Ahhh. Paris again! November 2013

      Leon and I arrived yesterday, November 13, to sunny blue skies.  We were picked up at the airport by a driver for our apartment rental company and driven to our street.  We were met by a company rep named Paula, who had a very American accent.  We asked her where she was from, and she said she was from Sweden!  “But, you have a very American accent”, we said.  “Well, my father was from West Virginia, and I have visited there several times, but grew up in Sweden.”  

     We found out that Bernard, the company owner, was on his way with the apartment keys, so Paula took us down the street to a little hotel where I had a cup of tea, Leon had a cup of coffee, and Paula had a cup of French chocolate so thick that it almost looked like soft pudding.  In a few minutes, Barnard appeared with the keys and took us to our apartment.  He laughed and said that this apartment was a little smaller than last year’s by the Eiffel Tower.  It is about 1/3 the size of last year’s apartment, but is fine for us.  Leon has found the espresso machine and was wishing Mark were here to enjoy it with him.

     Our first expedition was to explore our neighborhood while the sun was shining.  It has been very rainy in Paris for the past year…everyone is talking about it, comparing it to England.  We are only a couple of blocks from the Champs Elysses with all of its fashionable shops and crowded tourist traffic.  The Arc de Triomphe is about 3-4 blocks from us.  We walked up there to see it, and were amazed at the Asian tourists standing in the middle of the busy street taking their photos.  Of course, that was the best place to center a photo, but with the Parisian drivers, it was a little dangerous.  If you look closely at the second photo of the Arc, you can see people on top.  Glad we braved those 284 steps before I had knee problems!

     We found a big Monoprix grocery store and did some grocery shopping to fill our fridge.  Bernard had left jam, butter, juice, yogurt, and a nice bottle of wine, so we filled in the extras.  We bought a supermarket baguette, which was passable, but were anxious to find a real boulangerie with the wonderful bread we love. We walked past one, but decided we would visit it for breakfast breads. 

     Thursday we woke up to rain.  The apartment next door must be undergoing some renovations because we heard lots of hammering, sawing, and drilling right on the other side of the bedroom wall.  We were glad that they had not started early enough to awaken us.

     We showered and decided to head to the boulangerie for breakfast bread during a lull in the rain.  We were pleased to find it crowded and thought that was a good sign that the bread was good.  Oh, my, it was fabulous!  We bought a couple of baguettes and a pain au chocolate.  Leon looked at sandwiches in the glass case and decided he wanted one for lunch, so we got that, too.  We came back to the apartment and fixed breakfast.  The bread was delicious with the crispy, crunchy crust we love, and it was still warm.  Even the orange juice here tastes better.  

     The rain poured down again, so we decided it would be a good time to check email, then when the rain cleared up, we headed out again to explore the neighborhood.  We walked up to the Arc and decided that only the Asians and the two of us were in Paris in November.  Everyone who was not standing in the middle of the street yesterday came today to take photos.  

     It started to rain again, so we headed back to the apartment, stayed in again until the rain let up, and headed out again to explore the neighborhood.  We have never stayed in this part of Paris before, so it is not familiar to us at all.  Our street is not a commercial street, but it is a zig-zag cut-through street between two busier streets, so still has a lot of foot and vehicular traffic on it.    

     Our apartment overlooks a garden that is the back of a Chamber of Commerce office.  There is a lot renovation going on back there, so a lot of construction equipment is in the garden and scaffolding is on the back of one of the buildings.  We walked by the front of the building yesterday, and it has a big black and gold fence around it that reminded us of the gates and fence around Versailles.

     The living room in our apartment has one wall that is made of glass doors from floor to ceiling with a metal railing outside that comes up about 3 feet.  When the weather is good, the doors can be folded back and the whole wall is open to the outside.  The railing is close to the glass, so there is no balcony area, but with the doors open, the whole room becomes a balcony.

     Our kitchen has two burners and no oven.  It does have a pop-up toaster.   I first thought it had no microwave and there was a tiny oven sitting on the counter, but Leon used it to reheat some coffee this morning, and it is definitely a microwave.  I assume that the people who own the apartment eat out a lot and that the renters who use this apartment do not cook much either.  I gave Barnard a hard time about it since it is advertised as having an oven.  He just laughed and said he was guilty of false advertising.  I have the feeling that he could sell ice to Eskimos.  

     Leon has been drinking a lot of espresso, so during a lull in the rain, we headed out again to check out a second grocery store to see if they had the little cups of ground coffee used in the machine.  We found a Franprix Marche a little farther down the street than the Monoprix, so tried it out.  We bought some of the little coffee “capsules” as the French call them and also saw Pepsi.  There was no Pepsi in the Monoprix, so we bought some for the weekend ahead.  We are always amazed at grocery prices here.  Baguettes are 80 – 90 cents, but a pain au chocolat is 1.20 Euros.  Eggs are mostly sold in packages of 6 for 2+ Euros.  That would be more than $5 US dollars for a dozen eggs.  We buy milk and juice by the liter…3 Euros for juice and 1 for milk.  

     We have been surprised to see so many green leaves on the trees here.  It is cold outside, mid 40s, but perhaps has not been freezing at night often enough to make the trees lose their leaves yet.  We passed an apartment building today that still had lots of red flowers in the window boxes.  I wore my gloves and scarf today, but we have not been cold since we both have worn layers of clothing.  Everyone we meet has a coat and scarf on.  There are still lots of smokers standing outside on sidewalks since new French laws do not allow them to smoke inside.  Cigarette butts litter the streets and sidewalks outside office buildings and restaurants.

    On one of our walks today, we spotted the "loaner" bikes that Paris has around town.  It had just been raining, so I figure that most Parisians were not too excited about sitting on wet seats or being caught out in the rain.

 It has been nice to have a couple of days to just explore the neighborhood and not feel like we have places to see and things to do.  We have really not planned anything at all for this trip, just relaxing and enjoying being here.