and The Along Came a Spider

Liz Says: I was going to talk about the taxi driver from Zaire that conducted traffic with his first two fingers and willed cars out of his way. He chided us for not having been taught french in school but he knew no english, either.
But then, along came a spider, who sat down beside her and poor little Liz and Dick we sent fleeing from their apartment.
Our current rental belongs to an Aussie who rents it out on the internet. He says its his home in Paris. It is a nice place, very small which we have come to learn is not at all unusual here. The bathroom has a shower with no tub, the floor of the shower is a 2 inch or so deep shower pan. About 3 days ago, I took a shower and noticed that the water was no going down the drain but was running to the middle of the tiny bathroom to the second drain, which keeps the place from flooding. That drain is pretty much in front of the toilet. Kinda yucky for a budding germaphobe like myself. But, I could deal with the drain, even though I wondered what could come up it, if, every time I was sitting in front of it.
So, I pulled on the drain thingy and found a great clog of hair. I called for Dick to do his manly duties and do away with the foulness. I worked on trying to keep the idea of whose hair it was and how many showers it took to accumulate. Okay, Liz really, its not that big of a deal. But, I couldn’t take another shower after that, thinking how foul the water in the pan had been.
Every time I went to the bathroom I would check the progress of the water. It did not go down, it kept bubbling, gurgling up. After a hard day window shopping for potential bed and kitchen options, I sat down noticed the shower pan was full. Okay then, Dick, this has reached a dangerous point. One more drop and the bathroom would become the second Seine.
Dick had fun with the plumber who kept saying “Douche no, la douche no.” My french is still very limited but I knew one thing. No showers.
But, of course, it was more than that. No water.
The plumber had dismantled the pump under the sink that was used in some bizarre system to keep the water down, yes, down. It is broken and will cost about 2,000 euros to fix.
So, while Dick explains that we are only renters, I run across the street to the hotel and book the last tiny room.
Dick has to go out to an ATM with the plumber to pay him for the trip charge.
So here we are in the goldenrod and mauvey heather room with terra cotta trim. The hotel is lovely from the outside and they have been very helpful and generous to us, I just cannot stand the color scheme.
The room is much warmer than the apartment, it has some sort of central heating with radiators and it is odd to have to get used to being more comfortable. The bathroom is also warm, the only heat in the apartment bathroom is the towel rack. The skylight in a shaft in the apartment bathroom also makes it a tad chilly.
The only english TV is the hell on earth channels, CNN and the BBC News.
Too much horror to bear, but yet they play it over and over adding new bits of real information every few hours.
But back to my tiny problems. The Aussie called this morning asking to speak to Dick. He promised to make things right on Monday.

and more!

Here are some pictures of the apartment. It is just being finished. Hopefully the lawyers and paperwork will be finished soon, too. I love this place! I love Paris more than I thought I could. I love our new neighborhood. To quote Tom Petty, “the waitin’ is the hardest part”.

L'Apartemente, at least I think that's how you spell it

Here are the pictures I took today!

Dick says:You would enjoy the commentary of the lawyer who is helping me find the correct kind of lawyer to deal with the landlord (essentially a real estate lawyer who also represents the interests of the government). After I emailed her the documents sent by the landlord's real estate guy she asked, "But where is the contract about the deposit?" That's the biggest issue at the moment, and when I told her that the real estate guy, told me that it was up to us to guarantee the rent at our French bank, she said, "Oh, that is absolutely abnormal!" and said it with a combination of surprise and disdain that only the French can express. Anyhow, more back and forth is on tap for tomorrow. And this is just to rent an unfurnished apartment. I can't imagine what a real estate purchase is like! The asbestos escrow (which is required or at least some kind of certification and bond), the lead requirement, the title searching, and then the posting of the deal so the "commune" and/or the current tenant has a chance to wedge their way in and purchase the property out from under you just when things appear to be wrapping up. On the other hand, it keeps a lot of people employed and, considering the sorry state of our country, that's probably not such a bad thing.

We Find an Apartment, but Can We Have It?

Les Champs-Elysees


Liz says:It is amazing how you can jones for english. At night we find ourselves searching the TV for anything in English. At points, we will watch anything from the Atom Ant cartoon to Star Trek Enterprise with Scott Bakula. Whoa, they just mentioned Madison,Wisconsin on this episode. Uh anyway, I never watched this show when it was originally on, but now, I’m watching my third in a row. Its got this sad heavy hair metal song for the intro, “I’ve got faith in the ha-ar-art.”
So, today it sleeted. It was sucky weather for the first time. It was Sunday, so all we did was eat a long leisurely lunch and come back to the apartment.
We had trouble getting on the internet, so I’m typing this to upload later.
Saturday was hectic, I had to buy a coat, it was too cold for the one I bought with me.
You have to remember it was 80 degrees the day we left Madison, a freak warm spell in November!. I also bought some gloves. I have have had t with being cold! Lastly, I broke down and bought a variation on the sloppy engineer boots I’ve seen everywhere. Mine are not suede and they are shorter, they have little metal wings on the strap on the top of the arch. So cute.
Okay, no more shopping.
We accidentally came across an apartment that would be just perfect. It is just being finished. It is being rehabbed by an architect. He owns the building and he has one of the apartments. Then he’s renting out the others. Downstairs is a boulangerie. The other shop has not been rented out yet.
The apartment is on the second story US (the 1st floor here is the ground floor, then the 1st floor is our Second). In the front there are 2 of those small filigreed balconies and in the middle there is a small but private courtyard (terrace, because its not really as low as the ground) but it feels like a courtyard. It has a large kitchen for Paris, that opens onto the courtyard as does the door that goes to the bedroom. You can get to the bedroom through the front door down a hallway, or through the terrace door. When you first walk in there is the living room with those cool, all too Parisian balconies, I think if you turn a corner there is the bathroom,which is also bizarrely big for Paris. It has a tub! and a separate shower! Stunning! 2 people could actually get in it and walk around. Bathrooms and kitchens here are so small. I think it is actually illegal to have a bathroom this small in the US. There has to be at least 13” between the toilet and any other fixture at home. Not here. But enough of that.
The kitchen comes with just a sink and one cabinet, if you get an unfurnished apartment. This would be unfurnished. But, that way, no cooties! Everything is new, so not carpets, no smoking, no dust! The owner agreed to take the birds. I am so dying for this place. It is one half block from the Mouffetard Market and fountain. The first photos I took here are of the Market and Fountain.
Now, for the other side. You have to buy the appliances for the kitchen and washer/dryer (which you can get as one unit here) and outfit the kitchen which you then are supposed to take with you when you move. You can also try to sell them to the next occupant, but that is all on you.
Then there is the archaic, baroque contract and money setup. Since we are foreigners, the landlord wants a 3 year contract with proof that we can pay the the years rent in advance.
So, you have to put on your Sunday best and go to the bank and ask to open an account. You have to go to a bank in your neighborhood. Everything is done in your neighborhood. You go to the phone, cable, bank, whatever company in your neighborhood. There are banks on nearly every corner of every street and cell phone,internet,TV provider stores every other step. So, there are choices.
So, you get the bank account. Then you have to have a bi-lingual lawyer and notaire (notary, but with real power and real fee!) to read and agree on the terms of the contract.
Okay, we get to one bank at 9 a.m. and wait outside the entrance chamber while the employees file in and double cheek kiss each other good morning, the bank opens at 9:15. We go in and the receptionist, yes, receptionist. There are no tellers, just a desk and some ATM's. She asks if we have a rendezvous. You have to make an appointment to open an account. She can set one up for tomorrow or the day after. Uh, yeah.
Banking crisis? What banking crisis?
So, we go to the next bank. We’d actually gone there before but didn’t have our passports, so we couldn’t do anything.
She sat us down and we communicated minimally, but we seemed to have the right amount of id which she turned into about 20 sheets of paper, which she multi-stamped and filled in. We should be getting our Carte soon. They don’t do checks. You can get a checkbook, but it takes for-e-ver. This is the land of smart cards. Its an official debit card, no credit.
Enough of the mundane blah blah.
We went to see the Christmas lights down the Champs de Elleyes. I took some pictures, but they don’t do it justice. They put up a white lighted 
Ferris Wheel that actually works, just for the occasion. There are huge chandeliers hung in the middle of the streets, the trees are draped with white lights that have effects that look like shooting stars. Some buildings are bathed in colors while others have curtains of tiny white lights hanging from every window sill. Its almost as if they decided to make snow effects of lights since they don’t have tons of the real stuff. Its gorgeous and sweet. Charming, glowing, every window has something made of white feathers and a fan. Villeroy and Boch has Polar bear in the window, silently clawing out with the powder blue bathed window.
Its all utterly enchanted until we decide we are getting too cold and want to go home.
You have to get a taxi at a taxi stand, you can’t just hail them and when you call your get voice mail! When you go to the taxi stand, the cabs can be empty or just not there. And you just know the colder you are, the less taxis there are ;-}. Getting a taxi on the right bank to go to the left when everyone wants to see the christmas lights, turns out to be an impossible feat. And, it gets awfully windy, at night down by the river.
We finally absolutely lucked out, after crossing over the bridge and walking past 150 taxi stands. A taxi pulls up and someone just gets out!
Monsiuer, Sil vous pait! Baby, baby, please! Yes! He asked if we were “Fatigay” meaning tired. Oh, oui,oui. He laughed at our accents and promptly dropped us off.
Tomorrow, we may or may not hear some kind of response about the apartment, after the croissants, cafe cremas and double kisses. Then, there’s the lawyers.

Ralph Fiennes and Patti Smith

Okay, these are my last moment in sweet London with internet in my room.
Last night! Oh, it was fabulous. The performance of Oedipus was stunning.
It was a modern production with a revolving, tipping stage that started with Oedipus on top of the world and as his fortunes changed so did the tilt of the stage. Ralph Fiennes was fabulous with a clean shaven head as the ill fated son,brother.
Love the theatre here, we were 4 rows from the front.
Then, as we are leaving, Patti Smith walked right past me. I recognized her because I had catered her show in Madison ages ago, when she played there. She looked great, just the same, low key, same men's wear jacket, jeans and cowboy boots.

Just missed a train strike! The french trains were threatening to strike today but they have put it off til Friday. Welcome to Europe!

Its raining here in London, hopefully the sun will be out in Paris.

LOVE AND MISS YOU!

Now, just a bit more about the apartment thing, while I have a moment.
The divorce apartment is the colorful one with the brick wall. It was actually rather large for a Parisian apt. It was nice but, you could feel the vibe. It was sunny, but it had this awful wall paper that had been painted over. It looked like string with knots. It would take a lot of work to undo. But the other thing was that it had very low ceilings in the mezzanine, My head was like a half inch from scraping the ceiling. I think that lead to more friction ;-}. The kitchen without the apartment is the one with the 2 very large windows. It was gorgeous, typical and so small without a kitchen.

So I have to get it ALL In Now!

Yesterday we met up with a property finder, an agent that helps you find a place, but is not a real estate agent. If you are successful, they will get a percentage. There is no up front fee with this one and she only gets paid if we find a place and buy it. She was from Poland and remembering when she moved to Pars, envied our stage of the process, when everything is new. She seemed to be a real go-getter who had no patience for the Parisian traffic. She said,”My German side comes out and I think Red Means Red!“ as we uncustomarily waited for the light to change BEFORE entering the crosswalk.
This was the Divorce Apartment. A couple bought this place and within months divorced, one moved to LA and the other to NYC, so much for the Parisian Dream ;-}.





Okay, this is the tiny apartment without kitchen in the Marais.





3 very small rooms, about 10'x8' each, one is going to have to accommodate a kitchen and still serve as a living room. the bathroom was about 5 feet wide, no kidding. It was as wide as the shower at the end. the sink would maybe hold 2 quarts! This place was in the Marais, which is a nice area, but you couldn't open the windows because it would be that noisy with traffic.
ParisStay, the rental place, has not contacted us since we got to Paris. They seem to function only online, once you are in Paris, service drops off considerably. Of course the four day holiday didn’t help.
After looking at the lovely but miniscule place sans kitchen, we looked at a real 1980’s NY style dump, with rather vulgar graffiti in english in the entrance. The first floor was some sort of asian institute of something or other. The apartment was empty except for trash and a poster of AC/DC a picture of Pete Doughtery. Uh, yeah, I’ll be moving in here. The agent, whose name was Charlie Brown (Marron), thought we could fix the place up and he was certain that the center court, composed of five parking places was going to be replaced with some plantings and bamboo. Don’t think so. Parking in Paris is as expensive as New York, there is no way they would replace that courtyard of green with nature. Well, okay, their cash isn’t green but you catch my drift.

Found a had to have hat, a black leather cloche that can look very 1920’s to au currant.
Then for the other end, leopard booties. They look somewhat like desert boots but with a small leopard covered heel. Love them!
Bon Marche is the most fabulous store I have ever seen, it makes Harrod’s look like pikers. It is massive, makes Harvey Nicks look small. As Dick says,”I read everything here is of quality, there is no store brand.
When we got back to the apartment, we tried in vain too connect to the internet and surfed the TV for english programs. We found Amy Winehouse live,my my the girl was so high. She was slurring through the whole show. She can sing but does not enunciate. Its a junkie thing I think. The band was tight and hot but she drug them through the whole set, no pun intended.