Thank you, thank you, thank you

Thursday, September 6. My Name Is On The Buzzer In An Apartment in Paris!
I wake up a lot during the night but morning finally comes, and I can scarcely believe I am still here. It is almost unimaginable that, after so many years of longing, I have actually made this happen (thanks be to God). I forgot to mention yesterday the thrill of finding my very own name on a mailbox and intercom buzzer inside an actual Paris apartment building. There is a keypad with a code to get in the outside door (and a key to the door in case the keypad doesn't work), a key for the mailbox (please send mail so I can open it and find something!) then a key to the glass door inside and finally a key to the apartment.

Inventory (but not the kind that's filed in the probate court!). I review the inventory of items in the apartment (which Christos and I had signed yesterday) which is a great vocabulary lesson. I try to match up all the things on the list with what I see around me. There are a couple of things I cannot find but Christos shows me later: they are in one of the cupboards that I cannot reach! (There's actually a ladder in one of the closets to reach the highest cupboards.) There is not a single inch of wasted space in this apartment.

Getting Connected. Christos gets me connected to the internet (Neuf Telecom) and stows my luggage in one of the very high cupboards (using the ladder, natch). I'm all excited because pretty much everything on the Internet is in French (I'm on http://www.google.fr/ not .com). In fact, as I'm doing this blog, all of the buttons (Publier le Message, Sauvegarder Maintenant) are in French. However, the clock on the computer is still set to American time which will be helpful when I'm doing email. Christos also tells me that he has un homme qui vient tous les semaines pour faire le menage and would I be interested in having him (for a "mere" 20 Euros) clean my apartment too? I say yes but I think I will change it to "tous les deux semaines." I'm not that dirty!

Morning Coffee. I go out to have my morning coffee in the cafe en face. I shouldn't have been shocked but a smallish cup of coffee (which isn't really cafe au lait either) costs 3,60 Euros so along with the ,30 I leave, it's almost 4 Euros for a cup of coffee. At the current (very bad) exchange rate, that's pushing $6.00. So maybe I won't be having coffee in a cafe every morning! Have to rethink that plan. Buy more yogurt and have "brunch" of an apple, a fig and (again!) Meusli, yogurt and blueberries.

Getting Organized. I ask Christos where I can buy another "multi-prise" so I can plug both the computer and the desk lamp into the same socket. He directs me to BHV (Bazaar de l'Hotel de Ville), un grand magasin que je connais deja, au Rez de Chaussee. It's less than two blocks from here so I sally forth and find not only the "multi-prise" but also shampoo (French), lotion (Nivea) and body wash for the shower (Le Petit Marseillaise). Of course, later I see the same shampoo and body wash in my local supermarche for less. But I'm feeling completely organized and settled in Paris.

And now off to register at the Alliance Francaise. I'm going to walk there so I put on my pedometer (thank you, Lyn and Tyler) and set off. It's early afternoon now and a typically gray overcast day in Paris (yesterday, there was blue sky with lots of white clouds and some sun). Later the sun peeps through half-heartedly de temps en temps, and there are some brief rain showers.

La Cathedrale de Notre Dame. Past the Hotel de Ville and across the bridge to Notre Dame where I mingle with a large crowd of people entering the cathedral. Inside, I find a seat away from everyone else and pray half of my favorite Anne Lamott prayer: Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. (The other half of the prayer is "Help me, Help me, Help me" which I also use on a regular basis. Those two statements, when lifted up to God, pretty much cover the waterfront.) Thank you for all of the hardships and heartbreak from which I have learned so much and which have ultimately brought me back to the place I love the most. At that moment, looking up at the beautiful stained glass, I would have gladly converted to Catholocism if God had asked. Fortunately, She didn't. I light a candle and make an offering of thanksgiving.

Outside again, I notice une affiche for Domus Domini, a sort of son-et-lumiere projected on a giant screen inside the cathedral, which is given every night except Fridays during September and October at 9 p.m. So that's definitely on the list of things to do.

Adventures on La Rive Gauche. Cross to the Left Bank, buy a mouse-pad in a little tourist shop, step in to see an optician who says he can't do anything to fix the broken frame of my sunglasses (I dropped them at JFK) and continue down Rue Saint Jacques to the back of the church of St Severin. Decide that if giving thanks in one church is good, two is better. It's a sweet little place, completely unprepossessing and virtually empty. I light another candle in the Chapel of Saint Therese. Then I'm approached by what has to be the most well turned out panhandler I've ever seen. A man in a business suit, hair well cut and nicely groomed, starts prattling off in French about having lost his wallet and the Bureau d'Accueil in the church is closed and he has no money to get a taxi or the metro. He even pulls out his Carte d'Identite to show me that he's legitimate. What gives him away is a whiff of alcohol on his breath. I gracefully decline to help (hey, I didn't just fall off the hay wagon); fortunately he doesn't persist and I don't see him again. Later, I wonder if he followed me into the church although I always try to make a point of not looking prosperous. What an out-of-the-way place to have that happen.

Directly across from St Severin is a shop called L'Heure Joyeuse. I stop to investigate and it turns out to be the oldest (est. 1924) children's book store in France! Interestingly, the concept of children's book stores was apparently brought to France by an American organization (don't remember name) after World War I. Fortunately for me (a children's book afficionado), the shop is closed, but I'll be back.

Reach the Boulevard St Germain and the Carrefour de l'Odeon. There's a movie theater (ugcPrompto) showing various films in VO (version originale) with French subtitles. So that's good to know in case I need a fix. They're currently showing Two Days in Paris (the Julie Delpy film), Hairspray and a couple of others.

On the way to St Sulpice, I notice another optical shop, somewhat more upscale than the last one and decide to try again, though without much hope. A lovely Parisian woman wearing a bright pink linen shirt approaches me with a big smile. She looks at my glasses (the frame is broken underneath one of the lenses) and says of course she can fix them with a little glue (la colle specifique). She takes them to the back and reappears a few minutes later, asking if I can leave them long enough for the glue to set and come back later to pick them up (etes-vous dans le quartier?). Since I'll be coming back this way after registering at the Alliance, this is perfect. So I give her my name and the apartment phone number and take one of her business cards. Her name is Isabelle, and I am very happy and relieved that I will be able to wear my sunglasses again. I ask if there is a charge for the repair (Combien je vous doit?); she says no.

Near the optician's shop is an interesting Japanese shop called Muji, in which I find a plastic tray and pencil holder for my desk (total 4 Euros!). I think of going into St Sulpice and making it three for three, but it is covered with scaffolding and blocked off with construction barriers. So I send a quick "thank you" in its direction and continue on to the rue de Rennes where I pick up the Herald Tribune and Pariscope at a kiosk, and then to Blvd Raspail and L'Alliance Francaise!

Alliance Francaise. The entrance to the Alliance looks the same but the rest of it doesn't feel familiar. I think the building has been renovated substantially since 1967. Not surprising. I find the information desk where I am handed a registration form and a test to determine my French proficiency. I take it upstairs to the testing room and look it over. Hmmm, maybe I shouldn't have done this the day after I arrived! Well, soon it's finished, for better or worse, and I join the queue of people waiting for one of the "professeurs" for an oral interview. It's finally my turn (it's actually quite late in the day now, after 5 p.m.) and my interviewer is a nice young woman who is very easy to talk to. She assigns me to level B2 (FYI, levels A1 and A2 are the lowest and there are also levels C1 and C2 so I'm nowhere near the top) and I register for 2 weeks of classes Extensif (which means three hours a day on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday as opposed to Intensif which is five hours a day Monday through Friday and which I've decided would cut into my exploring time too much!). It is worth pointing out here that the last and, I hope, the hardest question on the test had six parts, all asking for verbs to be put in the correct tense and person, and I got every one of them wrong!

My classes are in the afternoon from 1:30 to 4:30 which I chose because (1) it's cheaper and (2) I can have the morning to make cafe au lait, to write and to walk. Back downstairs to the Caisse to pay (in France, paying is almost always a separate transaction in a separate location), 176 Euros for the classes (88 per week as opposed to 98 for the morning classes) plus a 55 Euro "registration" fee (droits annuel d'inscription) which is good for one year. So I'd better get my sorry ass back here in the spring!

On my way to the Alliance, I had passed several great kitchen shops on Blvd Raspail so I stop in one (La Boutique Vogica) on my way back and asked for une cafetiere pression because I have definitely decided to make cafe au lait in my apartment every morning. I find one for 19,90 Euros. I also find some great placemats with city maps of Paris and 3 other cities. Another great kitchen shop (Culinarion) yields a fabulous yellow cup (6 Euros) big enough for even my cafe au lait. I figure at approximately 4 Euros a day for coffee in a cafe, I'll have recouped the cost (even figuring in the cost of coffee, milk and sugar) in short order.

A beautiful flower shop, Monceau Fleur, is on Blvd Raspail so I decide to bring something to Isabelle the optician. I pick out two bunches of bright orange gerbera daisies and, when I tell the shop girl that it's un cadeau, she picks out some greens to go with them and then puts together a lovely bouquet, wraps it in paper and cellophane and ties it with a lovely ribbon. This is one of the things I love most in France, that people take such pride in making everything look nice. As though every small transaction is a special occasion. So now I have what is a nice little "thank you" gift for 7 euros.

Back to Eye Pleasure (the name of the shop) to pick up my sunglasses which are perfectly repaired. Isabelle appears quite touched that I've brought her flowers ("c'est tres gentil ca") although I point out that what she has done for me is also "tres gentil." She loves the color of the gerbera daisies which doesn't surprise me, given the bright pink of her shirt, and says how nice it is to have bright flowers on such a gray day.

Two Days in Paris (the film). I get back to Place de l'Odeon at exactly 6:30 and decide to see Two Days in Paris. The time on the marquee is listed at 6:25 but then it tells you that the film starts 15 minutes later. How cool is that! So I'm in a line (la queue) with a few other women asking for tickets to "Two Days in Paris" saying the words in English with their lovely French accents. When it's my turn, I'm tempted to say "Deux Jours a Paris" in my American accent but chicken out at the last minute and say meekly "Two Days in Paris" s'il vous plait. Une place is 9,50 Euros. Yikes! Of course, I'm expecting this film to be in English with French subtitles (hey, the title's in English, isn't it?) But guess what? At least half of it is in French, and THERE ARE NO SUBTITLES. Gah! Fortunately, I'm able to understand enough of it so that, along with the English sections, I don't think I missed too many of the subtleties (even though a couple of times I could feel myself getting drowsy). However, I'm definitely going to watch it again at home.

A quick stop into another little shop yields two CDs, one of Edith Piaf (La Vie en Rose) and the other Yves Montand (Grandes Chansons) so I will have French music to play on the CD player in the apartment!

As I am passing by Notre Dame, it is 8:45 so I decide to stay for the "son et lumiere" inside. (Note to self: you can slow down; you're here for 10 weeks; you don't have to do everything in one day.) I find a good seat and, about 5 minutes later, a badly amplified voice comes over the system, speaking French of course, and says that in 10 minutes, they will be bringing a program about blah, blah, blah (don't understand this part) and the history of Notre Dame and that "pendant une heure . . ." Well, I'm on my feet and outta there. There is no way I will be able to sit through a one-hour program of poorly amplified French at 9 p.m. IN THE DARK and I haven't even had dinner! OK so that will wait for another day.

Dinner at the cafe en face, Le Verre Luisant: Oeufs mayonaise et salade vegetarianne with tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, grated carrots, radishes, rice and half of a perfectly ripe avocado. Also a glass of Cote du Rhone (no headache the next day) and un carafe d'eau.

Up the 63 stairs (I've counted them!) to apartment. Pedometer reading: 9656 steps (which doesn't count the outing in the morning). A good day was had by all.