Paris Apartment

Photo by Oh Paris

Things are slowly coming together, with emphasis on the word slowly. We moved into our new apartment last Friday and while the move went very smoothly — thanks to Leïla's supreme organization ability — there's still a huge amount of work to do.

In both London and Amsterdam we lived in furnished apartments. These are very common and not much more expensive. It's apparently much less common here in France and we'd have to pay an extortionate amount for one. So now we have to furnish the place ourselves, but this is not what most Americans would think we mean by this.

I still remember the first time I moved into an apartment in the US and it didn't have lights. I had to supply them myself. Here we don't have a kitchen. No sink. No dishwasher. No stove. No counters. No cupboards. Nothing. Just pipes sticking out of the wall.

This is not terribly unusual here (and I understand it's common in Germany, too), so not only did we have to buy furnishings for the entire house, we had to buy a kitchen, too. It arrived last night and should hopefully be installed today.

And when we move out? Apparently we can take the kitchen with us. This is ... strange.