Other than a few boxes left over and some clothes that will need to be given away (I'm working on that among other things) it's beginning to look like a place we'd be living in albeit significantly smaller. After living here a while there are sounds that we've all gotten used to or at least partially. In Lynchburg the trash collectors came once a week and here they come every day which is a bad thing for our older cat Nelliebelle as she's always associated the sound of big trucks with something negative (I have no idea why that is) so when the trash guys came every week in Lynchburg you would always find Nellibelle "slinking" across the floor headed for the underside of one of our beds until the noise was gone. You can imagine then her consternation when the cacophony of trucks begins every morning here at around 6 AM and just in the last few days she's stopped panicking when she hears it. The first few weeks however she lived in a constant state of abject terror and often her tale could be seen sticking out from under our bed. I really felt for her. I had mentioned in an earlier post that the preponderance of horn honking here completely obliterated what I used to consider lots of horn honking in the states.
We heard today that all of the owners of the apartments in our building have decided to install a large net over the space between our building and the adjacent building to essentially build all of the frantically fornicating pigeons out which will be another noise abatement miracle for us all considering what is being paid for the various apartments here.
College starts again for the twins next Monday and they're preparing for it even as I write this post.
To bypass some of the lack of customer service here I've taken to ordering things online using the Google translate program to understand how all of the ordering mechanisms work here which was tedious but in the end rewarding.
Last Friday evening Cassie took me to a small "genuine" Parisian restaurant called "Chez Geraud" that was TO DIE FOR. The service, ambiance, food, presentation, and everything else was at least 4 steps above anything I've ever experienced in Lynchburg and for that matter just about anywhere else in the US. Anthony Bourdain is correct and naming France as the ground zero wellspring of the culinary arts and last Friday night was a tutorial on how a meal should be done period. Needless to say we'll back to Chez Geraud in the very near future and YES I can definitely get used to this. Virginia? Where is that? Never heard of it.
Lastly, the simplicity (minus the French proclivity for generating a lot of paperwork) of our lives here is also quite refreshing and we've all gotten used to that and it's agreeing with everyone although the cats might still be on the fence about it. Cassie had heard from other ex-patriots that simplifying their lives was a good thing and they were definitely right.
We're currently in a stretch of very cloudy and cool days but I'm sure that will give way to Spring sooner than later but what the heck.......it's Paris after and all days here are good ones for this old ex-pat.
Wish you were here with us........
Love to all everywhere....
Sid
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