Studio life

Living in my new studio apartment has been improving ever since I moved in at the end of the year. For example, at the beginning the wireless Internet connection left much to be desired, but it has since sped up a bit! even though it is still usually too slow to stream videos.

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If you're in France and want to watch French TV online for free in real time, check out this site from Neuf to view up to 20 channels: Service Télévision sur Ordinateur. Oh, and if you're located anywhere with an Internet connection and just need to listen to/legally stream your favourite music, check out Deezer.

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Back to the topic lol. As a result, perhaps the most significant contributor to my bliss is my new TV, yay!!! I bought it at the Emmaüs in La Motte Servolex for 40€ along with an antenna for 5€. I have the following six channels: TF1, France 2, France 3, TV8 Mont-Blanc, Arte and M6. Oh yes, and did I mention that closed captioning/sous-titrage is helping my French! I'm learning new words every day lol :-) (At my last place, my colocataire/propriétaire had provided me with a TV so I could keep up with "Plus Belle la Vie" on France 3 lol).

Here's a brief overview of my studio:
It's located next to one of the schools I work at in La Motte-Servolex. There are a few of us in this building, including the principal and his family next door. (Oh, they have a lovely cat! I'm missing my doggie back home, so it's nice to have a pet closeby). Here's a pic of her when she snuck into my room!

It takes 45 minutes to walk from the apartment to the centre-ville of Chambéry, otherwise, it's just 12 minutes away by bus. The centre-ville of La Motte-Servolex is closeby, but there really isn't anything there to be honest lol. Fortunately, there is also a bus stop in front of the school, and thus less than 100m from my apartment - which is great when I'm in a rush! There are cycle paths too, so once the place starts to warm up I'd really love to do some riding!

The apartment itself is small but a decent size: bedroom, bathroom and another little room connecting the two. Other benefits of being here include: the rent! (obviously! At 5.75€ /night that's a fantastic deal! Well then again it is school housing, so it is subsidised); I can adjust my heating to whatever setting I desire (yay, I don't have to freeze lol); and giant windows/sliding door/false balcony (becase there is a short railing in front of the windows) providing great natural light and lovely mountain views including a view of La Croix du Nivolet. Drawbacks include: not having a real kitchen; the fridge is quite small (which means I have to go shopping at least once a week); there's no stove/oven (I have two hot plates. The first time I used the hot plates I thought I wasn't going to be cooking here again! I soon got over that lol.); and one (bathroom/kitchen) sink in the apartment. There is also no washing machine/dryer so sooner or later I'll have no choice but to visit the (expensive) laundromat... though I did hand-wash some clothes this weekend. Oh, buses also stop running around 8pm, so that's a problem for going out in the night. In spite of the disadvantages, I'm happy here!

It's just really nice renting my own place (=more privacy and independence). Gotta love being an adult lol.