Apartment in Paris

Living room windows and fireplace.

Other end of Living/Dining and entryway.

Our search is over. What a tres fou week! We looked at 14 different apartments mostly scattered in the 16th and 17th. Did I mention Paris is having a heat wave? We were climbing lots of stairs, and sweating buckets. But it was fun to get a peek behind the front doors of all these buildings. Many (including the one we chose) had detailed ceilings and wrought iron balconies. One had a 150 sq foot deck with a view of the Tour Eiffel, and was in a famous art deco building (but resembled a small overpriced chicken coop otherwise).

We ended up in le Marais. We just feel more comfortable there, it's less formal than the 16th and 17th, and very convenient to a lot of fun stuff. Our street is nice and quiet without too much traffic, and I already know two HRC Federal Club members from Australia that live a block away, and have some friends that live close by on Ile de la Cite. And Bertillon (world's best ice cream) on Ile Saint Louis is also close by. Yum!

Our building is a Hausmann style building that is just finishing being cleaned on the outside. We are on the 5th floor which is the top floor, and are within walking distance of 4 Metro lines. There are a ton of pedestrian streets close by filled with cafes and bars. We love the detailing on the inside of the apartment. It's 2 bedroom, with lots of storage (by French standards). The bedrooms are away from the street, and with windows out onto a nice sized courtyard. The kitchen will be a challenge, we're used to a much larger one.

We opened a bank account, signed the lease, got insurance and utilities. It was definitely a busy week. Now we're back in Austin, I've been up since 3:30am, my brain constantly stewing all the things on the "To Do" list, worrying abt how to work out the timing of the move, and dreaming of furniture placement in our new pad....

Houston, we have a problem

Sarah and I had a very disappointing trip to Houston. We were trying to get Sarah's Visa application started (although we won't have a Paris street addresse for two weeks), and went to pay homage to the French Consulate.

Well, I can say it was an interesting experience. The French workers sit behind a huge plate glass window with a small slot at the bottom (for passing papers). The small slot also happens to be the only way for sound to transmit between you and the workers. So you are in a room full of strangers and you are screaming at a small slot in the bottom of the window trying to explain your situation. Big fun. Remember I mentioned they don't answer questions about the visa process on the phone? There was one woman there who waited in line, and when she got to the front, called her daughter on her cell, and then fed the cell phone thru the slot to the workers. So I guess that's how you get questions answered.

We weren't so lucky. We tried asking in 4 different ways if we could provide the address later, etc etc etc. "We cannot start your application until you have an address". We took our 2 inch stack of papers and left. whooped.