Back in Paris, day 1

I’ve decided that in order to recultivate a sense of optimism/general positivity, I am going to – either on here or elsewhere – list a few things I did successfully throughout the day.
Here are today’s successes :

1. Successfully moved in to my apartment. This included lugging 5 suitcases (3 of which were rather giant) up six flights of stairs. I guess all that working out paid off.

2. Successfully filed a change of address at the bank. Before my last move out of Paris three years ago, I made the decision not to close my bank account here mostly because opening an account in Paris (well, France in general) is almost hilariously complicated, and I had a feeling I’d be back relatively soon. I also found out that in the time I was gone, they never received my change of address info for Cambridge, which explains two things. First, the fact that I never received the standard letter that accompanies a request for password recovery (this was two years ago, and I haven’t been able to log in to my account since. Also, it’s 2017. There has to be a better way of doing this). Second, as a follow-up to the first point, the fact that despite my supposed “nomad” (according to their system) status, they still kept my account running, so now I know that the occasional transfers I made into it so that it appeared active were worth it.

3. Successfully purchased my year-long Navigo pass. A mini success to accompany this one is the fact that I was first in line at the window. Granted, I was also at a less-frequented station, but this just goes to show that sometimes it pays to trek out to the slightly more obscure ones. 

Today also involved doing some shopping at Monoprix, with this particular location being the same one I shopped at three years ago back when I – when we – first lived in this neighborhood. It was strange walking around there again, at once familiar and unknown. Some of the cafés are still the same, others have been replaced by new ones, and still there are those that I wondered if they were always there, and if so, why they seemed so strange to me. 

I also walked past the old apartment building. I feel as though this is going to be a repeated but inevitable occurrence. Maybe someday I will be able to pass it with indifference.