27 days in Paris: the first week

I had to include a photo of my boy driving our little home, this is on the last day driving into Versailles and I had missed it.

Paris: No, it won’t be a blow by blow ... highlights, and there’s lots.

We arrived at our apartment- 48 Rue Monsieur Le Prince- late afternoon with 3 suitcases, two backpacks, boxes of wine, bags of food from the fridge and cupboard: our new landlord raised his eyebrows and proceeded to help us in. Through these huge doors, into a courtyard, through an archway under the building and into another courtyard, our ‘stuff’ was taken up in the lift and we took the rest up the stairs - James and Thierry doing all the work! And into our home for the next 27 days ... gorgeous.

Stainless steel drawers and fridge front in the kitchen, plenty of hanging, plenty of drawers, a nice (small) bathroom, a comfy couch that converts, and a ‘loft’ bed. Doors/windows that open onto the courtyard. A false timber beam high ceiling and some other nice touches. Lovely.

Thierry manages this property and others and had been the other side of town so hadn’t finished the cleaning the outgoing tenants were supposed to do so asked if we would ‘go away’ for an hour or so. Good for us, we can explore.

Down the road, around the corner and you’ll guess we found a bar:

looking across at Jardin Luxembourg and very busy. A nice table, a plate of smoked salmon (no real lunch today) and a couple of glasses of wine and we were happy.

We had spied a Vietnamese restaurant “Hanoi” across the road s9 it was Ph’o for dinner and we decided that unpacking could wait.

Each day we walk about 10 km and as I say I’ll do highlights. We have decided that walking is what we will do instead of the Metro and, you know what, it really works well and is much easier than going down and up underground changing stations.

We walked and walked looking for an extension cord and found it at a supermarket haha.

Just loving the feel of Paris. It is clean. People are nice.

Sunday we went to the art Creators Market at Montparnasse. Anyone who has been to our home in Brisbane may have seen the painting of the girl at the end of the hallway (and some others we would have mentioned): came from Serge Rat, who is now the President of the market - we bought it and 2 others in 2008 and another 2 in 2012 (and Lucy and Adam’s wedding present painting style I can attribute to ideas from Serge), love his work. And his wife Emmanuelle is a jewellery and more latterly a sculptor (added in 2012) and now a painter. I have her jewellery and James bought a sculpture last time. So great welcomes, how lovely they remembered us.

The market has a great mix and we found many pieces we would like to bring home ... I’ll just have to work harder! One of the artists we talked to has invited me to a class on 4th Octobre- great opportunity.

We had a great dish of escargots and Onion Soup and wandered further. We found the seafood restaurant on Rasphail, so that’s on the list.

Shakespeare and Co is renowned in Paris as the great bookstore. Sunday’s 4-6pm they have the ‘Mad Hatters Tea Party’ with poetry readings by whomever would like, and James had already targeted Sunday afternoons in for this. It’s crammed into a little room, sit where you can, and people read their own or other favourite poems. James read Ozymandias - it is so moving and he reads so well. This will happen any Sundays we can.

We went shopping for books for ‘our French girls’, each of whom has a talent: there is such choice in bookshops and they are so full of people browsing and buying. We walked to Palais Opéra, going past The Louvre and other amazing buildings.

Paris is also a place for us to rediscover places we have previously been, and one of those in 2008 and again in 2012 was The Terrace, over towards the Eiffel Tower in Ar.7. Well, they don’t do the rabbit terrine any longer but their escargots and onion soup (there’s a trend here) were great as was the wine.

Haircuts, pedicure and manicures have also been on the agenda.

Our friends Janifer and Geoffrey are also in town from Les Houches, so we had lunch on an island in the middle of the Bois de Bologne- we had a great walk through the park and back as well. The food was delightful and we had what Jan and I think is the weirdest drink: we had a Piscine (being a swimming pool) of Laurent Perrier champagne - well, we thought it would be served in an old fashioned type champagne glass (not a flute) but ... it came in a large wine glass WITH ICE!! We were stunned. All of you champagne drinkers will be opened mouthed at this I know- amazing.

Thursday night we walked across town to meet some of the Sans Clu (translated Without a Clue) Hash House Harriers at the Red Pub. Half a dozen of us .. an Aussie, Slack Mac, who lives in Paris; a couple visiting from LA, his name being Henry Winkler and he looked just like him!, the GM and another chap. We drank far too much beer and Ubered home, having a snack at the Asian cheap eat across the road.
Good fun. They are mainly expats who live in Paris and often visitors such as us.

End of first week. It’s getting cold and I’ve bought a couple of scarves, and one for James. Looking at a coat - yes, that cold. Loving our wandering.