On a Dime

Liz says: How quickly things can change.
We were busy pursuing the apartment, running from bank to cafe to the bank again with the fixer. He had shown us a few apartments before but they didn't do much for me or they were in the 3rd. I was so stuck on the Moufattard Market and that fountain. He had a place to show us, but we were near the apartment I had lusted after for so long, I asked him to come, take a look, so he could see what we were really interested in.
It was a rainy day. We went up to the apartment and it was very dark, okay, so in the winter, I guess you'd have to turn on the lights in the middle of the day. Then, I showed him the balcony, which was now covered with about 50 wet cigarette butts. The fixer said he lived on a lower floor with a balcony like that once and people do that, they throw their butts down and it never stops. Okay, kind of funky, the flower pots would have butts in them. Not too sweet. But as we raised the shutters, those mechanical metal shutters they use in Europe to batten down the hatches, literally, we saw the end of the dream.
There was a broken whiskey bottle smashed all over the patio as if it had been thrown from several floors up. There was also a couple of human sizes pieces of caca and toilet paper. The End. Fin. Cut. It was over, the garden terrace with cig butts, glass and caca raining down.
I was crushed. I had worked so hard, jumped through so many hoops, held on for weeks to get this apartment which was at the top of our price range. I had shopped for appliances, furniture and envisioned my lovely terrace garden and balcony of flowers, now I was looking at New York City in the 80's.
So, dejected and heading toward a depression the color of the skies, we walked over to the other apartment. This was going to be where we spent our last 5-6 days here.
Since we had to extend our stay, we had to find new temporary shelter, our current place already has a new tenant coming. Actually, I am glad to be leaving. This place is cold and noisy, it a good place to learn some things but I'd really like to take a shower without freezing my touchie and then almost burning it squeezing between the heated towel rack and the toilet seat. But, I digress.
The Fixer was having a bad day. He had to cycle back across the river to get the keys that he'd misplaced. We had plenty of time to walk over to the new temporary apartment. It is about 5-6 blocks from the fountain and fresh food market I so loved. It doesn't sound far, but the other apartment was around the corner from it.
Plus, one of the great things about Paris is the way it changes. Every corner you turn has a different character, it changes on a dime. Not from good to bad, just different. There are rows and rows of restaurants, butchers,fresh food stores, phrmacies, natural food bakeries, boutiques, all different.