On Friday, June 1st, we packed and moved all of the luggage down to the lobby. With a two person sized elevator, it carried no more than two pieces of luggage each trip down to the lobby. G stayed on our floor, I stayed at the lobby level and in-between the regular elevator use, he shuttled down the pieces to me, taking 7 trips in all. The Van taxi came and for €162.00, drove us and our pile of luggage 5 minutes away to our studio apartment on the Ile Saint-Louis. Then we did the same routine in reverse. We’d gotten the code to the outer door so we could get the pieces in, a few at a time, until they lined the very narrow hall to the inner door for which we did not yet have a key.

Frederic, the wonderful leasing agent arrived on the dot. So delightfully funny and thoughtful. He even helped drag the luggage up the narrow, winding, twisting stairwell. Absolutely became our best friend just for that feat alone! Here, they do not count the courtyard ground level so a place listed on the ‘2nd’ floor is, in actuality, the 3rd.

When we were finished with that part, there was barely any walking room in the studio apartment, which made us all laugh. We signed documents, did a quick inspection and told him of our desired goal of finding a less expensive, bigger apartment, which he would keep an eye out for, since that is precisely what he does. He left after promises of getting together for a glass of wine and we began the task of unpacking and settling in.

First excursions were hardware and grocery stores. Using map search engines we were able to locate some stores and the close by metros that would get us to them. Invariably we would jump on a train only to discover it was heading in the opposite direction. We would have to jump off the train, get to the other side and catch it again going in the right direction to correct the mistake. After a few more mistakes, as the month wore on, we got much better at reading the signage. Thank goodness for technology too because one time, in rushing to get onto the train, G got on but I didn’t make it. We stood facing each other, G on the train, me on the platform, waving to each other with sloppy grins as the train pulled away. All the passengers watching the fiasco burst out laughing; was so comical, you just had to. Then I got a text from G, “Got off next stop. Will wait for you.” Yep, I love technology. We’ve done some sightseeing, but we aren’t tourists since we live here. We have time to get around to places, it’s that there’s so much outside our door..

On one of our excursions, we took a break and grabbed a pint at an Irish bar. The bartender, Jordan, fell to talking to us, as the place was relatively empty at that time. He was moving back to the UK after having lived in France for a few years. When we discussed our hunt for an apartment, he offered his very inexpensive flat but after discovering it was on the 13th floor (no lift), we declined the offer. No surprise it was so inexpensive. He did give us another search site for available rentals which taught us to remember in casual conversations to insert some small thing we are struggling with. We’ve found word of mouth suggestions a royal help.

After two weeks of eating out, our own cooked meals were simply heaven. The produce has so much more flavor here and with the heat of summer, salads are an everyday staple. Although there are separate butcher, produce, cheese and wine shops, we do gravitate to the larger market, which is about double the size of a 7-Eleven. Not just for the one-stop shopping convenience after a long day of walking, but for the price of a chicken. I’ll get to that in a minute. It brought me flashbacks to the ham. First I have to explain the ham.

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What a silly question. You never go to a supermarket, pick up a ham and NOT buy all of it.

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Earlier in the year, in CA, I had gone to a specialty market we liked and saw, in their refrigerator case, the most gorgeous ham. Not one of those water logged mass produced hams. A beautiful, boneless, perfectly colored, sans fat, ham. Like we’d eaten on a trip to Spain. I picked it up and went to the cashier to buy it. It had no price, which was odd and there were no others, also odd, considering I’m used to seeing them all stacked on top of each other in a bin. So I asked the cashier to find the price. By the time he got back, there was a long line behind me and I was embarrassed to be the cause of the hold up. Then he announced that it was $20.00, not bad at all. Did I want all of it? What a silly question. You never go to a supermarket, pick up a ham and NOT buy all of it. So I replied, of course! And it WAS $20…..A pound. And it was a 10 pound ham, which rung up at $200.00. I was aghast. And aware of the line behind me tapping impatiently. My pride just wouldn’t allow me to say, I’ve changed my mind, I don’t think so or not today. Something, anything. Why wasn’t this in your deli case? But nooooo. I pulled out my American Express to buy the most expensive ham I’ve ever encountered, as if I did it every day. I swore after leaving that I’d learned my lesson and would find my voice if I was ever in that predicament again. By the way, the ham was from France.

So, the chicken. Enamored with the charm of a butcher shop on the street, we went in the second day we arrived at the apartment. He spoke no English or Spanish and our French wouldn’t get us an expresso, much less explain the different fowl we were seeing. They were stunning, all neatly lined up, still with heads and feet. Some also had full plumage on the wings. So with gestures, we made our pick and watched him cut off the plumage, feet and head, wrapping the gizzards into the cavity before tying it up in butcher paper,

And charged us €45. Roughly $52 for a pound and half chicken. Flash backs of the ham hit me squarely in the brain stem. But he’d cut off the feet, head and plumage. And it would be more than an insult to say we didn’t want it now. This wasn’t pride. This was clearly a failure to communicate. Not a chance in hell was I going to be the Ugly American. We paid for the chicken with a smile and an Au Revoir! And walked away with a resolve to price all chickens from that point forward.

That one appeared to have been blessed by the pope!

About a week in the studio, our internet went out on us. It is our lifeline and we needed it fixed immediately.  At that, our landlord, Tina, arrived with her daughter Federica, and a friend, Rosita. All very different from each other and equally enchanting. Tina spoke Italian, French and English. She felt her English wasn’t strong enough (we later disagreed with her) so she’d brought Federica, who spoke some French, fluent Italian and impeccable English, with a pronounced British accent.  Tina spoke in a light lyrical style and Federica spoke a very straightforward way, when translating to us, addressing the problem at hand. Rosita was a tiny older woman, very charming in dress and mannerism, with an impish smile. She spoke fluent Italian and French, both quite softly but no English. In the scheme of things, she was the internet wizard. Exactly what you’d expect to encounter, if you ever did.

As the issue continued to dog us  for a week and a half, we were to meet again with Tina and Federica. During meeting at the apartment, Tina sat on the sofa couch and eyed it suspiciously, saying something in Italian to Federica. In truth, the sofa bed was so uncomfortable that it gave us terrible backaches and we had bought an inflatable mattress, which we had hidden in the closet. When Tina was engaged in conversation with Rosita working on the internet, I turned to Federica and said, “Don’t tell your mother until we’ve gone, but she needs to look into replacing that sofa bed.” Federica asked, “Is it uncomfortable?” To which I answered,” Yes, but we’re only here for four and a half months. It can wait.”

Later we learned that Federica’s nickname was Big Mouth Frog, which she illustrated by turning directly to her mother, repeating what I had said, in Italian. Tina was horrified that we were sleeping on an uncomfortable mattress and I was horrified that she had been told. Trying to assuage her alarm, I opened the closet, pointing to the inflatable mattress to show that we were fine. That only mortified her more. There was no soothing her about the subject and within a week, a new sofa bed arrived. Along with the movers, in came Tina, Federica, Guilia (her teenage daughter) and another wonderful character, Angelo (Tina’s husband).  Also a soft spoken person, he had come to see the new tenants as well as supervise the couch switch. The movers disassembled the old one in four pieces, expertly zipping down the stairwell that we walk so carefully down and zipped up the new one, also in four pieces. By the end of the process, we had gotten to know each other better and they were kind enough to issue a lunch invitation to their apartment later in the week, before Federica left the city with Guilia for home.

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Tina refers to the butcher shops as jewelry shops because the prices are so dear.

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We went for lunch to their flat and were entertained by several stories about apartment renovation, language snags and other globally understandable foibles. We were honored to be present for Guilia’s first sip of champagne, which she liked. Such lovely people that had become our friends. And they  explained the chicken. Tina refers to the butcher shops as jewelry shops because the prices are so dear. The products were from different regions that were known for their various specialties.  Products that you would never find in a grocery market anymore than you would find an air-aged Harris Ranch prime rib hanging in a Safeway in the states. On a two burner stove, the way we cooked it, would never have shown it’s potential. They also told a story of finally indulging in one of the pricey chickens to try one night, only to arrive home after work to discover the nanny had fed it to the kids. So no, as it turns out, the pope is not involved.

The process of the couch going up and down the stairs brings me to a sight that we found fascinating involving the delivery of appliances to upper level flats. We even took pictures and wondered why this form of delivery wasn’t utilized in the states.

The month went by filled with days of different chores. Most had to do with ironing out small glitches on accounts both current and closed. Our chores are addressed in the mornings and the afternoons we walk far and wide through the arrondissements (arr.), to become familiar with neighborhoods where we might end up finding an apartment.

The studio, like many flats, has a clothes washer but no dryer. As a result, laundry day has become a ritual of stringing clothesline from the handle of one cabinet on one side of the room, across to the handle of another cabinet on the opposite side of the room and then back again, zig zagging the length of the studio.

We are beginning to gather interesting factoids. It was tough to find face wash cloths in the stores. They weren’t offered at the hotel either. At the end of the month, after we’d settled on a cloth mitten of sorts, we did find them in a rather posh shop and flea markets. Things we were used to getting in a grocery store, were simply not carried in them. There were no hardware items, no pharmaceutical section or odd aisle that might have t-shirts, flip flops or towels. The pharmacies (and there are plenty) are the only ones that carry prescriptions to even the most mundane (to us) over the counter items. We buy over the counter allergy medications by the bottle in the U.S. for daily use but here can only buy a week supply at a time. Any quantity more than that requires a doctor’s prescription. Even aspirin surprised me in that it comes in an effervescent form.  Many shops do one thing only and do it well, be it cheese, wine, butcher, produce, etc. We went to a shop that has specialized in making pastel chalks for over a hundred years (La Maison du Pastel).

The explanation of the process involved in making them by hand and adjusting the coloring by eye, was simply incredible. We passed a book binding shop with a worker hand pressing gold lettering on the leather spine. There are paper shops, pen shops and custom shoe makers. In the small markets that do carry a variety of goods, a decent wine costs between €5-10, produce tastes better (We’ve bought potatoes that are in shallow, fine dirt-filled boxes) and a one-and-a-half pound chicken costs about €4.50. But we are only a month in and there are many shops of which we are simply unaware. For the most part I do not miss the big box stores, which I never cared for anyway, with the exception of hunting down the inflatable mattress. It was an item we needed immediately and after the fifth sport store, I was wishing for a Target. By the way, for those who don’t know, Amazon doesn’t deliver many of it’s products outside of the US.

What else have we found or done so far? Well, none of your typical sight seeing. We have a disconnect with that because we are so involved in the task of just living here. We have accomplished things on our arr. walks. We discovered (by way of an old friend who sent an article on it) the charm and history of Guinguettes and spend a couple of evenings down on the Seine, enjoying the music over a bottle of wine. We also read a story about getting to know people and have them remember you better, by having a business card to leave with them.  After G fashioned one, we went to a printer and had 200 made. Armed and dangerous.

We’ve enjoyed wonderful lunches simply because we were drooping during a long walk and had to stop. We recently found a wonderful place, L’as du Falafel, in our arr. that served huge, bursting, flavorful pita sandwiches. We got in right before they filled up completely with a long line outside the door. The bars we’ve seen have a lot of character but one that sticks out was a little place with a horseshoe shaped bar called Au Petit Fer A Cheval, where we had a terrific cocktail. We try to go out every day for a period of time although during a heat wave at the end of the month, we stayed indoors, in front of the fan. Mid 90’s were just too warm for us.  At the end of each day, our neighborhood street became packed with all the residents (families with children and tourists) to stand in line for glaces and sorbets.

We found that unlike in the states, they don’t sell theater tickets to you in advance to the show. You can’t go in to the theater, pick a seat like we’re used to doing, 20 minutes ahead of time. Everyone stands in a queue outside and waits to buy the ticket. Then right before the show, they open the window to sell the tickets and allow the line to come in. This is rather inconvenient when we were looking into taking in a movie to get out of the heat only to discover that we’d be standing there in the heat for 30 minutes before they would sell the ticket. We haven’t checked to see if that is true with every cinema.

By the end of the month we’d also visited a few flea markets, including the most famous one, Marche aux puces de Clignancourt which was enchanting with it’s winding avenues and variety of goods. In the heart of it, we came across a little restaurant, Louisette, which felt like stepping into the heart of a French village. After stepping down into the place, we faced endless, packed, communal tables. Squeezing in, we ordered une pichet of wine, beef bourguigon and a duck dish. It was fabulous. There were two musicians, occasionally accompanied by a singer and the entire crowd would burst into song, along with them. It was extremely entertaining and we felt like we’d happened into a movie set.

But we didn’t attempt to purchase anything at any of the flea markets. Occasionally we would be tempted, then one or the other would simply say, ‘The Chicken’ and we’d move on. Best not to mess with it when we didn’t have the language skills.

During June, I found the practice of wide spread posting, fascinating. On windows of empty storefronts, on metal barricades, by the metro entrances, you can spot someone with a bucket filled with posters, attaching them to surfaces as they move along. Some posters are rather simple but there are some that are quite colorful and they all tout the date of some upcoming event. Then the posters start to disappear because people will also pick them off to keep. I was bemoaning to G that I had not been courageous enough to snag one particular poster, when we stopped for a glass of wine at Auberge de la Reine Blanche, down the street from our place. And there on the wall, (along with an array of miniature doll house cabinetry) were a variety of posters, including the one I had liked.

Plucking up my nerve, I whipped out my mobile and using a translator, asked the gentleman who’d brought us our wine if I could buy the poster. He smiled, took it off the wall and using his  own mobile translated back that it was free. Utterly charming, he engaged in a conversation with us via our mobile apps, given the restaurant was empty and he had time.

As it turned out, he was Michel Puren, the chef and owner of Aubergine (his gastronomic degree was framed on the wall). He owned three restaurants, all on the Isle. Witty, funny, our conversation stretched intermittently over the course of our wonderful meal. We discussed various translation apps and gadgets as well as the move we’d just made to France, which was followed by another animated discourse . We’ve since returned, welcomed warmly with hugs and even showed him the frame we bought for the poster, that made him smile. He’s offered to tutor us in French but we pointed out that with three restaurants to run, he had enough on his plate, which made him outright laugh.

As the month of June closed, we revisited our budget to discover we’d smashingly destroyed it and posted July on the wall to keep ourselves daily on track. Boring but necessary. But we’d come to know a few people and although the language was still a mountain to climb, we were having a great time.