Hi - yesterday and today were "bank holidays" in France and was shut down. So Jay and I have been working at the IFS office (which is conveniently located one street over from the hotel). See the picture of the glass building - we are on the 2nd floor. It is mainly a sales office, but the director of services (Michel Berthet) is here at least a couple days a week. The main office in France is actually in 
Mulhouse (south of Strasbourg in Alsace near Germany). Today there were only 3 people in the office (almost more Americans than French).Weather has been beautiful and the area is full of kids. There is a small park behind our hotel and there always seems to be hundreds of kids out there having a great time. You can see all the apartments around the park in the picture. I guess maybe people want to live here if they work nearby, but to me it would be pretty dull to spend all my time out here when Paris is just a euro metro ride away.
Our progress towards getting flats continues slowely. I have been in touch with a woman Eve that was referred to us by Michel (she is a friend of his girl friend!). We will meet with her tomorrow. Jay is in charge of getting us there as I have lead the way the last 2 weekends and we decided he would need to figure his own way around sometime. Anyway, she seems helpful in screening areas and making recommendations. We have learned that in France, you will need to pay 1 month's rent up front, 2 month's as security deposit, plus an agency fee that may be about the same as a month's rent (depending on how long you will rent). That comes to 4 month's rent (which is 2500 - 3000 Euros or around $4000/month times 4). Do you have $15,000 handly to rent an apartment? Nor do I. So I have been in touch with IFSNA to see about them either paying for it or at least advancing the amount so we can pay it back out of the per diem. Note to future projects - figure this out first. At this point, pickings for apartments available for 4 months have decreased as people rent them out by the week over the summer.
One thing I am learning is to be flexible... I also have almost convenced myself not to worry about it (almost).
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