Back to Paris 2004
We had a brief overnight in the little Burgundian village of Chablis. As you might imagine, it’s all about the famous chardonnay wine that comes from the area and although there are a few pharmacies, restaurants and hotels, most of the town is filled with wineries. Our hotel, the Hostellerie des Clos is an absolutely charming, and very affordable hotels in the middle of town. We arrived around the grape harvest and the place was filled, but lucky for us, they have an extension hotel at the William Fevre winery, one of the largest Grand Cru Chablis in the area. Fevre became internationally famous a few years back for leading the cause to limit the name Chablis to only wines that are made in the Chablis region. He succeeded and became a very revered local celebrity. It must have been strange to the locals when he sold the Chablis winery and took the money to invest in wineries in Chile.

With a good map, it was easy to navigate us back through the maze of autoroutes coming into Paris. We got to the Periferique ring road without too much trouble, drove to our apartment to drop off the bags, and then made it through the city to drop off the car back at the Renault dealership. The agent was so charmed with the NO BUSH sticker on the back of our Megane Scenic, that he gave us a handful of the French European Union stickers for our cars in America. I thought it was a very fair trade.

Fall has come to Paris in the form of grey skies and rain. And even though it feels and smells like rain, it takes a long time to get here. Everything in France seems to take a long time. A restaurant meal can easily be a four hour affair; it’s the only type of restaurant I know where the customer is the waiter. It seems to take forever to get any assistance from the store clerks at the Parisian department stores, they’re usually too busy talking to each about where they’re going to lunch or where they’ve been to lunch. And then there are the beaurocrats. Our building sprung a water leak last April. The insurance agent is finally making a visit to see the damage next Wednesday, October 20th, over six months after the claim was made. And yes, it takes a long time for the rain to come. I look out the window and see the dark clouds. I open the window and feel the moisture in the air. I look at the internet forecast and see rain, rain, rain for the next 10 days. Eventually, a 10 minute light rain hits the ground and then there’ll be blue skies for about an hour. And then the grey mass returns and we wait for the next wave.

We are creatures of habit in Paris and our first instinct is to return to our comfort zone, which for Gretchen is over at the laundramat and for me, it’s onto the BHV, my favorite department /hardware store. I’ve been there so many times over the past year, they actually remember me.

When we started this home in Paris adventure, we were told to buy a sleeper couch so that our comfortable two bedroom apartment could expand to accommodate six people. The first mistake we made was in the choice of fabric for the sofabed. The gold microsuede just didn’t hold up to the spilled wine and chocolate handprints. Then, we chose the super deluxe model where you didn’t need to remove the cushions to pull the bed out. In fact, the cushioned are sewn into the sofa, which makes it extremely difficult to take the soiled material to the dry cleaner. At one point, one of the cleaning staff noticed a zipper in the rear of the cushion and tried to remove the seat, but instead broke the zipper, which caused the foam innerds to spread into a most unusual flattened shape. And, of course, the fabric doesn’t quite fit this new shape. Oh well, neither Gretch or I liked this sofabed. I agreed to buy it because I thought she liked it. She agreed to buy it because she thought I liked it. But as it turned out, we both hated it. Kind of like an O’Henry story in reverse.
Well, the good news is that we went over the Bon Marché and bought the couch we both did like when we first started looking for furniture over a year ago. We already have the chair from the same line, so in January we’ll have the matching comfortable couch. And in January, our two bedroom apartment will have a maximum occupancy of four people.

We are living as Parisians. Mostly, our days are spent in the Marias, continuing our apartment improvements. Gretch turned the dining room into a sewing factory and less than a week later, we have sheer drapes on all the windows, new bedspreads and new bedskirts. They are beautiful and add so much to the apartments. It’s the finishing touches that really complete the job. I’ve been taking my usual walks to the basement of the BHV Department Store for screws, drill bits, door knob parts and such, taking on the little “brico” jobs.
We bough a fax machine last week; I can’t believe we have a fax machine in this day and age, but now we actually have a little office set up in the “Degagement”, with a copier, scanner, color printer and a fax machine.
And, I tried out the kitchen a few days ago and cooked a braised turbot. It was delicious. The ingredients over here are much different than back home. Tomato paste comes in a toothpaste tube, which is a lot easier to store after you use that one small teaspoon. Chicken stock comes in a cube. There is no such thing as a can of broth or a box of stock. You boil the water and throw in a few bullion cubes. It’s the old fashion way and it works great, except that the bullion cubes a little too salty for my taste. The vegetables are all fresh and beautiful and the meats and fish are amazing. The crazy thing is that you can get a good meal in a fairly good restaurant for about the same price it costs to cook a meal at home. No wonder everyone goes out to eat all the time.

One day, we took a walk through Paris, starting in the Marais, over to the Champ du Mars and the Eiffel Tower, back through the Pont alma tunnel where Dodi and Dianna died in the car crash, back through the crowds of people in the Tuilleries, through the cavernous city mall known as the Carousel du Louve, on by the Pompidou Center and back home. It was an 8 hour walk through Paris. And a 9 hour great night’s sleep.

Our friends from Italy came to visit us at 62 rue des Tournelles and to celebrate Paolaís 50th birthday. We were really excited to show them our town and started out with a visit to Place des Vosges to watch the filming of a movie. This was the second costume period film we ran into in Europe. But why not??
Our friends were charmed by the film crew and the actors, but they were too eager to get out and hit the streets, and mostly the shops. And so for the next three days, Fabrizio, Nino, Gretchen and I walked the streets of Paris for 6-7 hours a day, following Paola and Pina on a mad shopping spree. We walked past the Notre Dame into the 6th. We walked over to the Bon Marché and into the 7th. We took the Metro to the grand antique markets at the MarchÈ au Peuce and walked through close to a 100 antique shops. We walked to through the Louvre, the Tuileries, the antiques at the Carousel du Louvre; on through Place Vendome and to the Grand Magazines. We walked past the Notre Dame into the 6th. We walked over to the Bon Marché and into the 7th. We took the Metro to the grand antique markets at the Marché au Peuce and walked through close to a 100 antique shops. We walked to through the Louvre, the Tuileries, the antiques at the Carousel du Louvre; on through Place Vendome and to the Grand Magazines. We covered the street market at Richard Lenoir, and then, there were the hours of boutique hunting in le Marais. One night, we all were literally crawling back to the apartment after a full 7 hours of shopping. Fabrizio, Nino and I were ready to pass out, but Paola and Pina couldn’t stop. As long as the lights were on and the door was open, they had to go in.  If they were Americans, they would have been loaded down with bags and boxes, but the Italians preferred to look. Oh, they bought a few gifts for their kids and the collar for the family dog, but in the end, the only thing they brought back from Paris to Florence was duck paté, lots and lots of duck paté.

We were sad to leave Paris. Neither of us wanted to go. It was as if we were just getting started. Actually, we’d just gotten started on the process of sacking our Syndic. For those who don’t know about Syndications or Syndic for short, every building in Paris has one. These are the managing companies hired by the apartment co-operative to look after the well being of the building and the common areas. Like a condo society in the US, every apartment is responsible to pay a monthly fee to cover repairs and general cleaning. On larger repairs or renovations, there must be a majority vote of all the tenants before any work will be done. Our syndic hasn’t even called a meeting for 2 years. When we moved in, most of the tenants had been living there for over 50 years, and everyone was very content to let the common areas, let’s just say “evolve”. But soon after, many of the older residents either moved on (or died off) and a lot of younger (and more gentrified) blood has moved in. We want to bring the old 19th century girl into the 21st century.

And so we are back home in San Francisco now.  We are receiving email from our neighbors at 62 rue des Tournelles, telling is that we now have a majority vote to dump the old Syndic. Things are moving forward, even without us.
The news of the recent election is still stinging and the thought of 4 more years of George Bush is depressing, but then we’ll always have Paris and 62 rue des Tournelles.