At home in Paris

We’re here at last; Paris that is. We can’t believe that it was just this past May that we decided to leave Italy and move to Paris. But here we are.

Our apartment is in the 5th arrondisement or district, a large part of which is known as the Quartier Latin, and is on the left bank directly across from Notre Dame. (The historic central part of Paris is made up of 20 arrondisements, or districts.) The district includes most of the university of Paris, the Sorbonne among other colleges and universities as well. In fact it is thought that the term Latin Quarter derived from the fact that in the Middle Ages Latin-speaking faculty and students dominated the area. Anyway, it is bounded on the north by the 4th arrondisement, Notre Dame and the Seine River, on the west by the 6th and the Jardin du Luxembourg, on the east-southeast by the river and the 13th, and on the south by the 14th and Montparnasse. The 5th is also home to the Paris Mosque and to the Pantheon, burial place of Voltaire, Rousseau, Emile Zola, Victor Hugo and Louis Braille (yes, that Braille). (photo: the Paris beach.)

Anyway, amazing as it may seem, by Tuesday morning, 1 August, the day before Susan’s birthday, we have pretty much settled into our new apartment and our new neighborhood as well.

Monday morning we slept in – although I’m not sure that has much meaning at this point in our lives. Of course that will change dramatically next week when Susan starts school at Le Cordon Bleu – long days for the intensive first level during the month of August and that means a combination of walking and Metro. But for now we are just working at settling in, putting our house in order, and enjoying living in Paris.

I roused myself out of bed, fixed coffee and we just relaxed enjoying the cool morning air coming in off our balcony. After we showered and dressed we went next door to the small grocery store just around the corner and picked up some things for our pantry: water (“eau”), milk (lait”), and various other odds and ends – including a baguette -- by law we have to eat at least once a day (it’s a subsection of the Mandatory Goat Cheese Consumption Law, or MGCL). We returned home, and had breakfast: the baguette with jam. Drea called to ask if we could meet her at the zoo just up the street – she had her little boy with heer and wanted to show him the animals and hey we got a chance to see the zoo so why not?! We said no problem, just give us 20 minutes. We finished breakfast and then headed off for the park and the zoo, a 5-minute walk up Via G. Saint Hillaire.

The zoo, which is the oldest in the city and shows it, is pretty small, as one expects in a major urban center such as Paris – but it was a beautiful morning and we had a great time with Drea and her little boy Dries. We talked more about Paris, life, and well, life in Paris. We saw Yaks, birds of all sort, lots of raptors in fact, Watusis, which I thought was a dance but can also be a really big water buffalo like creature, and water buffalos too. (photo: "yech, I have tourist goo on my fingers")


After we saw pretty much everything at the zoo – and resolved to return soon to the other side of the “jardin”, the actual flower-garden part – we said au revoir to Drea and her little boy. (photo: Drea and her little boy.)

With our list of things to accomplish and items we need for the apartment we headed north toward the river (Seine). Fortunately, Drea had gone to the trouble of already adding some great items to the apartment, particularly in the kitchen: a complete new set of pots and pans, collection of knives (Wusthof!) and numerous other things which have made our transition that much easier.

Still there are some things we need and so it’s off to the BHV (“Bazaar Hotel Ville), one of the largest department stores in Paris. Located on the north side of the Hotel Ville (the city hall) the BHV is enormous inside: six floors and two basement levels of stuff for the home and then some: for example, one floor is hardware and electrical things, what one would normally find just in a hardware store.

We spent what seemed like an eternity on several different floors – sales were everywhere throughout the store and apparently so were most of the Parisians -- but in the end found pretty much every thing we had come for and then headed back out the way we came in, across from the Hotel de Ville.

We walked back across the Seine, admiring the “Parisian beaches”, or “Le Plage”, where Paris has trucked in a gazillion tons of sand and set up beach chairs, umbrellas, wooden boardwalks, all the accoutrements of a real beach – minus a place to actually swim of course – and the city fathers and mothers have put the law down about beachwear: no thong bikinis and no nude or topless sunbathing.

Next we set off in search of a place where we could buy more time for our new mobile phone numbers. Drea was kind enough to set us up with new numbers even before we arrived (how many landlords would go to such trouble we wonder) but we needed to add time to them. We soon discovered that the best place – and perhaps the only place to recharge your phone is at any one of the many tobacco shops scattered throughout the city. After purchasing the time we still had to figure out how to get it programmed into the phone – not being able to understand hardly any French mind you. Anyway we stopped into a nearby phone store where the clerk was kind enough to show us how to add more time. One more thing we have got figure out; a thousand to go.

I should mention at this point several things we have noticed so far; observations which are by no means scientifically in their conclusions but drawn from our brief and very limited experience dealing with the French:

1. Everyone has been really very nice to us and extremely helpful. Even those who speak very little English are always willing to try and help us work out the language at the same time help us work out whatever issue we might need to resolve (such as phone recharging).
2. How many French words are part of our language as well: “impasse” which is a dead-end alley; restaurant is, well restaurant of course. And we wondered about certain proper names. Take for example “Louis”. Now in English or at least American English, the nickname for “Louis” is curiously enough “Lewie”, which is how the French pronounce “Louis”. And we wondered about Dennis. The nickname is “Denny” which is just how the French pronounce “Denis”.
3. Food is everywhere in this city. In fact that is the one thing we noticed the most so far, besides all the wonderfully wide streets and little gardens everywhere, that food seems to be the one predominant element of the world here. Restaurants abound, indeed all kinds of places to eat, every and nationality seems to be represented – and not just the eateries either but also an overwhelming number of places to buy groceries, foodstuffs, high-end, low-end, fruits and vegetables only, small grocery stores (“alimentation generale”), whatever, is truly astounding. And the bakeries (“boulangerie”)! There seems to be one around every corner, producing not only the standard baguette and other local breads but also a wide assortment of sweets, baked, chilled, all types of good things to eat. And we have yet to get to any of the major (or minor) food markets!
4. This city is extremely clean – at least the parts we’ve seen so far. Lots of pride in the appearance of the streets and plenty of attention given to keeping it that way.

We set off south away from the Seine heading deeper into the Latin Quarter. From the Place Maubert on the Boulevard Saint Germain we headed uphill on Rue de la Montagne-Ste-Genevieve. (The patron saint of Paris she reportedly saved the city from Attila and his Huns.) We were in search of the Rue Mouffetard, reportedly one of the coolest streets in this part of Paris – so we were told and we were not disappointed.

Anyway we climbed up from the Seine, passing small cafes and exotic restaurants, until we turned off onto Rue Descartres that eventually led us to Place de la Contrescarpe, surrounded by more small cafes and tiny shops. (Hemingway lived right around the corner at 74 Rue Cardinal Lemoine.) From the Place Contrescarpewe continued southward, downhill now, on Rue Mouffetard, a quaint street lined with small restaurants representing a wide variety of cuisines – a clutch of Moslem women were standing outside a Lebanese restaurant ordered some food to go apparently – past toward the numerous creperie, selling crepes to go up and down the street – past the intersection with Rue Jean Calvin, a Parisian who left Paris for Geneva, past the small clothing shops selling great clothes and drastically reduced prices, a street filled with locals and some tourists of course, all searching for something to remember their life in Paris by or make their life in Paris better.

We will certainly be coming back to the “Mouffetard” since it is barely a 10-minute walk from our apartment. This is definitely one area that should be on nearly everyone’s itinerary: it’s a bit uphill and downhill to be sure but seemed quiet and yet full of bustling activity at the same time. Maybe, just maybe it’s what an older Paris must have looked like, the kind of Paris that attracted the likes of Hemingway. Small on space but large on vision perhaps.

From Mouffetard we headed home, dropped our things off and then wentback out again, ostensibly to look for two things: an internet site close by and one of the big, round green recycle bins for glass. Trash goes out here everyday and we recycle plastic along with the trash. Glass, on the other hand, has to be recycled at one of the “green cones” as we call it, and they are few and far between. No wonder the previous tenant left so much glass in the apartment.

So it’s back out again. We strike out on the Internet but find a glass recycle bin nearby. We stop and have an aperitif as well. All this walking you know. . . .


After we return home I discover that there is a very faint wireless signal in the area and we pick up our email – but we will still need to find someplace to upload photos so that will be on our agenda tomorrow (and the next day and the next day if need be). We eat our first meal at home: sautéed chicken in Dijon mustard and onions, browned baby white potatoes and, hold on, “haricot vert”, tiny green beans that you can almost eat raw they are so delicious. (wish you could have been here Dorothy!) Of course this was only after having a glass of wine on our balcony, savoring the dying light.

We’re just happy to be here, and

Wish you were here,

Steve