Chez Nous/Our Place

Here was our brand new empty place just before beginning the big move.

The living room, with the Christmas stockings from Berlin already hung by the windows with care

The bedroom

The kitchen

The bathroom (with the washer/dryer pulled out from the wall)

And here we are a half a day later after two round-trips loading up one of Valentin's family friend's very small car, unsuccessfully trying to rent a truck, taking many rounds of metro rides, and convincing an unsuspecting local ebay salesman delivering Valentin's new desk to swing by my old place to help us out with "a few things."

Dinner's ready! And at long last we have a place to eat it together without having to hide from security guards (as we had to do at the Institut Pasteur)

Since then we have been kept busy with our apartment to-do list: sewing curtains and installing curtain rods in what turns out to be nearly inpenetrable walls, building some extra kitchen counter space, and traveling across the city to purchase (and find creative delivery methods for) used furniture from wealthy Parisians who are nearly giving away their hardly (sometimes never!) used stuff on ebay.fr.

The curtain rods were all set to be installed when we discovered that our walls are nearly impenetrable. Putting our heads together, we eventually found a way around that.

The couch was a really excellent find. Challenge: transporting it from the 13th Arrodissement (Arrondissement = District in Paris) to the 15th near Montparnasse, where we live. Final solution: our old buddy Roland who freelance delivers for Emmaüs, the Goodwill of France. We accordingly prepared our couch for the elements before strapping it on top of his station wagon.

Some artsy middle-aged people living near the Arc de Triomphe bought this modernist chandelier but were never able to install it in their fancy old apartment so they finally decided to get rid of it. Despite his facial expression, Valentin very much wanted this chandelier.

We're not totally done yet. The chandelier (ooh la la) has yet to be installed in the living room, the closet doors have got to go, and the kitchen could seriously use a microwave, but for the most part we're pretty well settled in and impressively so on our student budgets.

The living room complete with Christmas tree right before the housewarming for my friends

Another perspective on the living room plus one happy resident

The view from our living room on the 22nd floor

The view from the 30th floor rooftop terrace one cloudy afternoon

The 30th floor indoor heated pool (included in the rent) with a 270º view of Paris including the Eiffel Tower, Invalides, and Montmartre

Our stockings have been hung from Day 1, the Christmas tree is decked and lit with lots of presents destined for the US carefully placed underneath its boughs, and the place has become quite cozy. It's a nice change of pace and an excellent place to start a new year.