debeo, debere, debui, debitus

[Latin; owe, ought. Aren't you impressed I remember this? I am!]

Basically, I really need to get caught up on the blog fo' real, yo. None of this "I'm vaguely writing something..." poo. We'll start with the new apartment/quartier.

I still can't transfer photos from my camera to my laptop, so you're going to have to settle for a really, really well-written description. (My new favorite website smallblueprinter doesn't let you save. Bummer.) So. My building, 10 rue Saulnier, is darling. You walk in (door code required, obviously), and there's a big beautiful courtyard in front of you, full of plants. They've hidden the trash cans and mailboxes, so it's really pretty. Turn to the left just before you enter the courtyard, and go up escalier B to the first floor - the second, to you American isolationists. I'm the apartment on the left. You walk into the center hallway of my apartment and see a closed door at the end of the hallway. That's my landlady's room; she usually rents my room and another to a student and acts as kind of a host mom, but she's not here this summer so the apartment is all mine and we won't bother with her room. If you go into the first room on the left after entering Chez Elizabeth (sounds way better than "Chez Betsy") you'll be in the kitchen. It's sizable - two can fit in without killing each other with a knife/hot oil/weapon of choice. In the corner is the toilet - in its own little closet, of course. (I still think it's stupid to have the WC and the bathroom in two separate places. Really discourages washing the hands afterwards. Silly, unhygenic French people.) Anyway, the kitchen has everything that makes me happy: a full-sized fridge, a four range gas burner, a small oven (toaster sized, but ça suffit), and, glory of glories, a dishwasher. You can do good things in this kitchen. (In fact, a few nights ago Harry and I made magret de canard in a white wine sauce with peas and roasted potatoes. It was heavenly.) Moving on. The room next to the cuisine - second door on the left - is the salle de bains and, let me tell you, it shows my old apartment's bathroom how these things are to be done. Full tub, sink, washing machine, closet, enough room for two people to not kill each other... you get the idea. Moving on: if you make a right from the front door, you are presented with another little hallway, at the end of which are a charming little writing desk and a mirror. Just off the hallway, again to the right, is my little chambre de coucher. Really, there's not much room for anything but couchering; you can just barely walk between the wall and my bed. There is room for a closet and shelves and a night table, though, and it's all pink and white, so it's lovely. If you pass the hallway once you've gotten into the apartment, the sitting room is the last room on the right. I call it the sitting room because, during the year, it's someone's bedroom, but for me it's livingroom/diningroom/study. It has a sofabed, a closet and shelves, and a table, and it's all done in blue and white. It, too, is lovely. So... that's my apartment. It makes me happy.

My quartier, too, makes me happy. The 9th is much more residential than the 5th - I don't think I've seen one tourist since I moved in. (When K came to visit, his first comment upon turning into my street was, "Welcome to the real Paris!") There are a couple of boucheries and fromageries and wonderful fruitstands as well as the best French traiteur ever on the street parallel to mine, and a couple supermarkets within a five minute walk in case I need to live on more than bread, cheese, magret de canard, and mangoes (which I'm doubting). This is a really Jewish area, too, so there are a bunch of kesher bakeries and boulangeries and restaurants on the street behind mine. Check out the map in a post from a couple weeks ago - you can see six synagogues just in that one square. It's intense. The métro, Cadet, is on line 7, which is kind if a pain and means I have to take a bus or transfer at least once, to get anywhere, but I'm much closer to the metro now than I was at 11 Victor Cousin. So, all, in all, my quality of living has gone from like +3 to +303.

Excellent.

More later. Must refuel. I'm thinking mangoes.