Vous êtes des optimistes!

We didn't arrange a permanent apartment in Paris in advance from Canada.  Although there are many rental agencies in Paris, and everything can be searched on-line, we decided that we couldn't properly decide without being here and seeing the lay of the land.  So we booked a 2 week vacation apartment and set out to find a permanent location once we arrived.  At the agency where we booked the temporary apartment, the kindly fellow, when he heard of our plans to find a permanent residence within those two weeks, exclaimed, "Mais vous êtes des optimistes!"

Well, we are, and I am pleased to confirm that our optimistic plans have not miscarried.  We have an apartment!  It couldn't be any more central really.  Consider the map of Paris as an archery target, then our location is the bullseye.  We are a mere block from Musée d'Orsay.  Within a 10 minute walk is the Louvre in one direction, the Eiffel Tower in the other direction, and any number of other phenomenal cultural and historic locations in any random direction.    To see where we are, fire up google maps and enter "rue Bellechasse Paris".  These are the doors onto the street:

Jerome is just barely strong enough to push the big doors open, once unlocked.  When the big doors are swung in, they open onto a passage that leads into a courtyard.  On one side of the courtyard is our place.  Here,

The original apartment building is 18th century.  It is U-shaped, presumably for easy entry of carriages into the courtyard.  In the 19th century this building was added, closing off the courtyard, a "hôtel particulier".  Ours is the lower floor of this building.  Although inside it is split vertically, with a kind of partial mezzanine, added recently.  On this mezzanine level is a bedroom and two (!) bathrooms.  It's kind of like an internal balcony.  Maybe that's confusing - I will add some photos of the inside later.  In addition we have an actual basement, of two small rooms.  Not just "un cave", which would be typical. We have seen some caves - worn steps going down to a winding "dungeon" of unfinished stone with several storerooms.  When the kids first saw a real "cave" they were quite excited, "Oh this is so cool!" But that's not what we have.  We have a real finished basement.  Very rare in Paris.  And a fantastic place to practice.  Silke and Jerome could play their instruments down there to their hearts' content and never disturb anyone.

Considering how central the location is, the price is quite reasonable.  Probably because the layout is rather odd, and if not exactly dilapidated, it is certainly well-worn.  Minor inconveniences!  Importantly, it is in the catchment area for my first choice of school for the children.  It is also not far from my first choice for music conservatory.

In typical fashion, everything came together at the last minute.  HSBC has been painfully slow (August in France), and although our account was opened last week (after starting about a month beforehand in Canada with HSBC international!), it took almost another week until the bank cards and cheques were available.  Mere hours before we had to write a cheque to secure the apartment!  The apartment is owned by an elderly French gentlemen, very charming and very gracious.  Also somewhat reluctant to rent to foreigners we were made to understand.  We had a full two hour interview with him, in French of course.  I think he was quite satisfied.  Silke and Jerome impressed (with a bit of coaching beforehand on how to speak to an elderly French gentleman!)  "Ils sont très bien élevé."  According to the agency, he preferred also not have children in the apartment.  (My understanding is that the agency chose not to warn him to advance of meeting us that Silke and Jerome existed.)  Now he has both foreigners and children.  And everyone is very satisfied with the arrangement.

Evening at Jardin des Plantes

When we get weary of searching for an apartment (all of us), or of writing grant proposals (Carolyn) or of studying French verbs and math problems in preparation for school (Silke and Jerome), then we take the subway somewhere and go for a stroll.  Sometimes we have a destination, but often we don't.  And sometimes when we think we have a destination, we end up somewhere else anyway.  This evening we found ourselves at the Jardin des Plantes.

On the topic of apartments, I think we found one.  Unusual, but ideal in many ways.  More on that tomorrow.  If everything works out.

Instructions for Crusaders, in 3D

Wrong way:

ouch

Right Way:

A Rainy Day in Paris

Today was the first rainy day in Paris.  It was also Sunday, so there was no chance of running errands, or seeing apartments or getting done any of the other things we need to.  That, combined with the rain, decided us for visiting some tourist sites this morning.  Perhaps, we thought, with the rain, there will be fewer tourists.  We've mostly stayed away from the famous locations.  There will be plenty of time later to see everything.  So far I'm afraid to say we've seen mostly places that relate to, or are close to items, on our To Do lists.  Although we have started walking more instead of taking the subway when possible, which means that we are continually making serendipitous discoveries.  Silke and Jerome joke that while other people come to Paris and do tours of famous places or museums or cultural sites, we come to Paris and make a walking tour of colleges.  ("Collège" being the appropriate school level for them.)  We have the exterior of many a Paris college.  There were closed last week, but one can get an impression from seeing the building and the notices posted outside.  Here is one we visited:

One of the places we looked at today was the Eiffel tower up close.  We have already seen it from many places in a distance, including from our apartment.  We didn't go up.  It was windy and cold and cloudy without much view I expect.

We also happened across l'Arc du Triomphe de l'Etoile.

We did try to visit la Bastille.  Place de la Bastille was easy enough to find, but when we arrived we found that we were 223 years too late, the Bastille itself having been destroyed in 1790.  We also hadn't brought any pitchforks with us.

By the way, if you haven't watched the video in yesterday's post, go do that now.  We think it's pretty funny.

Paris underground

The first few days we saw more of Paris below ground than above ground.  We had so many errands to do, that we spend most of the time figuring out the Metro.  We would pop up to visit some office or store, and then, like frightened gophers, scurry down again into a hole, only later to stick our noses up somewhere else.  The Paris Metro is a marvel.  It is a lot like the Swiss trains, and nothing like them at all.  It is much larger, much more complex and somewhat less logical (also not nearly so clean).  Even finding the platform of the train you want in a station can be a non-trivial task.  Silke and Jerome have prepared this short tutorial video of how to find the platform for line 4, direction Porte de Clignancount, when entering the Montparnasse metro station from the Bienvenüe Place entrance.   It sometimes seems that you have to walk further to find the train than you travel on the train!

Or here is the youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y4sYCa1_yk (The youtube video is higher quality than the above embedded video.)

From Northern Ontario to Paris

I start with a photo of Northern Ontario.  Our journey to Paris started here.  We didn't actually paddle a canoe to the airport in Thunder Bay, but regardless, no contrast could be more dumbfounding than that between a cottage ("camp" in local terminology) on a cold clear lake in the woods an hour outside of Thunder Bay - a place lacking any internet or cell phone connection for example - and Paris.  The expanding aircraft size alone tells a story.  From Thunder Bay to Toronto: a Bombardier Q400, a prop aircraft (not a jet!) with 4 narrow seats to a row, and very small overhead bins, into which we were very lucky to fit our instruments.  Toronto-Montreal, Boeing 737, number of seats to a row 7.  Montreal-Paris, Boeing 777 with 10 seats to a row.  (We very much regret that the Airbus A380 no longer flies between Montreal and Paris.)  Nobody slept.  It was much too exciting (and much too uncomfortable), and the night was short anyways, flying into the dawn off the coast of France.

Then, Paris!  Of our first day, suffice it to say that we oriented ourselves.  Much was accomplished, including, importantly, getting the keys for the apartment we have rented for the next two weeks while we search a more permanent location.  The apartment is perfectly charming, very reminiscent in many details of our apartment many years ago in Grenoble.  We are on the top (6th) floor. Unexpectedly, we have a view of the top Eiffel Tower from the kitchen window and the balcony.  Not a close view, but enough to increase everyone's excitement even more, if that were possible.  This can only be Paris!  We often jump up to go check the changing light on the tower.

On the first morning I woke to the sounds of doves cooing on the roof opposite.