A day (or two) that will live in infamy...

Where do I even start...

Today we drove to London. In theory, this should have been a 5 hour drive with little or no complications. Instead, it turned into a 10 hour ordeal where just about everything that could go wrong did - including my making an incredibly stupid mistake. The good news is that we are all well and safe and sound in London. We are just all exhausted.

We left Paris a bit late (Dave was kind enough to let me sleep an extra half hour), but had barely got onto the ring road (peripherique) before we got completely stuck in solid traffic because of an accident just after a construction zone. We hardly went anywhere for an hour... during which time poor Samuel was miserably hot and uncomfortable in his car seat and screamed non-stop. By the time we made it onto the main highway north of Paris, Samuel had exhausted himself and gone to sleep. We drove for another hour or so until he woke up and started to scream again, so we had to pull over to cool and calm him down. We then had to fill up the car with gas...... which is where the day really went wrong. In a moment of unbelievable stupidity I filled the tank with petrol... only to discover afterwards the large label saying 'DIESEL' on the inside of the gap flap.

AAAAARGH.

I will not be competing for 'Brain of Britain' anytime soon.

45 minutes later the towing truck showed up to take us to a garage where they drained the tank so we could fill it with diesel and get back on the road. At this point we were already over 4 hours behind schedule and had completely missed our booked crossing on the channel tunnel - and they say they will only honour the booking for 2 hours after your scheduled time. When we finally got to the check in station, I told the lady about our nightmare experiences and she let us on the next available crossing without any problem.

Of course, by this point, Samuel was understandably completely sick and tired of his car seat and making his feelings known quite loudly again. He did enjoy the train crossing - if only because he was able to be free from it and be held by us. After another couple of hours of driving the other side, we made it to London. Phew. We've now all had a good meal, and Samuel has had a bath and is happily fast asleep in his pack & play.

All this on top of the previous day, where we first spent 3 hours at an electronics store spending Samuel's college fund on all the electrical appliances we will need for our apartment (oven, fridge, freezer, TV, washer, dryer, phones, etc.) and then I spent another 4 hours dealing with more wonders of French bureaucracy to get our telephone/TV/internet connection set up and a French mobile phone, while Samuel stayed home in the cool ... but had terrible gas, and so was miserable - which made things tough for Dave.

I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to get anything done in less than two hours in France. A meal? At least 2 hours. A basic communication setup? A good 2 hours. Trying to get a driver's license? Getting on for 2 hours in total, and that was just the first visit. Be prepared to have all kinds of bizarre documentation and an endless fount of patience to hand...

I am sure Dave will add his thoughts later... but for now it is time for bed.

- Julia (a.k.a. 'Diesel'... though 'dim-wit' would work just as well)

The lease is signed!!!!!!!!!!

This is the view toward the intersection of avenue Charles de Gaulle and Madrid. It has a lovely fountain and the main traffic of Charles de gaulle is in a tunnel going under the fountain so the noise is reduced.
This is the view from our terrace(looking right) looking down Madrid toward the bois

de boulogne. Did we mention that we are only 3 blocks from the entrance to the jardin d'acclimatasion(A very nice zoo designed for children). So those of you with kids make your reservations soon.

This is our kitchen. Not very exciting. Julia says it is an Ikea kitchen.
This is our bedroom looking out the window toward Madrid.
This is the terrace off of Samuel's room. We will be researching how to child proof a terrace as soon as we move in. It overlooks a very quiet sidestreet which if taken leads to a very nice pedestrian area with a franprix, a couple of restaurants, dry cleaners and wine shop.

Will post more later. We are preparing to go out for our anniversary dinner.

Our new address is:

6 Avenue de Madrid

Neuilly-sur-seine

92200, France

Technically we do not live in Paris as we are outside the interior peripherique.

Our new apartment is not the first choice in terms of architecture but it is far and away the best choice due to location. As stated previously it is only 3 blocks from the bois de boulogne (equivalent of NYC central park) where I will be able to run and take Samuel on many adventures. Our new place has only 3 bedrooms but they are all quite large by Paris standards and that is one of the reasons we chose the Madrid location as we can work better with 3 large rooms rather than 4 smaller rooms. The guest room will be very nice with a brand new futon(see earlier post) with access to the terrace so that guests can sit and have a glass of wine in the evening.

Okay, I have to admit to a mistake(which I never do). I was adding to the blog earlier and the keyboard fell off my lap and all of my best material was lost. Can I blame it on the cat? So this is my second attempt at telling the story of the day. Maybe Julia's narrative will be more entertaining.

We knew that Neuilly was a haven for ex-pats but until we actually walked around today and noticed that(it seems) half the restaurant cater to the Italian specialties( which is not a bad thing as pizza is very, very good here(as long as you don't order the egg (oeuf) :))

We will be in London from Thursday through Sunday so the blog may be not be updates as frequently(As we all know GB is boring(He says with a smile to all his GB relatives(through marriage)). We will be taking Samuel to met his godmother Poonam and members of the Denman side of the family who he has yet to meet.

As we stepped out of the metro(if I had not mentioned the pont de neuilly metro station is less than a block from the apartment) Julia noticed that we have an English pub around the corner from us. My only hope is that they televise the EPL(english premier league) futball matches on Saturday afternoons. If not I will miss my beloved Chelsea dethrone Man U and keep dastardly Liverpool in their place(again).

It has been a very long day. Samuel has been great s usual. He loves the metro. Falls asleep every time. We hope it is not the noxious fumes that are knocking him out. Tonight was the first night that we left Samuel with a stranger. we had a recommendation from one of Julia's friends who live in Paris as to a babysitter. Everything appeared to go well except that she was 30 minutes late. Very anxious time leaving your child for the first time with someone that you do not know.

Very tired, time to sign off for another day. tune in tomorrow for another thrilling episode of shopping in Paris. If all goes well we will shop at Darty, Orange(cell phone & internet) and Ikea(for small furniture pieces and curtains). Should be fun.

B-Bye for now.

Futon, car(?) & carrefour

We have not heard from our agent all day which we are taking as a good sign that the lease signing will go forward as planned.

On Sunday we took a 30 minute walk to the maison de convertibles where we found a very nice selection of futons and eventually purchased a very nice 160 x 200 cm futon. It has a 14 cm thick mattress. We laid on it and it was as comfortable as a real bed. It will be delivered on August 14th if we sign the lease.

Today we took a cab to Julia;s office where we supposed to pick up her company car. Very nice office in an industrial part of town. Unfortunately the car would not start. We left the car to be serviced at the office and we took a cab to the carrefour(a grocery/home goods store) which was our original plan except we had hoped to drive. We compared prices at carrefour to monoprix and decided that it would be worth 1 trip per month to carrefour to stock up on the bulk items such as fanta zero, loo paper, cereals, etc.. We also had a nice lunch at a pizza place. I think I could learn to like european pizza. Of course, I don't think I will ever order the pizza made with tuna or smoked salmon. Can someone explain how the pizza is made with ouef(egg)? Neither Julia or I can picture how a pizza is made with an egg and we are to chicken(no pun intended) to order one.

Well, after we were done shopping at carrefour we ordered a taxi to take us back to the apartment. After we had been in the taxi for about 5 minutes we received a call that the car was ready to be picked up. There was nothing wrong with the battery, it was the keys. The car Julia has been given is a very nice Peugeot 607. Metallic gray with 4 doors. She is disappointed not to have bun warmers but it does have a remote screen for the rear window for use when Samuel is in the car. So Julia asked the cab to turn around and take us to her office where she got out and picked up the car and I returned to the apartment in the taxi.

Another eventful day in the lives of the charters in Paris. Hope your days are as interesting and fun filled. Keep your fingers crossed that everything goes well at 10AM tomorrow.

We will send an e-mail when we have signed the lease but be sure to check the blog for a story and pictures.

We will be in London from Thursday through Sunday visiting family and godparents who have yet to meet Samuel.

Sunday morning stroll in Paris

Being the wonderful husband that I am(sarcasm on) I took Samuel out for a walk this morning. We had two objectives. To find a newsstand with a daily telegraph and to find a boulangerie to purchase a pain au chocolate and croissant for Julia's breakfast. The first was, quite astonishingly, accomplished easily as the newsstand at the corner carried the Sunday telegraph. Shockingly the price was 5.20 Euros but it is worth the price to have an english language paper to read on Sunday morning. We continued our search for a boulangerie. And we continued......and we continued. Found many boulangeries, all of them closed, either for the day or the month. Eventually after walking around for 35 minutes I spotted a woman carrying a baguette. Using my private detective skills, I retraced her steps and was able to locate an open boulangerie and accomplish our last task of the morning. Julia will have her Parisian breakfast and I will have my sports page.

-Dave