I really love Google’s My Maps feature and putting this together was therapeutic.
Someday, we will sit on our sunny 5th floor balcony overlooking the Jardin du Luxembourg and laugh at the apartment indignities we went through when we first got to Paris. For now, I’ll seek consolation in croissant au buerre breakfasts and the bottle [...]
Archive for November, 2008
A Map of the Apartment Hunt
Posted in Neighbourhoods, Updates, tagged apartment-hunt, paris on November 30, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Pretty pictures: Parc des Buttes Chaumont
Posted in Uncategorized on November 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Unlike some other European capitals like London, Paris has a real dearth of green space. Note the ratio of green to beige on the map below.
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So the parc des Buttes Chaumont (which is very near the apartment shown in my previous post) is a real treat. Not only because it’s a bit of [...]
Apartment Hunting in Paris: Pollyannas Needed
Posted in Neighbourhoods, Updates, tagged apartment-hunt, paris on November 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I have not posted anything lately, or even emailed many people, because whenever I’m in front of a computer I’m either combing rental search results, or suffering from sudden & acute despair brought on by the former. Trust me, you don’t want to hear what I have to say during these moments.
We do have a [...]
Our second week
Posted in Updates, tagged paris on November 20, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Highlights
After suggesting we switch to a cheaper Adagio hotel with wifi, our hotel mgmt promptly moved us to a 1 bdrm for the same rate. This new suite faces a quiet side street rather than busy boulevard Haussmann, and also features not just a *couch* but also a *second* closet. It’s amazing what a difference [...]
Dinner at Chartier
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged paris, restaurants on November 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Usually our dinner is a romantic tete-a-tete of microwaved Picard meal-in-a-bag, eaten from the dining table that pulls out from under the desk in our room, while watching BBC World News.
However, beware of becoming too engrossed in whatever you’re doing in France (or anywhere in Europe, really) on a Sunday or holiday. Suddenly you find [...]
Still more visuals – Bastille, the 19th, & the Canal St-Martin
Posted in Neighbourhoods, tagged paris on November 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
After hitting Place des Vosges, we biked out to Bastille (ground zero for the French Revolution) and ate our 2nd breakfast, squinting in the sun (!!) on a thankfully well-heated terrace. As the sun retreated, we biked up to the nether-regions of the 19th arrondissement and found a rather village-like neighbourhood that I think is [...]
More visuals: Place des Vosges
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged paris, parks on November 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
On the Remembrance Day holiday, we decided to revisit some of our old haunts from 2005 before checking out a few new ‘hoods. We used to like to lurk around Place des Vosges in the Marais, the oldest part of Paris. Long ago it was the haunt of royalty, but is now a combo of chic shopping [...]
And now some visuals: view from le Pont des Arts
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged paris, pics on November 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Admittedly, most of the time we wander around Paris we’ve got an apartment-hunting mindset, so we’re taking pictures of boring things like street signs and shopping districts so we can keep neighbourhoods organized in our heads.
That being said, these were taken at the end of our first day (Nov 4) as we fought jet-lag & [...]
Our First Week
Posted in Updates on November 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Scrolling down I cringe at the verbose (and in retrospect, naive) postings from 2007. Oh well, que sera. Right now I’ve been sitting at an old cafe with tiled floors and ancient, grotty wood panelling in a not-yet-gentrified area of the 11th. A middle-aged busker in plaid jacket is strolling down the street, playing the [...]
