Comme d'habitude

Just in case you think that all we do is walk all over Paris, visit museums, and try to learn French--both the language and the lifestyle!--we really do have the everyday "faire le menage" and "faire les courses"--do the housekeeping and run the errands! And they are a little different than what we are used to.
Our apartment is in an older building (you know I love old buildings!) in this wonderful area one block from the Tuileries in the First Arrondissement.

If you are not familiar with the layout of Paris, the city districts--Arrondissements of which there are 20-- were created by Baron Haussmann in the 1860's as part of his grand transformation of Paris. He is responsible for the wide boulevards and the grand vistas, for example the view from Louvre up the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. These arrondissements circle the Ile de la Cite in a clockwise concentric spiral. Of course, he is also credited with the destruction of old Paris with its winding streets and neighborhoods--the French urban renewal! Boston did not get Haussmann-like amenities like tree lined streets and a city hall plaza like Paris in its urban renewal!

Where we live in the first, we might be in the center of high end shopping, but we still carry home our groceries! Grocery shopping for us is a combination of the neighborhood boulangerie (we had bread withdrawl when they closed a week for vacation--we LOVE their bread and are already worrying about their plans for August!), the local boucherie, the marche on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and the Monoprix. The Monoprix is a department store about 6 blocks away that has some housewears, some cosmetics, some clothes, some toys, and small grocery. It has quite good quality produce and cheeses and is where we buy our staples like sparkling water and laundry soap. Hauling water--which is sometimes what it feels like!-- requires the use of the pull cart and I wait for David to navigate that vehicle over curbs, steps, and pedestrians!
The marche is our favorite place to shop and we already have "our" cheese stand, "our" produce place, and the woman who sells us flowers every week knows that I love the lillies. I have to say that I had not appreciated how much work these markets require of the vendors. For example, there is a grocer who sells Italian products like Italian cheeses, proscuitto, fresh pastas, etc. They essentially create a shop on the sidewalk! Refrigerated cases, slicing machines, display cases, the goods--there are electrical connections in boxes in the sidewalk and everyone has their own spot. And when the 6 to 8 hours are over, they have to disassemble the whole place and take it to the next market the next day. On Sunday we walked through the marche at Place de la Bastille as they were closing and cleaning up--it was like a bee hive!
Our friends from Lyon, Timothy's other parents, came for the weekend last Friday and we had a wonderful time walking and eating! Philippe is from Paris and showed us lots of places--like the two best patisseries--and the Rue de Seine with all of its art galleries. We are off on an adventure with them next Tuesday to Toulouse where we are going to learn to make confit du canard and foie gras!
There is a lot to be said for living in an apartment--there is less to take care of and time to go out! So, all we do is walk all over Paris, visit museums and try to learn French--but David does work!