Photo: Still Life

This is about as still as I’ve seen life get in Paris in the week I’ve spent here.

I arrived on Sunday and must say that I never noticed before how ill-equipped many metro stations were for anyone but the fully able-bodied. Thankfully, there is no shortage of kind people willing to help drag the luggage up and down the staircases.

Having successfully bothered a couple of tourists with a map in order to find my home for the month and dropped the weights called luggage, the city called for a walk. Hours upon hours of walking and just soaking in the atmosphere, the sights, the sounds.


Photo: Tuileries Garden

What a perfect spot to kick back and read a book. And eventually take a nap.

Daily after-school routine. The Tuilerie Garden is just a block from the school and the weather has been perfect. Sit in one of the chairs set around the fountains and read a book basking in the sun, relaxed by the sound of the water.

A view of the gardens between the Musée du Louvre and Champs-Élysées

After the reading sessions, usually followed by a visit to a museum, I retreat to my current home, a spacious apartment in an impressive building where I rent a room from an 80 y/o lady. Who of course looks more like 68 and loves using her computer to search for information, keep her many social activities organised and to keep in touch with her five children and twenty grandchildren. She studied arts and has kept her interest alive, though she never really worked but did teach catechism. Both of which makes for interesting dinner conversations.

I love the apartment with its sky-high ceilings and tall windows. It certainly is different from what I’m used to. In many cases around here, centuries meet and shake hands. My computer is set on an ancient tiny wooden table with a just slightly less ancient lamp. In the bathroom, an old large radio is mounted on the wall between the water faucet and the mirror cabinet. Looks right, for some reason. The creaking wooden floorboards that announce any visitor long before the knock on the door don’t bother me, but rather remind me of my grandparent’s old house in Vipava Valley. A cosy affair. Oh, and the building does of course have a concierge in the  ground-floor level apartment with an overview of what goes on. So very “The Elegance of the Hedgehog“.

The week has been full. Getting to know my teacher and classmates, taking walks, getting the hang of public transportation, visiting museums and galleries, going to theatre. Ah yes, ok fine, shopping, too.

At the Petit Palais, Reporters sans Frontières feature an exhibition of 100 photos by and Alexandra Boulat. Pure art that makes one take a few deep breaths and ponder over the presented issues.

The newly-opened Monet exhibition at the Grand Palais is breathtakingly beautiful, but watching crowds stand no more than two steps away from the paintings with  audio guides firmly pressed into their cheeks, oblivious to anyone else, makes one wonder what if anything they are taking in with those eyes wide… open?

The show I saw in theatre (Friends in the Closet) is a simple, but nice enough critique of the consumer society and a reflection on the meaning and nature of friendship.

Since the football practice that I’m personally hosting is picking up its pace and the kicks are successfully expanding the playing field, effectively making my belly an arena dome (this is a subtle hint to my two blog readers so you won’t be coming after me later for ‘not having told you’), I’ve switched from running to mainly swimming. Finding a nice swimming pool around here has been a challenge. The one closest to me was so yucky, small and staffed by some obnoxious people, that its only potential upside is the interesting fact that it’s built underneath a hippodrome.

I tried to find another one, but got a bit lost. I kept asking, but nobody seemed to have heard of the recently renovated 50m swimming pool, so I returned home. I did find this, however:

Now I’m sure they teach their students how to stop from drowning in a sense and I would enjoy some of their lectures, but not quite what I was looking for. I also found an enormous supermarket which, just as the 20 other stores I asked at, did not have neither has ever heard of kefir. (If you know where to get kefir in Paris… help!!) And a McDonalds with free WiFi. But no big beautiful swimming pool.

If at first you don’t succeed… prepare better? I did go again and found the thing. The tiny alley was no more than 50 metres from the street at which I kept asking for it. Lesson learnt.

Another beautiful Sunday in Paris awaits. I’m off to the museums and galleries, my book-reading thingy never left at home to gather dust. Meeting up with Hirkani who made it so much easier to wait the two hours for tickets to Monet, as well.

À bientôt


Shopping 😉