France - Getting There, Part 3

As I said last time, we did make it to our apartment in the end. Here is a tour of our cozy little nest lovingly nicknamed The Shoebox:

Using the 12” floor tiles as a guide, the main living area is roughly 9'6” by 10'6”. There is a decently sized closet. The hallway is 8'6” by 3' with a small kitchen area and a door to a washroom of decent size.

Tangent: This is not the first time I encounter this. What magic do these people possess that they can shower without shower curtains? What's the trick?? I don't get it!!!

Shower? Oui!
Shower Curtain/Door? Euh, quoi?

Anyway, the room is a perfectly nice, workable size for one or two adults, which we are except that we also have a toddler and a baby with us. Necessity is the mother of invention and since no other option was really going to work, check out our sleeping arrangement: set up to sleep across them. This provides us with a bed roughly the length of a double and the width of a king. After the first night, we lashed the two mattresses together with the bungee cords since my rear kept sinking between the two mats. It's a glamorous life, y'all.

We have unpacked only the few hot-weather things we brought since there is a bit difference between an average temp of 22C and variable and an average temp of 28C and sunny. The suitcases are on the floor under the bedframes.

The window doesn't have a screen. We've kept it open quite a bit to let the air flow and haven't had any flying-bug issues yet. (Real time edit: We had a bee/hornet thing in the bathroom two days ago. That's all so far.) There's an oscillating fan to help keep us cool. One of the balconies across the street has palm trees on it. The sidewalk below is cobblestoned. There are lots of trees.

All in all, I call it many things, such as: an appreciation for the house I have back home; a motivation to not procrastinate on apartment hunting; a crash course in keeping a place cleaner than I usually would; a motivation to get out and about each day; a de-conditioning from North American concepts of what is small and what is spacious. After this month, I suspect that 5 or 600 sq ft for a family of 4 will indeed feel quite sufficiently spacious!