Mrs. Turnbull's Neighborhood (not quite as good as Mister Rogers'...)

We have been living in Paris for three weeks now! Although with the trip to Belgium, last weekend in Scotland for Grandma Turnbull's 90^th birthday, and next weekend's return trip to Scotland for a wedding, it doesn't exactly feel like we're firmly situated in Paris yet. Nonetheless, it's high time we shared with you about our appartement and our neighborhood so you can see where we live.


A little history

The view from our bedroom

In July, after extensive and disappointing online searches for apartments in Paris, we were contacted by Rory's supervisor at École Normale Supérieure (ENS) where he is now employed as a post-doctoral researcher. She mentioned that a friend of hers would be moving to China for ten months and was looking to sublet her apartment. And she could speak English. Hallelujah! We wouldn't have to deal with landlords we didn't understand and complicated rental laws and documents, and a mad scramble to find an apartment once we arrived. This was such a relief, since the prospect of finding a place to live was very daunting and stressful.

Our spiral staircase. Only 6 floors to go...

We saw photos of the 36 m² one-bedroom apartment and thought that it looked nicely decorated, well-maintained, and extremely colorful, if rather small. The walls were painted very bright colors—nearly every wall a different hue. The propriétaire assured us that the small kitchen appliance which looked an awful lot like a microwave/toaster oven was indeed a real oven (having an oven was a condition of any place we looked at, given my need to bake). The owner was also willing to give us a deal on rent, so it would only cost 1,100 euros a month! This was over our budget and at the time seemed ludicrously expensive. Keep in mind that in Columbus we had a three bedroom, two story house with an attic, a basement, and front and back yards for less than $1000. Oh, and did I mention this apartment is on the 5^th floor (6^th floor in American terms)? No elevator, of course.


Still, the assurance of having a decent place to live and a friendly landlord we could communicate easily with seemed worth the expense...


Back to the present

Lime green walls? Really?

Happily, it has been worth it! We are adjusting to living in smaller quarters and our legs are getting stronger from all the stairs. The apartment is certainly sufficient and I have even baked muffins in the “oven”. Our neighborhood is great! Transportation is easy: our building is right next to a metro (subway) station, and there is a Vélib' station across the street (Vélib' is a city-wide bike-share program with thousands of bicycles available to use for cheap). And we are within a short walk of almost everything we could possibly need: cafes, restaurants, grocery stores (even several health food stores), department stores, post offices, Office Depot, African and Asian markets, banks, libraries, parks, and so much more.


On a side note, there's a cool website at www.walkscore.com where you can find a measurement of how walkable your neighborhood is. Basically, how easy it is to live there without a car. Our house in Columbus had a walk score of 81/100, which is very good. My parents' house in Oregon has a dismal score of 1. Guess what our score is now? That's right, it's 99.

It says "Le Foll [Stéphane Le Foll, the French Minister of Agriculture] should come work on the farm to see if the difference in salaries is justified."

One interesting feature of our neighborhood is that we live very close to the Place de la Nation (“widely known for having the most active guillotines during the French Revolution”). Apparently, this place (plaza or “square”--though it's a circle) is where a lot of protests happen. I found this out last week when I awoke to the sound of a thousand tractors honking their horns and people shouting on a loudspeaker. French farmers had driven their tractors all the way to Paris to protest low agricultural prices, since many farmers are now nearly bankrupt. The noise and the tractors parading down the street lasted for about seven hours. I guess that's the price to pay for my new-found liberté, égalité, fraternité!

The view from our dining room/kitchen/living room