Our New Apartment!

With lots of help from Carole at Mosaic (our relocation experts), and Marine and Cyril from Pretty Simple, we were able to move into our new apartment two days ago! It will be another week before we get Internet, so Melanie and I walked over to the office this afternoon to get connected, take care of some work, and hopefully Skype with family back in the United States.

When Carole took us out to look at apartments last week we initially fell in love with a large (by Parisian standards) and fairly modern flat in the 16th arrondissement. It was very posh and you could see the Eiffel Tower from the dining area window, but it felt like an apartment you would find for sale in America somewhere. Plus, there were no shops or restaurants nearby, and since we are not intending to drive any time soon, this would have meant long walks to get groceries or find nice places to eat.

The apartment in the 16th didn't feel very Parisian, and it wasn't close to many shops or places to eat

Because Pretty Simple is in the 2nd district I would have been taking the Metro into work every day. I like the Paris subway system, but it's extremely crowded and warm/humid during rush hour -- and I can only imagine how much worse it gets in the summer.

Luckily, we found a reasonably priced apartment in the same district as the office! It's in an older building so the floors creak and groan, the bathroom is not much larger than an airplane lavatory, and I think the elevator was built before the Napoleonic wars, but it's sort of rustically elegant, and we think it feels like Paris. We really love that we're surrounded by so many shops and food options here, from quiet French brasseries, to Americanized bistros, to Asian cafes, to Italian restaurants, and more. Best of all, it now takes me just over a minute to get to my office. Amazing!

Our new apartment is on the top floor of this building

Before leaving Seattle we shipped about 7 medium-sized boxes of stuff to Paris and Thursday night Cyril, from Pretty Simple, kindly moved them into the apartment. (We just loaded them onto a dolly and walked them over!)

On Friday I headed off to work and Melanie got everything unpacked and spiffied up by the time I got home. Definitely our easiest move EVER.

Here's a shot I took last night, with some of the lights on:

It's creaky, the bathroom is minuscule, and the elevator feels like a deathtrap, but we love our new apartment!