Fourth Form of Madness

After much planning and anticipation, my husband and I have finally arrived in Paris. The flight over from Australia was long and boring. On the longest leg, Singapore to Paris, our inhouse entertainment system was broken and all we experienced for the 12 or so hours was a reboot screen that you couldn’t even turn off. I just love the way the French air hostesses handled the situation. Instead of buying into our stress they just smiled very jovially and said “don’t worry we will fix that”. It was so convincing I went the first 2 hours believing it, after which I was over worrying about it and reached for my i-phone that my rather clever and forward planning husband had suggested I download some movies on before we left home. Reading was not an option as our overhead light was not working either, so I settled in to watch much loved classics as “Steel Magnolias”, a new film on an old writer “Enid” and “Entre Nos” a film that filled my heart with admiration for the characters in it and reminded me how resilient and adapting we are and how life asks us to stay present as much through the good times as the bad (a topic I am working on a lot in my life at the moment).

We arrived in Pairs tired but filled with that manufactured energy that comes when you are confronted with the new and exciting and you want to explore. We caught the bus into Arrondissement three and sat in traffic jams oggling the people in the cars going to work. It took some getting use to seeing the driver on the otherside of the car, I hope we are used to it because in a week’s time my husband starts driving us around France. We arrived in the third arrondissement to earlier to go to our rented flat so we enjoyed a coffee in a parisan cafe and my husband got a chance to practise his French. He is doing a great job, so far we have managed to order us coffee, lunch and most importantly pastries. Usually the person serving speaks english and helps out a little which we are very grateful for.

Florence showed us through our flat at 9am. By this time I was swaying with jet lag and my husband was definitely looking worse for wear. The flat is a studio apartment and is only 18 square metres big. It is amazing how much they can do with space though. It has all the modern devices you require for living. A well fitted out kitchen, albeit smaller than my wardrobe back home, a bathroom that is so cute and spotless, and a loft bedroom that you keep having to remembering not to stand up in or you put your head through the ceiling but is nethertheless very charming and cosy. After struggling with the tv settings and discovering that the wireless wasn’t connecting, both of which were later resolved, we were settled in and Florence gave us a very informative and funny tour of the neighbourhood. On her departure, we promptly purchased a half a dozen pastries for the nearest pastisserie, returned to our flat, inhaled the marvellous creations in one gulp and flopped into bed. It was only 11am and we know that you aren’t meant to sleep until it is dark in the place you arrive in but seriously we didn’t have any chose we were so exhausted. I also get land sickness and the world was swaying all over the place so I just needed to sleep. However, it seems the universe had other ideas. No sooner had we drifted off into longed for sleep than our phone rang. Wrong number and they hung up but not before ruining our sleeping chi.

We decided to explore and went out and rambled around the cobbled streets of our district. The day had really warmed up and it was nice to feel the parisian sun on our skin. After a few hours of gawking which I think is more correctly called people watching, we visited the Pompidou, well we made it as far as the ticket line and decided that we were way to tired to enjoy it and to save it to tomorrow. We then returned to the flat, all 18 square metres of it, to devour a ham and cheese bagette and a bottle of red wine. After reading all about what we should be doing, hopefully tomorrow, we retired to bed at 5pm vowing that we would get up at 7pm for dinner. There was a surprise visit from the owner at about 6pm which I still don’t remember clearly what I said to her or her to me. Nothing like having the owner pop in when you are in your pink girly shorty pjs, no makeup and only one brain cell working whilst the flat has unpacking everywhere, an empty bottle of red wine hanging around and remains of strawberries on a plate on the table. Meanwhile she looked like someone from “Paris’s next top Model” show. I returned to bed to get over the trauma of the visit. Once again my husband assured me that the alarm would go off in an hour for dinner. We awoke at 9.30pm – no alarm had gone off. In a sleepy consciousness the decision was made to stay in bed and sleep. Tomorrow is another day in wonderful Paris.