It’s official, we have re-upped for another year in France! We spent the morning handing over official paperwork to official bureaucrats and we now have the receipts that we’ll turn in in 6 weeks for our new official residents cards. Given the French love of all things paperwork, I’ve become a regular at the copy shop. (The usual, madam?) And here you were thinking we spend our days eating cheese and drinking wine.
Okay, if you thought instead that we spend our days eating pastries, you wouldn’t be that far off. Our friend Tom, who moved to Paris for a year with his wife Ana right after getting married something like 25 years ago, made it his mission back then to find the best patisserie. He introduced us to Gerard Mulot. Over the years we went back, but for decades it had fallen off our radar. Here I am supremely delighted to discover that not only is it still around, but it hasn’t changed. It still has pink and white striped awnings and the best millefeuille ever.
Tom’s the guy who started us thinking we would someday live here. We certainly thought we’d do it sooner, and just for a year like they did. Thankfully (!!!) I met Denise during the summer three years ago. Denise is a friend of a friend, an American married to a Frenchman. I met her at an outing in Grant Park, and I have to say I monopolized her time that evening. I told her how much we loved traveling to France and that maybe one day we’d live there. She gave me the what-the-hell-are-you-waiting-for talk, and that was what it took to set the ball in motion.
Here are a few more things I love about living here:
Snoozeable, slopey chairs at Luxembourg Gardens
Our Sunday spot: Parc des Buttes Chaumont in the 19th
Other buildings have muscular Atlas types struggling with the weight of the balconies. These gals are just doing it for a lark.
Take your bird to the park day?
In other news, our fabulous neighbors Pat and Julie have decided to reenlist as well instead of returning to their nomadic ways, which means we’re staying put in the tiny house. Taking their apartment would have merely been a consolation prize for losing them as neighbors.
I’ve been hearing from quite a few of you about enormous, exciting changes in your lives. To which I say again: woo-hoo! And to everyone else who is just keeping on, I’ll say keep on keeping on! Not every day is pastry day. Some days it’s bureaucracy.
The Let's Get Lost Game 