A last walk around, ritzy houses at the Parc, and a tour of our apartment

It was raining until about noon, but we braved the elements to go to the Boulangerie before breakfast.  We have so enjoyed the French baguettes with our bacon and eggs every morning.  We think that the orange juice is so good because it is not pasteurized.  It really tastes freshly squeezed.

The sun decided to try to peek out this afternoon, so we went up to the Parc Monceau again.  We enjoyed walking through it yesterday, but were really in a hurry to get to the Metro, so decided to leisurely walk up there and check it out some more.

Several of the stores on the way were already decorated for Christmas.  We loved the bears in the window here, and all the colorful decorations.

We knew that some land around the edges of the park had been sold for expensive homes over 200 years ago, and many of them are still there.  I imagine that is still some pretty expensive real estate.

The Park is surrounded by houses on 3 sides and then the north edge, which used to be the Paris city wall, has just a fence and then a street on the other side.  When the Park was built, there were carriage roads and walking trails built through it.  There are elaborate black and gold fences and gates across those carriage roads now.

We saw lots of nannies or maybe au pairs with toddlers and babies in strollers in the park.  There is a school nearby and some of the little ones were out playing in the park.  We thought it was interesting that they all had reflective vests on.

There are so many historical things about this park that are interesting.  The very first parachute jump was into this park.  A guy jumped out of a hot air balloon and landed in the park.

There is also a lovely little Japanese bridge over a stream that runs into the pond surrounded by the colonnade.  

We came home and did another couple of loads of laundry.  When you have a dual machine, it takes 2-3 hours to do one load of laundry.  The inside is tiny, so it only holds a small amount of clothes.  I don’t know how a family would ever get all the laundry done.  I am not sure you could fit two towels in the washer at the same time.

Here is a tour of our little apartment.  The front of the building is curved, so all of the rooms are somewhat pie shaped and are side by side except for the bathroom which is in front of the bedroom.  You enter from the outside hallway into a little foyer and all the rooms are sort of off that.  The kitchen is to the right (notice there is no oven...I am still not happy about that!),

 the living room is in the center (it looks a lot larger than it really is), 

then there is a little hallway that has the bathroom (the washer is behind the cabinets closest to the shower),

and then the bedroom. 

 As usual, the toilet is in a separate room off the foyer.  I will confess that it is not this neat and tidy now, but will be again when we leave!

We stopped by the rental car place and made sure we can get our car tomorrow morning.  The plan is to pack everything, go get the car, then come back and load the car, check out of the apartment, and drive out toward Beaune.  Leon was doing some Google maps just to sort of check, and they had us going right around the Arc de Triomphe.  That is the roundabout that has 12 streets off it.  I don’t know how anyone manages to get anywhere around it, but I do know that Leon drove Diana and me around it a few years ago just to check it out.  We will get Helen (our GPS) out tomorrow and see how she takes us.