“Not a scam!” I wrote to Feng around 2 a.m. after a busy first day in Paris. “The apartment located a five-minute walk to the Louvre does exist, front door opened when I used the code sent by email, keys were in the safe as planned and guess what—everything actually works! The shower doesn’t leak and water pressure is fine, there’s a microwave, a fridge, a washing machine and even a window! The building even has a modern elevator!”

Okay, the fine print. First, I’m not a new tenant signing a lease agreement—remember, I actually live in Canada (eh, Justin, just find the keys and open the border already!). The place is only mine for a few days and I got it on Booking.com. Second, it’s small—17 square metres (180 square feet if it makes more sense to you). There’s nothing to put my stuff away—no closet, no shelves, nothing but a metal picnic table and two foldable wooden chairs, the kind you could use on your patio. Forget about your sex-in-the-shower fantasy, an average-size person can barely fit into the cabin. Also, there are no clean 90-degree angles anywhere so I’m guessing even IKEA storage solutions wouldn’t be an option.  

It’s basically your typical “chambre de bonne” top-floor Parisian apartment, i.e. a tiny liveable space under the roofs intended for domestics. There are plenty of them in posh districts and you can expect to pay up to €600 for cramped conditions—welcome to Paris.

This place is actually a nice former “chambre de bonne. ” I stayed in apartments smaller than this with friends and relatives.

In 2001, I gave up on Paris before even attempting to live here. I was about to graduate from high school and the only university in France where I could keep on studying Mandarin was in Paris. It sounded like an exciting option but five trips scouting trips to Paris later, I realized there was no way I could afford to live in the City of Lights. I mean, I was 18, I had a scholarship but no money—and inconveniently, neither did my parents. Landlords would have laughed at my application. Parents of a friend ended up buying her a small apartment in Paris and another one put one year’s worth of rent upfront.

I still graduated from my Parisian university four years later but I never lived in Paris. Instead, I spent time in China (living rent-free through an internship), then I went backpacking and I secured some kind of informal distance learning agreement with most teachers, going to Paris for a few days at the time when I really had to. It worked out just fine for me.

I slept under tables, in trains, in train stations and other unlikely places when I had to go to Paris to pick up course materials or take exams.

If there’s one thing I learned, it’s that Paris is one of these places where you need a clean and safe place to stay to appreciate the city. I used to hate going to Paris because it meant eating soggy supermarket sandwiches, feeling like a bum couch surfing and not being able to afford anything.

I rediscovered the city with Feng. I probably still can’t afford to live in Paris but I have more money than I had at 18 and I’m wiser too—I’m going to enjoy my tiny place for a few days.