Settling In

Just like that it's September and we've been in Paris for three weeks. Maybe it's just me, but the older I get, the faster time seems to fly by. Things are going well here. The stuff we shipped from Canada finally showed up on Friday. It's so nice to have our own things here. Not only do photos of family and paintings from Canada make it feel like our home, but little things like Tupperware and ice cube trays make life easier. We weren't allowed to ship furniture but we sent bedding, towels, dishes, pots and pans. Life is so much easier now than it was in our last apartment.

Getting our things into the apartment wasn't easy though. Some of the boxes wouldn't fit into the tiny elevator. The delivery guy said they were too heavy to carry up the stairs, so his solution was to unpack the boxes on the ground floor and place the contents into the elevator. I was waiting on the 5th floor and would unpack the elevator. It looked like something out of a Laurel & Hardy movie. Anyway, everything arrived unscathed.

Lori's company provides furnished apartments, which is why we weren't allowed to ship our furniture. The furniture they provide is not what you would call high quality. It's all brand new but kind of ugly and uncomfortable. Imagine a cheaper and crappier version of Ikea. Since we can't take it with us, it doesn't make sense to go out and buy our own stuff. Lori couldn't take it anymore though and she went out and bought a new couch.

It finally feels like we are settled and our life is back to normal. We went to the market on Sunday for the first time since we've been back. I have missed that. I found some incredible cherry tomatoes and basil so I made my version of a Caprese Salad. Of course, I couldn't leave the market without cheese and bread as well.

  

On a completely unrelated note, here is a link to my friend Anna's blog. She and her husband Eric were in St. John's for our anniversary party and she put up some great pictures. Enjoy.

http://jiggityjog.blogspot.fr/2014/08/newfoundland.html

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New Apartment

We are back in Paris and in our new apartment. We've had a few headaches getting our phone, TV and internet hooked up and our stuff from Canada hasn't shown up yet. My first blog post was going to be a scathing rant about France's antiquated infrastructure and outdated business practices, but it's nothing you haven't heard before. If you want to read more about that, just search Google and I'm sure you'll find thousands of stories just like ours.

Instead, I will show you our new apartment. Lori was in Paris for a couple of weeks in June and she found this apartment then. She was worried about picking it without me seeing it first, but she did a great job. We are closer to where she works, it's only a 25 minute walk. There are grocery stores, markets and restaurants close by. Most importantly, it's a full-size apartment with two bedrooms, separate living and dining spaces, a real oven and a refrigerator with a freezer. It's not an over-sized hotel room, like our last apartment.

The ceilings are 10 feet high and every room has floor to ceiling glass doors that let tons of light in. It doesn't feel like we live in a dungeon anymore.

We also have a fireplace. It has been sealed off to help reduce pollution, but it's still a nice feature.

The one downside of the apartment is the tiny elevator. The building was built before elevators were invented, so when they wanted to add one, they had to build one small enough to fit inside the central staircase.

It is not built for North American sized men. I can't walk straight into it, I have to turn sideways.

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20th Anniversary

Lori and I will be marking our 20th Wedding Anniversary in just over a week, but we celebrated a little early this past weekend. We had a kick-off party at the house on Friday night to welcome everyone who came in from out of town. Then on Saturday night we had dinner and dancing at The Rooms overlooking downtown St. John's and the harbour. Finally, everyone went out on a whale watching tour yesterday. We were a little light on the whales, we only saw one small Minke, but we saw lots of people out jigging for Cod.

It was an incredible weekend and what made it incredible was sharing it with so many friends and family.

It's amazing to have so many people, come from so far away, just to be with us this weekend. We are very lucky to have great people in our lives.

Our time in Newfoundland is coming to a close for this year, as we fly back to Paris next weekend. We are looking forward to it, but at the same time it will be sad to leave.

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