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Copain and I just fit what most people do in five years, into one. Almost exactly one - seeing as how last time I left you was one day shy of one year ago today.

I'm happy to be on the other side of it, still in one piece and not rotting in a French jail for strangling my boyfriend or throwing baguettes at idiotic bankers. 

We have been through the wringer people.

This all sounds horribly bad - très mauvais - but basically, we used our driving force of 2013 - Avancer - and took it to a whole new level for 2014.

In 2014 we:

1. Put in an offer on the cutest apartment in the world. In our favorite Parisian neighborhood.

2. Realized the that the apartment was above a dry cleaners (dangerous perc!). Freaked out.

3. Urgently visited the environmental police office in Paris and combed through their files to research the dry cleaner's level of danger - finally decided it was okay to move forward and that we wouldn't die of perc-induced cancer.

4. Bankers! loans! Documents! Different banks! Different loans! More documents!

5.  Took a trip to Vietnam and Cambodia - almost got hit by lightening in the plane to Siem Reap. Hiked to a remote village, stayed with the villagers. Swam through the Dark Cave, tried not to die.

6. Decided to get married in November. French paperwork! More paperwork! But then this:

7. Said, OUI! then flew to Budapest -bouquet and all- for our wedding dinner... just the two of us.

At the airport: You are a few meters from a new beginning...

8. Moved out of our Teeny Parisian Apartment into our new humble (but adorable) abode in the 11th arrondissement - down five flights of stairs on one side, up five flights of stairs on the other side! 

9. Celebrated the holidays as mari & femme - in a heated apartment! With lovely stockings from Budapest, and our first Parisian Christmas tree.

10. Got rid of the taupe couch! 

Before:

After:

11. Bought our first dinner table, first new bed, a rug,  and finally hung photos on the walls. I even bought a Le Creuset casserole dish and made a boeuf bourguignon.

We are finally home.

So you understand why French Cannes Cannes went on hiatus for a year there. It was nutso up in this heezy. I was a crazy lady - une folle! 

But I'm happy to be back and to share 2015 with you.  We are done with Avancer, so now we can VIVRE.

Parisian Charm

On Wednesday night, I came home late from my Zumba class at Théâtre du Renard. Tired and sore from the last Tina Turner jam sesh, I parked my Vélib and typed the code to the front door of my immeuble.

As I walked into the hall, I was stopped by this:

One of my neighbors had removed his old windows and replaced them with new, plastic-framed, undoubtedly double-paned versions.

Where part of me was jealous of the heat-insulating additions to his apartment (surely he would be warmer than me!), another part of me felt so sad...soon, windows like this won't exist at all...

Instead of walking up the five flights of stairs to my apartment, I tip-toed around my building, careful not to wake the neighbors, and photographed all of the things that may one day be replaced by white-plastic versions, void of the Parisian charm that makes this city so magical.

How many people have come in and out of this door...

Leaned against this wall as they said goodbye to someone outside...

Felt the comfort of home as they entered this hallway...

 Lit their way with this lamp...

Climbed these creaky stairs...

Tip-toed along this landing...

Steadied themselves on this banister...

Looked down from the top and saw this twirling staircase...

Felt the relief of finally making it to the front door! 

(especially after all those early 20th century Zumba classes)

I'm usually annoyed with my building, what with the leaking windows, moldy corners and thinnest walls on the planet.  But I guess that's just the Parisian charm shining through, n'est pas?

Le Mur

It's strange how well I know my neighbors given that I've never formally met them, nor do I know their names.

I did see them once, when our upstairs neighbor's washing machine caught on fire and we all met in the hall as the Pompiers de Paris  ran up and down the stairs carrying charred machinery. So, I know that a couple lives next door. I even offered for them to use my shower when I learned that their water and electricity had to be shut off, due to the incendie.

I say this, because what I do know about them goes waaaay beyond names, jobs and all the other superficial information we offer to strangers.

And it's all because of le mur. 

The wall.

As you know, Copain and I live in a teeny Parisian apartment, on the 5th floor of  a very old walk-up. As a result, the walls are verrrry thin and unfortunately, it means that we learn more about our neighbors than one would ever want to know.

Le mur that we share with our neighbors is our bedroom wall, and from what I can tell, their bedroom wall as well...

So far, we know that they really like music. They may even be singers or musicians of some sort. Music happens all the time, no matter the hour. They may even hold rehearsals in their apartment, given the melodies we hear through le mur.

They have lots of friends and host lots of parties - which can get annoying at 2am, when Granny Cannes Cannes wants to sleep.

Beyond their musical expression and social lives, is the fighting - a lot of fighting. Screaming, yelling, the works. It's a turbulent relationship to say the least.

Why do they fight? Well, as of last week, I know that it's because the girl made a *ahem*, video, for an ex-boyfriend, that the current boyfriend is not fond of.  There were photos too. It's a mess. Current boyfriend is VERY upset about it, and thinks that ce n'est pas normal - it's not normal. I know, because I heard the whole fight through le mur as I was trying to fall asleep.

Not to worry though, they must have gotten over it, because just two nights ago, they made up. Twice.

It was ever so slightly disturbing. 

This is why we can never be friends with our neighbors here. Ce n'est pas possible. It's just not possible. I mean, how could you ever invite someone over for an apéritif, knowing all the while that a video is floating around cyberspace and that they may have made their own the night before?

Boom Boom Thao

It's been rough times in the Cannes Cannes household. Or should I say, craphold. 

We are literally in a crap hold. Our teeny Parisian apartment has got us in the biggest crap hold of all time. I fell off the blog grid during The Great Apartment Search of 2013 and left for Christmas in the states thinking that Copain was signing for The One (with the power of attorney I gave him the day before my flight!). 

When I woke up in San Francisco after a night of celebratory nachos and cocktails with m'moom and seester (okay, we totally had artichoke dip and a pizza too, long live America), I learned that we had fallen down the crap hole, back into the crap hold. After wiring a (BIG) "show of good faith" payment, and surviving 3 hours of negotiations (read: yelling matches) with the owner and her posse, Copain said, "Adieu," and peaced out of there, leaving our apartment forever.

We should have seen the bad omens floating in the Parisian sky when the 78 year-old owner fell down the stairs during our first visit, breaking her little grandma arm. We should have known when they promised us the gigantic, American fridge and then took it away, leaving 25 year-old kitchen appliances in its place. We should have known by the funky smell on the landing, and the brown socks with orange tassels vibe, the fact that the owner's son-in-law is a lawyer. 

But we fell in love with the location, the balcony overlooking trees and a children's square, the beautiful hard-wood floors, the parking spot (!!), the CLOSETS in the hallway...yeah, closets. 

We turned a blind eye to the wallpaper from 1975, the beige sink and bathtub, and the over-glossed paint job in the kitchen. We'd live with it until we could afford new furniture AND new decor. We'd make it work because we'd finally be out of the craphole and into chez nous.  Our house.

Alas, it didn't go down like that. 

The day after the failed-sale, the owner threatened to sue us for backing out. Copain joined me in the states and our friends and family helped us out of our funk, told us we'd probably side-stepped a land mine. If the owner's posse was so crazy-cray, who knows what else could have happened along the way. 

And so here we are. Here I am. Back on the taupe couch.

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Paris is just now starting to buzz back to life after the holidays. The Sees candy and California taco-overload is melting off as I Vélib to work and walk back home along rue de la Roquette. Copain and I feast on homemade soup and salads from the marché, and our eyes roll back in our heads at around 10pm, as we adjust back to the time zone.

Avancer 2013 is not dead, but it's on hiatus. Instead of looking for apartments this week, I looked at the yoga studio's schedule and got myself to Thao's class at Rasa last night. Girlfriend kicked my sad, yogi buttocks that haven't seen a yoga mat since Bali (ahem, September). You'd think she would have taken it slow for the New Year, but no; at one point I was supposed to get my foot locked into my elbow, while reaching overhead with the other arm to stretch my quads, but that didn't happen. I was just lucky to be able to grab my foot at all without falling over or seriously pulling a muscle. 

Which brings me to 2014. Equilibre. Balance. That will be the name of the game. It's not to say that we won't avancer -  we will. But I don't want to lose sight of my equilibre, which was very off in 2013. So off, that I found myself visiting the gastroenterologiste for some serious issues with my stressed out intestins (poor dudes). 

I need time for Copain, time for work, time for friends and family, time to make soups and go to the theatre, time to Cannes Cannes, time for movies and walks in the city...

Time for fitting my foot into my elbow.

Brown Socks with Orange Tassels

When I was growing up, my babysitter was a stay-at-home mom who had two children - a girl and a boy. My brother, sister and I would go to her house after school for a snack and playtime, and then our mom would come and pick us up. I remember that the dad worked for the Frito-Lay company and their family always seemed to have Cheetos in the house.  My baggies of Wheat-Thins felt so subpar in comparison.

The little girl was maybe two years older than me, but it wasn't so much that we couldn't play house together or make cookies, or imagine up potions in her back yard. We'd spend entire afternoons watching Bedknobs and Broomsticks, right after her mom finished up the after-lunch episode of All My Children, both of us squishing into their brown velour 1970's armchair.

Once a week, right around the time my mom would come to get me, the little girl would prepare for her Brownie troop meetings. Her mom was the leader of the troop and hosted the meetings in her living room. It would have made sense for me to join in all the Brownie fun since I was already there - I know my mom asked me if I wanted to do it more than once, but every time, I refused outright:

Not all the crafts, good deeds or trail-mix snacks in the world would convince me to wear a pair of brown socks with orange tassels. I had principles people. Principles. 

At least about appearance, that is.

------------------------------------------------------

I guess I haven't changed much. 

Yesterday, Copain and I visited an apartment that might as well be brown socks and orange tassels. It's an ugly 8-floor piece of cement from 1970, with orange-tinted window guards. The cement is beige, but it might as well be brown. It's affreux. Awful.

And maybe it's my past issues with brown socks and orange tassels that is making this decision one of the hardest EVER.  See, the inside of the apartment is quite nice - it's clean and well-maintained (no moldy smell when you walk inside, like so many 19th century buildings). There is an elevator that can fit FOUR people. There is a PARKING SPOT, a basement, and 70 square meters to live in. SEVENTY! It is GIANT. There is a view of Père Lachaise cemetery and you can even see the Eiffel Tower out the bedroom windows if you look to the left. There are CLOSETS people - CLOSETS! 

But it is brown with orange tassels. There is absolutely no charm whatsoever.

The inside needs re-doing too since it's still stuck in 1975, lived in by a smoker with cats. We would modernize the entire thing and make it a real, family-size apartment, so once inside, it would feel great. But in a city of beautiful Haussmannian buildings, we would have the eye-sore. 

As an American, part of the draw of Paris is the charm. The intricate window rails, the wooden staircases, the massive doors that open onto cobble-stoned courtyards. I never thought that we would even be able to afford an apartment in such a great city. But now that we can, I hate to have to choose between beauty and functionality.

If you can't have both, what's more important - space? or charm? The inside or the outside? 

Avancer

Copain and I decided in Bali that our word for the season would be AVANCER. Move forward, look ahead - in other words, get shit done.

We've been dragging our feet about this whole getting an apartment thing, mainly because we both have busy jobs and this summer was nutso before we left for our amazing vacay (that we so desperately needed).  As we walked / hobbled around the Gili Trawangan island, we told ourselves that once we were back in Paris, we would procrastinate no more! 

So far, we've been pretty good about calling agencies, locking in visits, verifying our budget with the banks and encouraging each other as we go. I'll admit, it's great to have us both be on board. However, I decided that I needed a few other motivators to keep me going.

Exhibit A: The Taupe Couch

The taupe couch was purchased in Cannes, back in 2007, when we had zero furniture and 3000 Euros to furnish an entire apartment. It cost us under 350 Euros and has served us well. 

The taupe couch in its glory days, in Cannes.

Unfortunately, time has not been kind to the taupe couch. It's now faded by the sun, and what started as a tiny wearing away of the fabric, has now resulted in this:

I refuse to replace the taupe couch until we have a new apartment. I also refuse to invite people over until my couch is presentable. Which brings me to...

Exhibit B: The Plateaux - The Trays

With no space for even a coffee table, let alone a dining table, this is how Copain and I have to eat our meals.  Eating with Exhibit B has also contributed to the deterioration of Exhibit A, coffee stain here, pasta sauce spill there - hence my refusal to make any replacements until we have room for both a couch AND a table. So I'll just keep on "accidentally spilling" things, to help keep that motivation high.

Exhibit C - The Laundry

The three doors that you see in this photo are: the bathroom door, the toilet door and the front door. What you don't see is the bedroom door on the right-hand side and the 2-foot space left over for us to walk into "the living room". 

Getting ready in the morning is a tangle of "pardon, pousse-toi!, excuse me, move!" and then scooting by each other as we both try to get from the living room to the bathroom to the bedroom at the same time. I think I'll just leave the laundry like this on a regular basis as an additional motivator to get the heck out of here.

Exhibit D - The "Cupboards"

...are spilling onto the floor. I'm done.

Exhibit E: Our "Storage"

I know what you're thinking - I have too many shoes. But you're wrong. A. You can never have too many shoes, and B. We just don't have any space to store anything, which results in this:

Our suitcases are stored on Copain's armoire - all five of them.  Two of them are full of my winter clothes and weigh approximately 45 pounds each.  Taking them down and putting them back up is a blast. Maybe I'll add my exercise weights as an additional pain-point this year...

To keep us on track to AVANCER the heck out of this place, and into our new Parisian apartment. 

The Fixer-Upper

Last weekend, Copain and I visited another apartment, only this time, the apartment was in PARIS. 

It was described as being 50m squared (about 500 square feet), and "à tout refaire" - everything must be re-done. Hence the lovely price-tag. So we went - why not?! Maybe this was just the ticket to homeownership in the city!

There was only one photo on the agency's website - of the outside of the building - the rest was a mystery.

We hiked up avenue Gambetta, taking in the beautiful Père Lachaise cemetery, the tree-lined street, the kids playing at the park. Then we turned right onto the street where the apartment was located...

I looked at Copain. He looked at me. We weren't in Kansas anymore.

I tried to remain optimistic- This neighborhood is up and coming!  I'm sure there will be a Starbucks here in no time! Yeah, the guy on sitting on that porch looks like he's been there for the past week, but hey, we're in Paris! It's....authentic!

The agent met us at the gate and lead us up two flights of stairs in a lovely, well-kept building. We looked at each other hopefully - the co-propriété (the co-owners) must be good, responsible people!

Then the agent opened the door to the actual apartment we'd come to visit...

We walked into a little horizontal hallway which gave us four choices - one door lead to a bedroom, one door lead to the living room, one lead to the WC and one lead to the kitchen. Lots of...options. The walls rocked wallpaper from 1943, a gigantic TV had made a permanent indent in the bedroom mattress, two tables were set up in the living room covered in bullets and knives, and the shower was located in the kitchen, closing nicely with a brown accordion door. Jackets and shoes hung in the overstuffed closet. 

We learned that the owner, a retired policeman, had just died, leaving the apartment to his niece in Marseille. (Maybe he secretly hated her). And she wanted one thing - to get rid of the place (very understandable).

The windows on the left of the apartment gave onto a courtyard and a building, and the windows on the back wall gave onto another courtyard and another building. 

The tank for the toilet was located on the wall and flushed by pulling a handle at the end of a metal chain, BUT, there was one small window for aeration purposes which is really hard to find in Paris. I pointed it out to Copain hoping he would ignore the rotting wood around the window frame and direct view into the neighboring apartment.

We asked the agent how exactly he envisioned this apartment being livable, and he jumped into his spiel of tearing down walls, fusing the shower room and toilet together, adding door frames in murs porteurs (supporting walls) with approvable from the building manager, opening up the kitchen onto the living room, re-doing the electricity and plumbing, and then voilà! A brand new apartment in Paris! 

You understand just how badly we want an apartment in Paris when I tell you that Copain immediately called his parents to see if they thought it was a good investment. 

We asked the agent if we could meet him at the agency later in the afternoon, after walking around the neighborhood to get to know it better. As we adventured further down the road, we realized that the neighborhood had a ways to go before it was actually up and coming. I wondered if I would feel safe walking home alone at night. 

The sun was shining, so we grabbed a table at a local café, ordered salads and rosé and talked about the potential of the apartment. How it would be a good investment - that when we sold it, we would make a mint. 50 square meters in Paris! At this price! We could make it beautiful! We could sell it for so much more!

But then we finally admitted to ourselves, it wasn't a coup de coeur, it was a good investment. And while people buy apartments to invest their money, we also want to buy a home, not just an investment. We want a coup de coeur.

I told my colleagues about the apartment the next day and they told me I was crazy-town. 50 meters for that price?! But the neighborhood is up and coming! And then I thought that maybe we had made a mistake. I texted Copain that maybe we should visit again and reconsider. He texted back:

Don't think about it. This wasn't our coup de coeur. 

And he's right. It wasn't. 

Not Paris

We didn't put in an offer on the Vincennes apartment. I'm still kind of bummed about it. I had already mentally installed all of my furniture and imagined hefting groceries up the 5 flights of stairs.

After looking at the diagnostics (asbestos, lead, termites, electrical installations...), Copain felt like something was just a little "off". While we knew what we'd be getting into regarding the apartment, we had no idea what we were getting into regarding the attic - which was right above the apartment. If the roof was in bad shape, it would all flood into OUR apartment.

It also seemed strange to him that the apartment had been on the market for awhile and no one had purchased it yet. He just had a bad feeling.

In any case, all of his explanations made sense, but I think there is one very simple reason behind his hesitation...

The apartment is not in Paris.

Copain wants a Parisian address. He wants letters sent to Paris, and the city at his feet when he walks out the door. He wants the bustle, the culture, the simultaneous charm and grit of Paris. 

I get it - I want all those things too, and I almost feel like buying in the banlieue is somehow a failure, since I've always dreamt of Paris.  But I also want space, and cleanliness, and a place where maybe one day I would feel comfortable raising a family. Vincennes ticks all the boxes - and you can BIKE to Paris in 15 minutes or take a metro and get there in 5. 

I tell myself that it will all work out no matter where we buy an apartment, and that I have friends who live in both places and are just fine.  But I was already getting attached to that funky place with the mini-tub and green checkered-kitchen...

We visited another apartment yesterday - same general area as the first visit, 1900's building, 4th floor walk up, 57 meters squared, but it was "en enfilade" meaning that you walk through each room of the house to get to the next room and then finally, the bathroom.  It required A LOT of imagination and 50K to see how that problem could be fixed. Next!

The search continues! 

My Relationship with Things - Part Deux

Thank god for girlfriends. 

I called my copine d'enfance after the ridiculous cup issues I had been having a few weeks ago. She was having an equally bad day, and as we laughed and cried over our ridiculousness, she came up with this great advice:

After every paycheck, just get one house thing that makes you happy.  Stop thinking it out so much (AKA obsessing) and just BUY THE DARN THING. 

So, last Thursday, I bought  Hema mugs.  It made me so happy to have 4 matching mugs, that on Friday I bought Hema wine glasses. 

Then I thought about getting a fifth Hema mug, just in case one broke. 

In the meantime, I started checking out Vente Privée on a regular basis...and ordered a Guy Degrenne "New Club" silverware set (that just arrived this week!). 

I was so inspired by my new things, that I decided that I must have bowls as well. So this Friday, I bought five yellow and blue Hema bowls. (And while I was there, I got that fifth mug I had been thinking about). 

Basically, I can't stop myself.

I've been so obsessed with NOT buying things that make me happy in my teeny Parisian mouse hole, that now that I've allowed myself the pleasure, I just can't seem to slow it down.

Proof: I'm typing this blog post by the lovely glow of my new taupe Asian lantern with cutouts, that casts soft shadows on my bare white walls.

Now if only I had an apartment big enough to invite people over for dinner...

Cannes Cannes and the Cups

After finishing work early yesterday, I was flat out exhausted. I think I may be coming down with something - bleh. But before going home to lie on my couch in PJs and convince Copain to watch a chick flick with me, I took a detour to Hema, an amazing Ikea-esque store near Châtelet les Halles. 

Remember my Hema-tights???

I'm not sure why I thought that going to Hema was a good idea - it just makes me want things. And you know how I feel about things.

Bref, I pretty much tortured myself for an hour. All I could think about was how I don't have one water glass that matches another, that I only have one wine glass because all the others are broken, that my bowls are cracked and crappy and that oh my god I hate my apartment and I need all new stuff but I can't have all new stuff until I get a bigger apartment and crap this sucks and I want everything in this store! ... But oh no! What if I buy everything in this store and then I decide not to live in France and then what will I do with it ahhhhh????????

It was enough to send me into an existential tailspin.

I came home with 5 new bath towels, a bag of my favorite spicy rice crackers for food therapy, and some door hook hanger thingys to hang the towels on. Then I washed all the towels and overloaded my teeny apartment with wet towels to dry. 

Thank god Copain was up for a chick flick, otherwise I may have had a complete breakdown.

This morning I woke up with a stuffy nose and ridiculous depression. The girl who has a roof over her head, food to eat, a good job, wonderful friends and family - the girl who has no reason to be depressed, is sad because her cups don't match. And if she does buy cups, it somehow means something about her life here. Wow. Way to be awesome Cannes Cannes.

As I explained my frustration to Copain, the ridiculous tears welling up, he started to sing a little song:

Doo doo doo dooooo

Chin up!

And get the dust off of you!

Isn't that how it goes? The song your mom used to sing to you?

Doo doo doo dooooo

Chin up!

And get the dust off of you!

How can you be sad when your Copain starts to sing the song that your mom sang to you when you fell down as a child? 

Pick yourself up,

Dust yourself off,

and start all over again!

Even though he got the words all wrong, he got the meaning behind it right. And even though as adults we don't fall down on playgrounds and scrape our knees in the sand, sometimes we do have to pick ourselves up, dust off the silly sadness, and start over again - remembering that our futures are shiny. Right?

And then, just to make me feel better, Copain took out all our cups, lined them up and laughed at the off-the-wall collection that has overtaken our miniature cupboards:

Then he promised me a trip to Ikea. Baby steps, baby steps.

Shiny

After scanning Seloger.com for apartments bigger than a shoebox within our budget and realizing that our banker can't see us about all of our future financial questions until the end of March, I was feeling kind of...

blah.

Yay I'm 30 and live in a super expensive city. I can either rent for the rest of my life or live in a shoebox in the middle of the city.

woo.

As I sat on the couch sulking, Copain leaned over my computer and watched as I typed, little by little  reducing the surface area of the apartments in my search engine...

Copain: Are you becoming a French pessimist?

FCC: yes. I'm losing hope. I'm depressed. Our future sucks.

Copain: Hey! Don't be depressed - don't be like that! You have to keep your American positivity. Babe, our future is shiny.

So there you have it folks. I may have to live in a shoebox for the rest of my life, but somewhere, deep - deep deep deep down, in a land far, far away, my future is shiny. 

yay.

Concessions - AKA My Big Plan

Copain and I continue our hope to one day be homeowners in the outrageously expensive city of Paris. We've done tours of the banlieue hoping for a place to jump out at us and say, "I'm just as awesome as Paris! Pick me!" but it hasn't happened yet.

Our friends recently bought a funky 19th century triplex apartment in Melun....I know, where the heck is that. Don't worry, I Googled it for you:

See the little "A" down there...now see Paris at the top? Um, it's far. 

I went to help my friend paint his new apartment when they first moved in; from the Gare de Lyon on a direct train, it was only about 25 to 30 minutes - not bad right? But first I had to GET to the Gare de Lyon, then I had to walk 15 minutes to my friend's house in the middle of town once I had arrived. So, lets call it a total of about an hour (because I live close to the Gare de Lyon!). That's when you take the direct train. If not, it's more like 45-50 minutes just for the train part of the trip.  I have to say though, the town is adorable and my friend's apartment overlooks the gargoyles on the central church - very Beauty and the Beast-ish. Despite all that, the dependency on public transportation just kills me - I couldn't Velib from Melun unless I wanted to train for the Tour de France!

So I've been thinking - what other concessions could I make so that an apartment would be affordable in Paris (my happy place)? When my parents bought their house in California, they chose a newly built, one-story in the middle of nowhere, hoping that the town would soon be developed. It was the smallest house on the block and they were surrounded by dirt. Yes, dirt. It was a big deal when they built "The Mall" in the town. (As an 8 year-old, I was particularly thrilled). Now the community continues to develop, stores continue to open and it is soccer-mom USA - SUVs A-Go-Go. The dirt has been replaced with a busy road, the mall is now The Place To Be, schools have popped up in every corner. 30 years ago, their concession was to buy a nice, new house, but with absolutely nothing around it.

I guess I feel just the opposite - I'd rather a great location, but a non-so-amazing apartment. What could I give up to get the cost down? Then I got an email alert from one of the many real estate websites I'm signed up for, and it basically said this:

• Apartment in the 20th arrondissement, near Nation metro stop (good, good!)
• 47 square meters (small, but do-able)
• 2 bedrooms (YES!)
• Price that is not yet affordable but close to it (and that's where negotiation comes in....)
• 5th floor walk-up - read: no elevator (ummm, concession?)

I emailed my people and asked them what they thought - could I deal with 5 flights everyday? For the past 8 years I've always lived on the 3rd or 4th floor without an elevator. So, yeah, it would probably be fine. I'd have toned thighs and buttocks! right? right?

But what about when strollers become a necessity? What will I do then? I guess I would just verify that there was a place to park it downstairs as many Parisian families do, right? 

I'm still grappling with the idea - even 5th floor walk ups are expensive. BUT, it may be the only way for Copain and I to own anything and maybe it's a concession we are willing to make. We may be huffing and puffing coming home each day, but we would have Paris at our finger tips - the joys of walking and biking and metros just downstairs.....

And that just might make up for it all.

Banlieue

Banlieue.

It's one of those words that Parisians hear and shudder. To them, banlieue basically means, "not Paris", and it's deeply upsetting for 99.9% of Parisians to even consider living there.

When friends decide that they want to end their lives as renters and enter the world of home-ownership, only the lucky few, who have either top-knotch salaries or VERY generous parents, get to keep calling Paris their home. All the others move to (gasp!) the banlieue. (Or they just rent forever, always an option).

You see, Paris is a very defined space. The city, which has grown immensely since it was first inhabited, waaaaay back in the day, has now been encircled by the périphérique - the motorway.  Inside the périphérique is the coveted 75 zip code - AKA, Paris; but outside (yeah, even just on the other side of it) - yikes, you jump into 92, 93, 94 territory. It is NOT a good situation. 

See all the gray parts? That's not Paris.

Long story short: you move to the banlieue and A. no one visits you anymore (you live "too far away"!), B. you are even more dependent on public transportation, C. you are no longer Parisian.  Long story even shorter: no one really wants to live in or go to the banlieue.

So why do people move there, you ask? It's simple: it's slightly less expensive than ridiculously, outrageously expensive, Paris. Instead of a teeny, tiny Parisian apartment, you may be able to afford a small-ish apartment in the banlieue. I'm talking 550 square feet, if you are lucky. Your children *may* be able to enjoy having an actual room instead of a closet. See, lots of great options out there.

The reason I'm bringing up this whole banlieue thing, is because Copain and I are actually considering considering an apartment there. Yes, I meant to write "considering" twice. We are considering the idea of considering the banlieue. It's kind of depressing. 

After visiting about 8 apartments in Paris and seeing the sad state of affairs / apartments that we could buy, we had to think outside Paris the box. The apartments we saw were a mix of "newly refurbished" and "in shambles", "well-placed" and "out in the middle of nowhere", "all you have to do is gut it" and "see, that parking lot view is not so bad for such a great location!" but they did have one thing in common: they were all out-of-this-world expensive. I'm talking around 400,000 Euros (not including notary fees!!) for a shoebox. Here is the problem with shoeboxes - they don't work well for families. For now it's just me and Copain, but what about when mini-Frenchie comes along? I'm all for making do, but I think that making your child sleep in the bathtub could be deemed cruel and unusual punishment.

On Monday I told Copain that on Saturday we would visit, DUM DUM DUM....the banlieue! I made a list of places that we would check out, including: Saint-Mandé (expensive banlieue), Vincennes (expensive banlieue), Charenton-le-Pont (slightly-less expensive banlieue) and Saint-Maurice (almost-affordable banlieue). Guess which one is the furthest from Paris? Exactly. However, the one thing that all of these towns have going for them is that they border the Bois de Vincennes - the woods located on the east side of Paris. They are family-friendly, clean, have a reputation for being safe, and all of them (except for Saint-Maurice) also border Paris. The fact that they *touch* Paris on one side is like, really important - just ask any Parisian.

We totally followed through with my banlieue tour plan today, and walked all the way from Saint-Mandé, down to Saint-Maurice, up to Charenton-le-Pont and then hopped on a bike back to Paris. The entire time we tried to convince ourselves that we liked each place. Our conversation was peppered with - look, a park! this is cute! see there is life here! wow, I feel safe - how about you? doesn't this seem like a great area? It was like watching an awkward coming of age movie - two teens, first kiss, trying to convince each other that, no, you're a really great kisser! Needless to say, our relief upon arrival in Paris was palpable - we could finally relax and breathe again. Basically, the banlieue is a bad kisser and we both knew it but didn't want to say anything. Nothing can replace Paris.

Next weekend we've planned for another banlieue tour, this time on the other side of the city. We will be homeowners someday... but for now, I'll just blog about my banlieue adventures from my taupe couch in the teeniest apartment of them all. In Paris. 

Hibernation

I promise I haven't gone into hibernation - but the idea is not far off. Le Grand Froid (The Big Cold!!) has hit France and it is FREEEEEEEZING.

All I want to do is throw fifteen blankets on top of myself and lie in bed all day.

Copain and I have had to s'équiper (equipe ourselves!) for an honest to goodness winter. Un vrai hiver...

Clément the Casque now goes over a tight-weave beanie for my ice cube ears, and I have to literally wrap a scarf around my face and tuck it under my glasses to make the Velib ride to work everyday - lest I risk losing my nose.  I move my face around like a clown warming up for a performance as I ride up boulevard Beaumarchais - just trying to keep some blood flow to my face.

It's that cold, people. Like really, really cold.

The worst part of the Velib ride through the Parisian Arctic is trying to keep feeling in my fingers.  Yesterday, I tried wearing two pairs of gloves, but it just made the situation worse and stopped feeling even faster than roughing it with one pair. I had to pull over and quickly remove the second pair in the hopes that a tiny bit of feeling would come back for the rest of the ride. As I stare longingly at the français in their heated voitures, I shake my arms and hands like a crazy lady at stop lights, in an attempt to keep from freezing. 

Knowing that her son has a thing against heater-usage, Belle-Mère intervened and bought us an economical space heater, right before Le Grand Froid hit. Behold, my savoir:

The Genius of... the Toilet Sink

I recently had a chocolat chaud with a friend who just bought an apartment (la rêve!).  Granted, she is just outside of Paris and therefore benefits from a bigger space (with parking!), but she still had to deal with the constraints of an apartment building and a co-propriété while re-doing the interior.

My friend loves her new apartment, but there was one thing that she was not willing to deal with in a place that she owned: she did not want a toilet room without a sink.

You see, in France, the toilet (or WC) is often separate from the bathroom (the salle de bains).  It's very convenient when someone needs to use the loo and someone else needs to shower, however the problem is that there isn't always a sink in the toilet room to wash your hands after you do your, uh, bidness.  Often you have to walk from the toilet to the salle de bains to wash your hands.  You do the toilet room door handle germ math. Guh-ross.

So, as I was saying, my friend didn't want a germy toilet room door handle and decided to take matters into her own hands!  Plumbing was already installed a certain way when they moved in and there was no reinstalling the pipes to connect a sink... so guess what my genius friend found?

That's right mes amis - a toilet with a sink on top! To top it all off, after washing your hands, the dirty waste water is used to flush the toilet! That's what I call ecological and economical... Not to mention, total. genius.

Pierre le Plombier

Yesterday, to help out a friend, I agreed to meet with the plumber who was to fix a leak under her kitchen sink. I was running late (comme d'hab), and arrived at 9:10 in front of the porte d'entrée.  I pulled out my cell phone and saw that the plombier had already tried to call me.  I called right back and learned that bien sur, he was inside the building, waiting in front of the apartment door.  Et merde.


I shook his hand and he introduced himself as Pierre, Pierre le plombier.  Bonjour Pierre - and I let him inside the apartment.He began his work and then, as I stuffed my Gerblé breakfast biscuits in my mouth, Pierre le plombier asked the question that people always ask when they hear my accent: Vous êtes d'où? (where are you from?)


"Je suis Américaine." He looked at me like he needed more information, so I continued, "Je suis née en Californie et ça fait 7 ans maintenant que je suis en France." (I was born in California and I've been in France for 7 years).  Well, messieurs-dames, that was all it took for Pierre le plombier to start his (what I think must be daily) session of over-sharing:


Oh moi je suis de Bourgogne - vous connaissez? (I'm from Burgundy, do you know it?)  Je viens en train tous les jours - il faut 1 heure, mais après j'ai que du boulot à Paris (I come by train everyday, it takes about an hour. But once I'm in Paris - nothing but work!) In Bourgogne I live in a huge apartment and pay only 535 Euros a month including gas, water AND electricity. I barely even see my neighbors, that's how calm and relaxing it is. I'm divorced, so I work on the weekends which pays for my vacations.  Yesterday I worked 11 hours! I don't count my hours like most French people - nope, not me! 

(I nod and crunch in approval - wow, a Frenchie who doesn't count his hours...)

Yeah, in Paris work is non-stop. I have clients from all over - even in the 16th - nothing but rich people. Just because they're rich doesn't mean they give good tips though.


(I write myself a mental note not to tip Pierre le plombier purely on principal.)

I have another American client who's a psychologist. She keeps telling me that my talents would be appreciated in the United States and that I should go work there.  But my English isn't very good - I mean, I can get by, but technical plumbing words would be difficult.  Really though, I used to work in the military and my work ethic is unbeatable. Plus, I can do pretty much anything and I charge less than everyone else. A job for 4000 - I say 2000.  I'm able to make beaucoup d'argent that way.  When I meet someone, I'll buy a big house and re-do everything myself! Just give me a roof and four walls! The problem is that I work so much that I don't have time to go out - so basically all that's left is the internet. 


(At this point in the conversation, I started to get worried - what exactly did he mean by "internet"???)

Right now I'm on Meetic, (oh phew!) but really, all those women want are one-night stands. They say it's the guys who aren't looking for something serious, but I think it's the women.

I continue to nod in sympathy, then added something about having friends who met life partners on Meetic blah blah blah...

Oh la la! This siphon is shot!  Finally, Pierre le plombier brought it back to the task at hand.  He was missing a piece and would have to go back to the shop and come back later to complete the repair.

Old-school siphon from a Parisian apartment

"Well, when do you think I should meet you back here," I asked.

"Oh, no later than 2pm - I always finish my work days at 4:30pm," he answered. (hmm, a Frenchie who counts his hours...)

"Here, let me give me you my personal numéro de portable, just in case."  "It's Pierre. Pierre le plombier."

En Fin! Un Bel Appartement à Paris!

I'm alive! I promise! I can explain**...

Remember this problem from when we first moved into our Paris apartment?  The nice dégat des eaux that the agency just forgot to tell us about before we moved in? Well, turns out that little dégat des eaux took an entire YEAR to completely dry - I lived through a very moldy, very cold Parisian winter because no one thought it was important to repair our upstairs neighbor's shower.  To make matters worse, the painters spent a week re-papering and re-painting the entire apartment only to realize that the neighb's shower was still leaking...because no one had fixed it!!!! (Parisian Agencies are brilliant - real geniuses the are). They then took all of their hard work down (to let the dry wall....dry)  and we lived with exposed, nasty, water-logged walls from May 2010 until just two weeks ago.

Copain got a call from the painters asking if they could come back and check the walls for the billionth time this year.  They did and since the walls were at only 40 percent humidity levels, they decided that they could try again.  Copain and I mentally prepared ourselves for a week of hell and put all of our belongings into our tiny bedroom, leaving the living room with only the couch and the TV stand.  We left a tiny walkway around our bed so that we could at least function for the week and covered all surfaces with old sheets that we had saved for this very occasion.  Urban camping, I tell you.

Carlos the painter came on a Thursday and began prepping the walls - dust EVERYWHERE.  The walls needed the weekend to dry so Copain and I high-tailed it to the southwest, our old stomping grounds, to celebrate Papi's 90th birthday with the French famille. 


Here are some highlights from our weekend en province....

Scary what they take from people at Charles de Gaulle airport non?

Free newspapers? The Frenchies were in heaven - including Copain, bien sur

Lunch at Place du Capitole in Toulouse

A summer lunch in the south is not complete without some rosé

You know Top Chef?? Well one of the big chefs opened a restaurant...Le Bibent

We had the burger with foie gras and....

The millefeuille for dessert!! - to die for

Then a little walk around Toulouse to digerer...

It got too hot, so we left early for Albi for la piscine!!

I got to wake up to this lovely, relaxing scene...

Then we were off to l'Aveyron, the beau-parents' pays for Papi's anniversaire

The celebration was held in Belcastel, one of the most beautiful villages in France

The chateau that has now been restored

The crickety old bridge we drove over to get to the village

The mysterious birthday lunch starter...what do you think we ate???

We returned to Paris with a cooler full of magret de canard and boudin noir from Belle Mère's favorite butcher in Rodez (you never know about Parisian butchers she says). Unfortunately, our house was still in shambles and when Carlos the painter came the next day, he said that he probably wouldn't be finished until the end of the week! Copain and I gritted our teeth - everyday we were out of the house at 8.30 am for the painter (I had to drink instant coffee because the stove was covered in sheets! bah!) and at night we did our best to have something to do so that we didn't have to sit in white dust. 

Finally, Friday arrived and Carlos told us that he would be done at 3pm! But- he didn't know when his boss was going to come by to pick up all of the paint and tools. This is when FrenchCannesCannes went over the edge - elle a pété un plomb, as the Frenchies say.  After leaving a message with the un-reachable boss, I called Copain who knew what he had to do if he didn't want to live with a psycho Copine all weekend.  He told the boss that if someone didn't come and pick up the materials, his copine was going to put everything out on the street.  We found great pleasure in finding all of the painting supplies in the building's courtyard when we came home from work that day.

Friday night was spent cleaning our house from top to bottom, transferring our stuff from the bedroom back into the living room and kitchen, separating the olive oil from the dirty socks. Now, finally, after one year of crap Parisian living, we have a nice, white, clean, (small) apartment - with dry walls.  Oh, and to congratulate ourselves after two weeks of hell, we got a new flat screen TV to replace that clunker you see in the third photo down. 

En fin! (and I also had real coffee on Saturday morning!!!!!)

**As I'm sure you understand, I couldn't really bring myself to blog in 8 inches of dry-wall dust.