Good times, bad times

This parenting thing is going to be difficult.  Samuel now rolls from his back to his front with ease.  We have been awake for about 1 hour this morning and he has already rolled over twice.  The first time he completely rolled himself off of his activity mat.  Keeping up with this kid is definitely gong to keep me in shape.

Samuel and I had a good day on Tuesday.  We went to the park and fed the ducks. We learned that pigeons and ducks do not like to share.  We were feeding about 30 ducks when a flock of pigeons decided to descend on the walk next to the water.  Immediately 3-4 ducks came out of the water violently flapping their wings to scatter the pigeons.

Our housing situation is nearing a breaking point.  Last week we saw again the apartment that we bid for when we made our house hunting trip in June(The original deal fell through when the leasee was unable to sell his home).  We put in another bid and Julia received a call on Monday asking a few questions and she was told that the owner would make a decision and we would be informed by Tuesday morning.  Well, Tuesday morning passed with no news.  Our confidence is waning that we are going to get this place.  With no evidence, we just have a feeling that the owner does not want to rent to non-french.  We have instructed our agent that if we do not hear by close of business today that I will look at apartments on Friday.

We have reached the point where if nothing comes from the Friday search that we will consider renting a house in the suburbs,  It would not be ideal but we would have a place to call home.  Living with rented furniture is a pain in the a**.

It is difficult to grasp that it has only been 7 weeks since we left Cincinnati, it seems like an eternity.  I had the flu over the weekend and Julia has it now, so she will be staying home from work today.  We are both control freaks and neither of us feel as if we are currently in control of our lives.

As Roseanne Rosanna Danna(An American TV character) used to say, "Never mind."  As I was writing this Julia was in the bedroom speaking to our agent.   

 WE HAVE THE APARTMENT.

We just saw this apartment again last week and while there are a few issues they are minor and can easily be addressed by the owners or us, if necessary.

For those of you that are curious our new address is 109 Avenue Charles de Gaulle, Neuilly-sur-Seine, 92200.

It is a very nice apartment. It is on the top floor(5th) with 5 bedrooms though they tend to be on the small side.  We will have a dedicated guest room.  It is a much nicer apartment architecturally with elaborate molding on the ceilings and around the light fixtures.  It also has an Ikea kitchen but it is only 2 years old.  The apartment size is 163 M2 which is smaller than the Madrid apartment.  Never thought I would say this but smaller seems better in this case.  de Gaulle is much more intimate and homier than Madrid.

There is no problem with noise, unless we open the windows that open onto de Gaulle.  There is some ambient background noise but if you live in the city that is acceptable.  Luckily, the kitchen will hold the equipment that we purchased for Madrid.  We will not have quite as much storage space in the apartment but we will have a larger than standard cave(cellar).

We are still living near a metro stop. The le Sablons stop is no more than 50 meters from our front door.  The bois de bologne is actually closer, though the walk is not as nice.  We are closer to the area of the bois that has a very nice children's play area.  We are also closer to the Neuilly pool where Samuel will be taking baby swim lessons beginning in January.

The water went out in our apartment this morning. I had to go to Franprix and purchase bottled water so that I could make my flu ridden wife chicken soup.  One wonderful thing about living in Neuilly.  To make chicken soup we walk around the corner to a butcher and purchase a rotisserie chicken(11 euros) cut the legs and wings and put into a soup.  We then have the remainder of the chicken for another soup, casserole or whatever our imaginations can come up with.