Le Conseil

The letter came about 2 weeks ago: your conseil syndical will take place on July 1st - be there or be an escargot with no voting rights. 

Or basically that's what it said, anyways.

Behind the letter in the gigantic brown envelope, was an agenda of items to vote on, and then behind that, accounts for the expenditures of the year, then estimates for construction and improvements - all in all, about 1.5 inches thick.

Our first conseil syndical - cringe!  As recent homeowners, we knew this day was coming, but we really didn't know what to expect.  The night before, like the good little students that we'd been leading up to the purchase of the apartment, we read the agenda front to back, scrutinized the estimates and used 3 different colored highlighters to keep things straight. I made a list of notes and questions, and Mopain (Mari + Copain?) printed off the emails and updates that our neighbor had sent us about the recent work in the building. We had a dossier - we were prepared!

On July 1st, France decided to break a record with the hottest day of the year since 1947.  It was SWELTERING.  A wall of heat waited outside every door. You simply had to give into the sweat, drink your body weight in water and hope for a forgiving breeze. I packed my Chinese fan, wore my least swamp ass-y dress and hoped for the best. 

At the end of the work day, I mentally prepared myself for the sea of armpits and suffering and jumped on metro line one to go to the other side of the city.  Our syndic (building manager) is not just in any old arrondissement, but in the oh-so-chic seizième - 16th.  This is where the fancy people and those who want to be fancy people live. The fact that we live completely on the other side of Paris tells you something about us.  I found the private street (yes, there is a locked gate with a code!), found the building (another code!), and made my way upstairs to a non-airconditioned meeting room right out of 1965, complete with pleather chairs. Oh the humanity. 

As each new propriétaire entered the room, the social musts were put on display, "Bonjour Madame, Bonjour Monsieur, Bonjour Madame, comment allez-vous?, Qu'est-ce-qu'il fait chaud!" Hello madam, hello sir, hello madam, and how are you? Goodness, it's hot!.  We did this five times, standing to shake hands, Bonjour each other and comment on the horrid weather. Très français.

Finally the meeting could get underway. Our syndic sat at the head of a large wooden table, like a judge with a gavel, ready to keep the propriétaires in line if arguments got out of hand. We all signed the "official sign in document" and it was then that Mopain and I were called out as les nouveaux- the newbies. Wanting to make a good impression, we smiled and laughed, said Bonjour again,  but kept our wits about us - we didn't know who was friend or foe.  The conseil syndical is serious stuff.

Madame the syndic started down the list:

Who would like to be the meeting président?  

Silence.

Then reluctantly, our upstairs neighbor raised his hand.

All abstaining? All against? Bon! You will be the meeting president!

Who would like to be the scrutateur? 

"The what?" I inquired.  

Silence.

The syndic looked at Mopain - you'd made a great scrutateur. 

All abstaining? All against? Bon! You will be the scrutateur.

First order of business, our current conseil president will give us an update on how the construction is going in the building.

As the sweat beaded between my legs and the pleather,  my neighbor got everyone up to speed on the "almond green" color chosen for the doors (which deserves its own blog post entirely), the fibre optique internet installation, the new mailboxes, light fixtures and tiles.  She went on about the 3rd floor neighbor who wasn't responding to calls about the water leaking from her bathroom, and there was speculation that she may be dead, then ideas about how to manage the problem.  Call a locksmith! Call the police! Call the fire department! 

This was mainly for the propriétaires who don't live in the building, since those of us who do, pass by said puke green doors everyday and already knew of their hideousness.We came to learn that half of our building is owned by a family, and one son and one daughter are still alive.  The daughter and her husband, Monsieur and Madame F, both in their 80's, were at the meeting, and while they live in some chateau in the Loire, they still come to the meetings since any voting that has financial implications involves them the most. They also have the strongest vote since they own the majority of the apartments. Monsieur et Madame are millionaires. 

Bon! Next order of business, we must choose a new conseil for 2015!

Eight heads turned to our current president - my upstairs neighbor - we'll call her Madame J.  As she murmured something about humbly accepting, Mopain and I began to realize that no one wants to be on the conseil and that they are very happy to give the job to someone else who has time to care about door color and dead neighbors!

The syndic continued, Merci Madame J. You did such a wonderful job in 2014, it's only fitting that you stay on the conseil! Now we need another person to join her.

Silence. 

The eight sweaty heads turned to les nouveaux. C'est une petite tradition - it is a little tradition that the newbies be on the conseil. 

greeeeeeat.  

Mopain, resident Frenchie, quickly refused. But I'm an American sap, a pushover! And so, after asking what my responsibilities would actually be, then commenting on my major lack of time in general just to make it clear that I really can't dedicate my life to mailbox installation and the noisy students on the 5th floor,  I accepted, like the idiot I am.

Two humid hours were dedicated to voting on water shut-off valves, the illegal Polish renters on the 2nd floor, and whether or not a tapis (rug), should be installed on the stairwell:

Monsieur F - Monsieurs and Madames, with all due respect, I'm going to vote no. I've already spent 25,000 Euros on the building construction. The tapis will have to wait until next year.

Madame J - But Monsieur F, you must understand that we actually live in the building, and it is certainly not a luxury to have a tapis up the stairs.  We have already sanded and polished the wood, it would be such a shame to let it age again without the protection of a tapis!

Monsieur F - Oui, Madame J, I understand completely. But this year, it's no. Perhaps next year we can revisit the idea. 

Madame J - Monsieur F,  of course I understand the financial implications for you, but if only your lovely locataires (renters) made less noise going up and down the stairs at 4am, we wouldn't need a tapis! 

...and on and on it went, until finally, Madame J gave up, knowing very well that Monsieur and Madame F would win the war in the end, purely on voting power. It was brutal; a game of wits and back-handed French jousting - on the surface, polite, but with a strong undercurrent of go screw yourself and your tapis too. 

Mopain and I watched attentively, observing who would be our allies at the next conseil, and thinking about how to plot a strategic attack against Monsieur and Madame F if future voting required it.  

We peeled ourselves off of the dated chairs, relieved by the prospect of a breeze outside the syndic doors.  After the required rounds of hand shakes and au revoirs, the conseil was fini, and we could go back to our arrondissement on the gritty east side, and walk up our tapis-less stairwell, past the illegal Polish renters and the potentially dead neighbor with a water leak,  to our nouveau chez nous.

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 If Only...

It was a 1960's building - if only the outside was more charming.

It had a gardien and an elevator, even a little garden to look onto from the living room window - if only the hallways weren't so dingy.

It was in a perfect location - the 20th arrondissement of Paris - right near a metro, surrounded by the city buzz - if only the bedroom windows didn't give onto the busy street.

It had 55 square meters of floor space, including a covered terrace - if only you didn't have to go through the second bedroom to get to it.

Yes, it had TWO bedrooms - just what we need! If only you could fit a bed in the larger one without blocking the window-doors to the covered terrace. If only you couldn't see through those doors into the smaller, second bedroom. 

It had a parking spot included in the purchase - if only we had a car.

It was free of furniture and personal items since the owner had moved his things to his primary residence in Switzerland - if only the apartment felt more homey.

It had radiators in the floors and ceilings for communal heat - if only you didn't have to break the floor and the ceiling in the event that it needed repairs.

It had lots of potential, if only it had been clear to us as we stood there staring at the weird-shaped bedrooms, the funky terrace, the water damage in the closet left un-repaired, the ugly archway they'd installed between the kitchen and the living room...

So we left.

And we talked about it on our way to dinner. 

Was it a coup de coeur for you? No. You? No. 

But it's 55 meters squared! and it has a parking spot! and it's in an amazing location! ....

But how do we fit a bed in that room? What is up with that terrace? Why is the neighbor's door directly across from ours? The homeowner's fees are outrageous!!

Maybe we should think about it. Okay, we'll think about it. 

And I'm still thinking about it. But I know it wasn't the one. 

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! 

Vincennes Apartment

The apartment hunt continues in the Cannes Cannes household. Yesterday we had a rendezvous in Vincennes, just outside the limits of Paris on the line 1 metro. When you pop out at the exit Chateau de Vincennes (oh yeah, there is a chateau there), all of a sudden you are in Baby-town, France. Strollers a-go-go. Tricycles, scooters, snacks and... more strollers.

After about a 15 minute walk, we stopped in front of the 1930's, 5th floor walk-up we were about to visit. You heard me right - 5th floor walk up. That's actually 6th floor for all you Amuuuricaines out there; the French start with the rez-de-chaussée (ground floor) and then count from there, so what we call the second floor, they call the first. 

Our peppy agent immobilier took us through 2 security doors (a good thing) showed us the trash area in the hallway, pointed out the cave (basement), and then we all hiked up to the 5th floor. There was one door on each landing, and each landing had either A. plants, B. ladders or C. strollers.

Once we'd made it to the top, we walked inside and started our visit.  The apartment has parquet (wood floors), a living room with a prussienne chimney,  a large bedroom, a small bedroom with a regular chimney, a teeny bathroom with a funky tub, probably from the 30's, a separate WC and a normal-sized kitchen. All of the windows are double-paned except for those in the kitchen and WC. The ceilings are high, and it is en étoile - star-shaped - meaning that all of the rooms are fashioned around the main hallway. There is no wasted space (a bonus when you have barely any space to begin with!). In total, it measures about 53 meters squared.

Best not to forget anything on your way out the door...

Bedroom A

Living room

View from living room into the kitchen and hallway

Bedroom A, closet

Kitchen - no room for a dishwasher, unless you get creative

Teeny tub, teeny bathroom

We're not 100% sure we can afford it, but we kind of both had a coup de coeur - we just knew we loved it. It's about a 7-minute walk to the very center of town and the neighborhood is well-kept, as is the inside of the building. The added bonus for this apartment - whoever owns it can eventually purchase the attic and make a duplex! You know, like when we have an extra 200K lying around. 

There are lots of things that are a bummer - no parking, no balcony, no elevator, no bike storage (except for in the cave), but it feel so nice and homey inside. And as I've come to almost accept, we can only maybe afford this apartment because of these "point noir" as the French would say - these negative points. In short, we're going to have to make concessions.

As we got a tour of the town from our Vincennois friends and their two little boys - one in a stroller of course, I started brainstorming - could we RENT the first-floor neighbor's landing and park our bikes? How about our non-exisitent-but-maybe-one-day stroller? (we'll obviously be needing one in order to fit in here) Could I invent a stroller backpack? Some sort of pulley system?  

Then I got positive - I could have groceries delivered! I would always have toned buns and thighs! We would share walls with absolutely NO ONE! La rêve...

I can't stop thinking about this apartment, even if it's crazy-expensive. I mean, I started mentally moving in and placing furniture. But - we're waiting for the diagnostics before we really think about anything. For example, are the pipes made of lead? Is the electricity aux normes? Are there termites? How about the roof - any leaks? 

We did notice that the current owner had installed a fire alarm which happens uh, never in France. I'm certain it was a sign since I'm the queen of safety and fire alarms (I almost considered getting them for my neighbors for the holidays). The agent immobilier called the current owner a "maniac" - I call him smart. Don't you think this apartment was made for us????

We timed the metro ride back into Paris - only 5 minutes to Nation, about 8 to Bastille. Not bad, eh? Oh la la....I'll be keeping you posted mes amies.

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. 

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.

Parisian Living - When 28.85m2 Makes You Want to Scream

Earlier this week I got a case of the Paris blues.  Basically it goes like this:

As you know, Copain and I live in 28.85 meters squared to be exact. (For you non-metric peeps, that means teeeeeny tiny).  Picture a studio apartment, now cut it in half so that we can have a living room and a bedroom.  Bienvenue chez nous!  


We consciously made the decision to rent something tiny so that we could:
A - save our money for a future purchase
B - go out in Paris and enjoy living in this great city
C - not clean so much?

In any case, it was a choice, not an obligation, and up until now we've managed pretty well if I do say so myself.  No, you will not be receiving an invitation to dinner (there is no dining room table - well, no table at all really) and we may not even invite you up for a drink (we would all sit in a line on the couch and have to turn out heads right and left to see each other), but other than that, it works.  We make do.


We also like to remind ourselves that this is the only time in our lives when we will actually be able to make this choice - we have no kids just yet, but when we do, we will be obligated to upgrade, big time.

I give myself little apartment pep-talks all the time, especially when I start to feel down (I live in a great neighborhood, I can walk to work, I get to live in Paris blah blah blah) but on Friday morning I hit rock bottom.  I'm being pushed out of my own apartment because of our stuff!! It's dirty!!! I can't breathe!! They still haven't repainted the walls after the dégat des eaux from May 2010!!! AHHHHHHH!!!


Copain noticed my down-in-the-dumps vibe and offered up this gem: well, we'll just have to buy something.  Oh right, like we're just going to buy something in Paris - that can house us and our future children.  riiiiiight.  I can see it now - us sleeping on the pull out bed in the living room/bedroom/dining room while our children doze in the mini-hall closet...if we're lucky enough to find an apartment with a closet, that is. Oh god, save me now.

I told him that this weekend we were going to do a GIGANTIC spring (summer, whatever) cleaning and like the nice copain that he is (or maybe out of fear of my wrath), he said oui, bien sur cherie.


We woke up at 10am this morning, had our coffees and promptly got to work.  We tossed, we yelled, we made piles, we organized and we didn't stop until 5pm - not even to eat.  We had four bags of trash, three bags of recycling, one bag of giveaways and a whole pile of random stuff.  I am sorry to report that our beloved Gary didn't make it...

Gary, it wasn't you, it was us. You will be missed.

When my blood sugar started dropping to startling levels, I ate one artichoke heart. Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking either.  Then we sat on the couch and admired our work - Wow! We have space! It's clean! We rock! We should get a new TV! (that last part was Copain...he knew he had me where he wanted me after his day of hard work).  

Our apartment is still suuuuper small, but after having taken out most of the merde that was piling up, I feel so much better.  Even Copain, the man who saves everything (he has two drawers dedicated only to pens) keeps mentioning how great the apartment looks.  Our morning motivation may have sparked some Art of Living in 0 meters squared creativity, because he just came up with this handy contraption for drying his work shirts:

Genius non??

So, do I feel better? Oui, exponentially.  Am I still afraid that my future children will be sleeping in hall closets, or that we will be co-sleeping until they are five because all we can afford to buy in Paris is a chambre de bonne? um yes. 

But for now, I'll just drink a glass of rouge and enjoy the extra space...perhaps make some plans to inherit from a distant dauphine that I'm sure is somewhere in the family line ... right?