We continue to settle in.
I'm sure some might ask, and we do retrospectively, what takes so long
to settle in?! Truth is, it's easy
enough to visit Paris for a week. Pick
up a metro map at your hotel, set your sights towards the Louvre or Notre Dame
or a food market street you've read about, and you're done. We're actually doing all of that too, but
more as a byproduct of trying to set up life here. We've got to buy toilet paper, to figure out
which exit from the Metro is closest to the apartment (it matters if you know
you're coming up those steps 100 times or more!), whether it makes sense to
shop at the nearby market (less of a walk) or the further away store (more
choice). All the sort of things that, in
all of our real lives at home, we've already settled on.
So today was a combination of new things and old. It started with new. Recall that we're living on the top floor
(called the 4th floor in the American system and the 3rd in the French because
they think of the ground floor as 0).
The day we moved in we were "greeted" by the woman who lives
on the French 1st floor. She sort-of
lectured us, telling us we'd be good neighbors if we were quiet. We've tried to be. So, this morning as we went down the spiral
staircase past her door (there's a landing at each floor, maybe 5'x5'), she
opened the door. She told us we were
being good neighbors and crouched down to spend some time petting Emmy and
praising her as a good dog, who fortunately was a bit timid (rather than her
typical hyper jump up to kiss you on the face mode). Our guess is that a) we had shown ourselves
to be the good and quiet neighbors that she was hoping we'd be, and that b) she
was sort-of waiting for an opportunity to come out and tell us.
She'll have plenty more opportunities to stop us on the
staircase. Emmy requires 3 trips outside
a day, and each one takes us 65 stairs down, and then 65 stairs up. Our legs will be tougher from it!
We've also now checked out the relative benefits of the 2
nearest grocery stores. Hey, it's a
project!
For dinner, we did relive old memories. We went to a restaurant that we really
enjoyed 8 years ago, enough that we went there twice in our 2 months. The sort of tiny place where the owner came
over to tell you what he was cooking that night and his wife served you -- no
one else working there. Unfortunately,
social media has its drawbacks. He's
gotten a lot of good reviews, spiffed the place up and raised the prices
enormously. Even bought real wine
glasses. We're sad to discover that even
Paris changes.
But, to drown our sorrows, we went elsewhere for a post-dinner
drink. With social media being the
downside to life, technology does have its benefits. We vaguely thought we were in the
neighborhood of Willi's Wine Bar, a place we've been to a number of times
before. Smart phones = the ability to
verify that and to get directions via Google Maps.
Willi's is a special place for me (Tom). A million years ago, just out of college, and
having never been further than 1000 miles from New Jersey, I happened on a tour
book which had a picture from Willi's in it, the restaurant’s first art
poster. Every year they commission a new
one, by a different artist in a different style. Here's the one that hooked me on Paris all
those years ago:
http://williswinebar.com/photos/products/affiche-willis43-picture-140.jpg.
I've got the reissue of the poster hanging in our home. And on a different visit, my friend Bill and
I stopped by there so he could buy the one with a topless Marianne
(woman/symbol of France) on it. Our
waitress told us that Bill's favorite was sold out -- the favorite of the
men...
Over the years we've been there a number of times, brought
friends, been there alone (Maxine once) and recommended the place to
others. It's sort of a French comfort
food experience for English speakers.
Good and well executed food.
Excellently curated wine list.
And English speaking wait-staff.
Tonight we only each only had a glass of wine, but we're certain to be
back once or more during our stay in Paris.
No comments:
Post a Comment