How small is the apartment? and other matters.

We have scored several victories this week: we now have a bank account! In the U.S. it’s pretty easy to get a bank account; you just apply online and give them money and it’s all fine, more or less. Here, however, you need to offer proof of address in the form of an electric bill, and no, your lease is not good enough. When we went back with the proper evidence, we signed so many papers we flashed back to buying our house. This does not, however, mean I can just have my bank routing number to give to HR. No, one must be patient when doing business with Le Crédit Lyonnais.

We also now have cell phones! Originally we had planned to get a whole phone/internet package, but it required a bank routing number, so when we found we weren’t getting that anytime soon, we decided to just get the pre-paid kind that require no paperwork. If you need our phone numbers let us know.

Even more exciting, we found the source of cheap housewares, such as towels and sheets! It is Tati, a giant store in the 18^th that looks like the hideous monster child of a K-mart and a carnival funhouse. We now have two towels at our disposal, instead of the one that came with the apartment.

Speaking of the apartment: people have been asking us, how small is it really? So here is the answer:

I can tell you there is not much it is bigger than-maybe a sandwich, or your shoes. Eighteen square meters was the quoted size. I have no idea what a meter is, so I measured by lying on the floor and converting Jeff lengths into feet. Standing flat with my arms outstretched I’m eight feet. The width of the room is about six inches past the tips of my fingers. The length is two Jeffs plus most of the bed, about five feet.

8.5 x 21 = 178.5 square feet.

You can tape off this space on the floor of a room in your house and imagine living in it. If you wanted to create a three dimensional model, you need to know that the ceiling is about 9 feet tall for half of the room and then descends to about 1.5 feet tall at the exterior wall. Now add a closet with a toilet in it. Put in a couple sinks, a shower in the corner and call it done.

Lia’s mom requested photos of the apartment with us in them to demonstrate the size, so here they are:

This is the kitchen/bathroom/storage area.

The bathroom. The kitchen is right behind Lia and the dining room table is to her left.

The shower. The ventilation system consists of holes in the walls. So far it works, but we're a little worried about winter.

Lia in the dining corner, with bathroom sink next door. The kitchen nook is about two feet to Lia's right.

View from the bed: WC, kitchen nook.

However, as dire as this may all sound, how much space does a person really need? There’s enough space to store our things, to sit at the table and have dinner and a glass of wine, and if we sit on the bed sideways we call it a couch and watch TV on it. Is there enough space for friends to come stay with us? Er… no.

What more than makes up for the studio’s small size is the neighborhood, which was the reason we chose this apartment in the first place. Rue Oberkampf has an abundance of great food shops, including several butchers, wine shops, and bakeries, plus a cheese shop, a great produce stand, and who knows what else. There are two organic food stores nearby as well, one of which we like. Twice a week an outdoor market sets up on boulevard Richard Lenoir a block away, with seafood, game, and cheese stands that could make you cry, everything looks so good (or possibly out of sympathy for the whole rabbits with fur and gunshot wounds still intact). It’s like a farmer’s market on steroids though actually, I don’t know if any of the vendors are actually farmers. We’re still working on choosing our favorites and might do a longer post about them later.

Here’s a dinner put together with pork chops from our new favorite butcher at Boucherie Leloup and some amazing figs from our new favorite fruit and veggie guy.

Pork plus mustard au chablis direct from the Maille shop.

French cider, which is ridiculously hard to find in Minnesota but so good.

Note that we are embellishing the figs with lovely Minnesota State Fair honey, given to us by Kevin and Lisa.

In addition to the things that are exciting to us, there are numerous bars and restaurants, gorgeous parks, museums, historic monuments, and whatever else you can imagine, more or less, within easy walking distance from our doorstep. Lately we have been to Victor Hugo’s former home on the Place des Vosges, the Jardin du Luxembourg, and the Musée Carnavalet, where we went through the exhibit on the Revolution and saw Robespierre’s shaving bowl, among other things. Walking through Paris every day, you can’t help but become curious about the history of the city, so that’s become the topic of study around here lately. Jeff is reading Alexander Hussey’s Paris: A Secret History, which is much recommended to anyone interested and planning a trip over here.

The Université de Paris starts Fall semester on September 20^th, so up until now I (Lia) have only had a series of meetings intended to prepare me for the joys of being a lectrice d’anglais. I do not, however, have a class schedule yet, so I’m not yet totally sure of what I should be preparing. More news on that later, I suppose.

Here we are eating sandwiches by the Seine, so you know we are happy.