felt claustrophobic sometimes, and the lack of sunshine got to me. And it gets to everyone else, and you can feel everyone around you become sluggish and brooding in the winter. You're just surrounded by grey people dressed in black, it's... depressing. But when the weather springs back, the whole city gets a breath of fresh air.

You need to figure out where you want to live, and preferably it's close to your place of employment, although that may not be best, depending. For instance, if you're working in the 6th or 7th arrondissements, you will have one hell of a time finding affordable housing. If you're working in la Défense, you don't want to live way out there. But the métro system is great, and you don't necessarily have to live down the street from your work place, but you don't want to have to switch lines 3 times just to get there.

I personally recommend the 10th, 11th, 19th, and 20th arrondissements. That is simply my favorite part of Paris, it is cheaper (but all of Paris is expensive), there are less tourists (except at Cimètière Père Lachaise maybe), tons of great cafés and bars, restaurants, and it has a lot of character. You're close to things like Parc des Buttes Chaumont, métro hub République, the bar strip of rue Saint-Maur, Gare de l'Est and Gare du Nord, super delicious and cheap Asian restaurants and shops in Belleville, Canal Saint Martin, and more. I lived in the 10th and 11th arrondissements at métro Chateau d'Eau and métro Goncourt. I am a petite woman and I walked home from bars at all hours of the night or morning on quite a few occasions, but I never ran into any trouble. That doesn't mean it's a harassment-free neighborhood, Paris is a big city and anything can happen, it's important to be careful. I wouldn't whip out my iPhone while walking late at night, for instance. Instead, I always carried around my favorite little map book. Granted, if I got lost and had to use a map, I looked like a freaking tourist, but it's better than using an eye-catching, glowing money machine.

Oh, speaking of getting lost, you're gonna get lost. This is the greatest mapguide ever made. I have never, ever seen a better mapguide. I bought one the first time I visited Paris, and it was so freaking awesomely wonderful that I bought another one before I moved there. It's small, super thin, much more inconspicuous than a big, cumbersome fold-able paper map, doesn't fall apart with time, and is super easy to read and navigate. It has every site of importance in it. I can't even count how many awesome little gems I discovered just by looking at this map book. Sometimes when I was bored, I would take a FriXion erasable pen, draw out a zig-zag path to walk through the streets of a random neighborhood, and that would be my day. I would send you mine, but it has a ton of notes and stuff in it, and it's very special to me. It is sort of like my journal of experiences and favorite places in Paris. After some time, you won't need it on a daily basis, and you'll find yourself traversing familiar streets without hesitation, but it's super handy and I used it til I moved away, albeit sparingly.

The whole shopping experience is totally different. There is no big department store that has absolutely everything like Walmart or Target in America. Except BHV, I guess. But BHV is expensive and you can find anything you need for a cheaper price in other shops, and BHV is on rue de Rivoli, so going there can be utterly frustrating depending on tourist season.

If you have difficulty making friends because of your poor French skills, SEEK OUT social groups that speak English. Book clubs, theatre classes, cooking classes, go to polyglots, couchsurfing meetups, Reddit meetups, go to events at Shakespeare & Co. or Abbey Bookshop, whatever. Just make friends and have a support system, because culture shock can be hard. It is not necessarily recommended to make English-speaking friends because it can hinder your ability to learn French, but you need friends, and if you don't speak French, then you can't connect with people who don't speak English, and having friends, going out, that's going to make your life 100% better and it will really ease the transition. I did not have friends for a long time, and I was really depressed. Making muffins and having a spur-of-the-moment Reddit meet-up was the best thing I ever did in Paris, and I wish I'd done it sooner.

That's all I've got for now. Enjoy that wall of text.

TL;DR: Paris.

Edit: I only mispelled "métro" like, 5 times. Tricky accents.