Intro/Adventures in Parisian Apartments

I'm not an extraterrestrial, but I think I may feel like that occasionally in the years to come.  My name's Ellen.  I'm an American who recently married a Frenchman and moved with him to Paris.  Before this summer, my initials were EM, but on July 20th, I became ET.  

So yes, ET has landed in Paris.  Did I mention ET doesn't speak French?

These are snippets of my new Parisian adventures... they may only be interesting to me, my friends, and family... but hey.  Who knows?  Maybe they'll shed some light on life in Paris for another soul who finds herself here and could use the insight.

First adventure: Moving into a Parisian apartment.  

This may not sound like much, but it's come with some surprises for my American self.  For example, when you lease an apartment here, they sometimes come with unequipped kitchens.  That is, the kitchen came with a sink and a counter.  No cupboards, fridge, oven, or stove.  To a Parisian, this is no surprise.  But to me... what the whaaa?  

By the time I arrived, my husband had acquired a fridge, and we went to Darty the next day to purchase a stove (which arrived yesterday.  Yay!).  The next step was cupboards.  Before we went to Conforama (an Ikea-type place), we measured all our spaces and tried to size up what we need.  But of course... there are things we didn't know, measurements we didn't quite have, and we were unable to procure said cupboards on the first try.  (I like Ikea better than Conforama.  This may not be a fair assessment, and may simply be an emotional pull toward the familiar, but I'm sticking to it!)

One of the few things we DID acquire at Conforama was a cabinet to go over our toilet.  Ah yes... did I mention that apartment bathrooms here are sometimes divided into two separate rooms?  The room with the toilet is called the "Water Closet," and it feels, well.... like a closet.  The sink and shower are in another room.  The cabinet we purchased is an attempt to gain some storage space and make it feel more like a room in there and less like a closet.  But let me get to the amusing part... When my husband asked if he would be able to carry the cabinet home with us (we have to put it together), the sales associate kind of smirked, but said yes.  (At least from what I gather).  Well... turns out it was bigger than we expected.  

This is Paul standing on the "New Bridge," (Don't let the "new" fool you... Wikipedia tells me construction was finished in 1607) with our cabinet.  We carried that 1 km.  Luckily it wasn't rush hour on the metro, and a very nice lady offered to help us get it through the turnstile.  By the time we made it home, the plastic had almost completely ripped and I had snagged the screws/small pieces and put them in my purse.  However, we made it all the way home with the cabinet intact and no missing pieces!  Next stop: construction.

Speaking of construction, it would probably be good if I stopped blogging about settling an apartment in Paris and actually, ya know, continued to unpack.  Details...

Moral of the story:
Beware unequipped kitchens, water closets, and smirking sales associates who tell you it's possible to carry an item home... 

à bientôt