It’s been a little over two weeks since I’ve settled into my new place, and slowly but surely, things are finally starting to feel like home.
Quite a number of notable events happened in those two weeks, at least one of which was witnessed by pretty much the entire world over in one way or another. I closed my last post with my housewarming party, and all the leftover chips I (still) have in my house, sitting on my table…just waiting to be consumed…at some point.
In the days that followed, I reoriented myself with my (not so) new surroundings, trying to establish a routine that could follow me through into the rentrée. I planned new walking routes (because of course I did), I acquainted myself with my new smaller kitchen, I made things, gifted things, stocked my tiny fridge to the brim with things. I got back in touch with two old friends, one of whom I hadn’t seen in about five years, and who I had originally met in my first study abroad program when I was an undergrad. They work as an actor full-time in New York now, and were in town as part of an independent production : a reworking/reimagining of sorts of La Vie d’Adèle (Blue is the Warmest Color). I won’t go too much into the details of how this went because even though my friend and I had a long and incredibly cathartic on their end, at least from what I gathered, talk about all the almost unbelievable nonsense that muddied the overall mood of the production, I’m not sure how much negativity I want to put out into the world right now when there are so many others (two world leaders in particular are coming to mind…) doing the job so astoundingly well already. Suffice it to say that an overinflated ego that all but blinds you to the – I know, astounding – reality that your audience is more than fully capable of interacting intelligently with and drawing informed conclusions from your piece, is never the best way to go about things.
On the bright side, the aforementioned cathartic conversation with said friend did allow me the opportunity to add a new restaurant to my list, Le Cadoret, located about 5 or so minutes from my apartment. It’s going right up there with the three dumpling places, and the proximity to my favorite café on my list of reasons why I’m really glad I moved into this apartment.
This first reunion was followed up on by another with another friend – from the Cité U days – who I also hadn’t seen since the last time I moved out of Paris in 2014. Unfortunately, schedules never worked out in our favor to meet up during my subsequent short visits, and right before I moved back, she took a job in Vienna. Luckily though, she was in town for the night of July 14th (Bastille Day), so a small group of us were able to get together for dinner before heading over to the Pont Alexandre III to watch the fireworks with a slightly smaller crowd than the masses on the Champ de Mars. Let me tell you, watching the fireworks with an incredibly, excessively belligerent human squawking the Marseillaise – along with several other chants relating to France’s semifinal win the night before – right behind you is quite an experience. I mean really, it was almost as though we were right there, on the champ de mars, listening to the soundtrack of various pop songs that no doubt accompanied the (several) ecstatic bursts of color. The theme this year was Paris in Love. I have no doubt that nothing illustrated that theme better than the love that was shown between that man the the robust capacity of his vocal chords (really though, the show lasted just over 30 minutes, and he kept at it the whole time…yes people asked him repeatedly to knock it off…and yes after a while we realized that this, like the fight against our own mortality in this journey called life, was a futile endeavor).
Anyway.
Speaking of celebrations, France won the World Cup. I met up with the boyfriend at a bar near his friend’s place, a bar that, once I walked in, gave me strong California vibes, with a touch of New England maritime aesthetic.
Despite the very palpable feelings of stress that permeated the room during a large part of the first half (let’s get this out of the way now: France did not play well at all during a very good portion of that game), once the goals started happening – and especially once victory became almost inevitable –, the mood changed, as one might expect it would during an event like this.
Really though, I don’t think anything can quite capture the absolute joy that radiated out into the streets after the match was over. I didn’t really feel up for heading down to the Champs Elysées that evening (or the day after for the team’s welcome home parade), but honestly, it almost didn’t matter where you were in the city (I’m going to stress that last bit here because, of course, access to the celebrations from the banlieues was all but cut off that night), the celebration all but found you.
All this to segue into another victory, a smaller, more personal one, perhaps, but a victory all the same.
I installed a washing machine.
A bit of background: before I moved in to my apartment, the friend of mine who was living there before me informed me that the in-unit washing machine was smoking. This is, of course, not normal. Not a problem. I strategized my laundry at my old place, a new machine was ordered, and two weeks later, there it was in my ‘living room’.
Now here’s a thing about France that I did not know at the time: technically, if you order a large appliance like this to replace an old or broken one, the delivery service, by law, has to take the old one out of your place when they deliver the new one. The former is then dropped off at an appropriate recycling facility where it is either repaired/refurbished (if possible), or taken apart and its materials being put to use elsewhere. Of course, this system does at times mean that you will encounter people who conveniently ‘forget’ to take your old machine, meaning you find yourself in a conundrum of being on the top floor of a 5th (US 6th) floor walk-up with one more washing machine than you really know what to do with.
One thing was for certain though: I needed to do laundry. For that, I had to install the new machine.
Shout-out here to the boyfriend for helping me figure out how to do it over the phone, and for granting me the realization that it really isn’t quite as annoyingly complicated as I thought it would be.
Well, the actual installation part at least (apart from this moment where I almost had a breakdown because the damn faucet thing wouldn’t stop leaking until I realized that the tube was screwed on slightly crookedly and that there really was a very simple solution to that problem). The moving the old machine out and the new one into place was slightly less so.
Honestly, that part was a bitch. But at least now I have clean underwear so…
As to the old machine, thankfully I had a few friends willing to come lend a hand to bring it down the stairs (and a neighbor who caught us about 2/3rds of the way down and offered his help as well), otherwise that thing was (metaphorically) going right out the window.
Finally, the week was rounded out with another first for me: my first trip to a public swimming pool in Paris. Yay!
My friend Isabella and I were keen for a bit of sun/sunning, and since going to the beach was not an option (1: last minute train tickets there were a bit too expensive, and 2: all the trains back were full), we figured why not do the next best thing and go to an open-air swimming pool (conveniently located near both the Parc des Buttes Chaumont and my apartment).
Contrary to my expectations, the pool wasn’t overwhelmingly crowded that day, and was actually very nice and clean (as in, the water was crystal clear, and did not smell overwhelmingly of chlorine clean). We mostly sat out on the pool ledge to get some sun and dip our feet in (no lounge chairs in the immediate area, unfortunately), but after a bit, we did end up donning our (mandatory) swimming caps and taking a quick dip in.
Coincidentally, this is also the thing that reminded me of why I never really sought out going to public pools here. I hate swimming caps.
Another side note: someone is going to need to explain to me exactly why it is that in France the rule is that you must take a quick shower – with soap, provided in the changing rooms – before going in the water. This seems counterintuitive.
As I am going to be off to Greece in a couple of weeks, I don’t fully anticipate visiting the pool again this summer, but given how pretty excellent their access packages are price-wise, maybe this could become a weekly thing next year. Who knows?
Hell, maybe by then I’ll have bought myself a swim cap that’s a slight more comfortable than the 2eur one I bought from the vending machine in the entrance lobby. There were two colors available: black and navy blue. Take a wild guess as to which one I picked…
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