Ok, away we go. Off to France for a month. We have Alex and Emmanuelle’s wedding on Aug 7th. So we rented a small flat in Paris for the entire month. The plan is to spend a few days in Paris, Ethan and Maddy will join us for a few days, then April and I head over to Brittany to bicycle around for about 3 weeks. Eth and Maddy will stay at the flat for another week. Em/Chris will overlap with them and stay for another week. Em has wedding is Bulgaria to go to, then will return to Paris for the wedding. Eth will come back from London with POC and Mimi on the Eurostar (chunnel) for the wedding; rumor has it Mimi is bringing her Dad’s credit card again for some ragers in London town. And finally Chelsea will fly in right before the wedding as she is holding down the fort in Seattle, looking for a job, managing her busy social life, and to hear it from her she will be cleaning the house for weeks after Ethan’s departure.
With that intro…..
Our flat is in the St Germain area, district 6, it supposedly sleeps 4, it’s supposedly a quite street. No AC. Hmm.
Flight was mostly fine, I had Ambien while April stayed awake and listened to some kid behind us cry/fuss all night. I tried to eat light as I’ve gotten food poisoning on planes before, but April pounded the wine and with no sleep and inferior travel skills she ended up puking as we landed and taxied in. It was a 2-bag puke; impressive. I also got a ton of bug bites on the plane (and they play a role as you will see later). Waited way too long for a private shuttle at the airport. I was starting to get pissed but April reminded my of craving/aversions lessons from my meditation and I channeled my alter-ego PEM. Long time readers will recognize that persona from our last Europe trip with Dan and Jayne; it’s my calmer self. Anyway don’t use these van services to get from the airport to the city. Take a taxi or the train/metro. We had too much luggage for the train/metro (we had our bikes).
Got to the flat, some confusion about which specific apt it was, but April heard some people talking in one of them and knocked on the door, and sure enough it was the previous renters.
Like most things in life, the flat is a package deal. Some good, some bad. It’s tiny but efficient. Has internet and voip phone so it’s free to call the States. Kitchen/bathroom/shower are good. Location is superb. We can walk to all sorts of sites/cafes. The Louve is right across the Seine river.
But it’s really hot, no AC. And when you leave all the windows open it can get loud with the occasional truck/drunk/etc. And the beds are doubles, kind of crowded. And the second bed is in a tiny loft. You can touch the ceiling above you.
We had a late lunch at the Italian places just down the block. I had the fish which April thought smelled too fishy. April had an eggplant/pasta thing. Then we napped, woke up around dinner and wandered the neighborhood. It’s amazing. Packed with bakeries, movie theatres, shops, art galleries, cafes/restaurants,, ice cream shops, tea shops, even grocery stores. Everything is within a 5 minute walk. We found a Lebanese restaurant for dinner. Again April had a veggie meze type of plate while I went for a chicken shwarma. Yes this is a little foreshadowing.
Then we headed back to our cute little flat for our first romantic night in Paris!
And then the problems started.
First it was incredibly hot, even tho we had a fan blowing in air all night. And the beds were too small for 2 considering the heat. So I ended up in the loft, also known as the solitary confinement cell. Then the drunks and cars were super loud all night, tooting and yelling at 3:00AM. Plus my bug bites were itching like crazy because of the heat. I felt like Papillion down in British Guyana. So we woke up exhausted.
And the next day it got worse.
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