WEEKENDS IN PARIS.........Not exactly The Ritz....

Welcome back to our last "Weekend in Paris".....we hope you have enjoyed our little tour of the beautiful sites of Paris......and now finally the not so beautiful sites.....Yes, we have finally reached the end of the trip and I thought before we head back to Georgia we would show you our luxurious accommodations........ Here is the street where we lived for the summer.....

The Rue de la Clef.....

Hey, that would be the name of daughter's blog!!

In the 5th. Arronsdisment it was in a lovely part of town with great shopping and the subway stop was right across the street....We were so excited the day we got there and with the daughter's expert map reading abilities.....did I tell you she can read a foreign map upside down and get you where you gotta go.....I find this to be an enormous talent...

we found our little one lane quaint Paris rue.......

I wish we could say the same about the building we were about to enter....

three flights up.....can you see how old these stairs are......Try carrying way to much luggage up those winding steps....I almost had a coronary on day one........

daughter on the other hand is small but strong as a bull....

Ofcourse....she even looked a little stunned when we reached our home away from home.....
I wish we had more pictures to show you.....I don't know why we didn't take more of the apartment.....and I use the term loosely......after all we did take 42 rolls of film....
I will try to take you on a verbal tour....
After you caught your breath at the top of the 3rd. landing you opened a very old door..... as you walked through the door to your right was a toilet in what appeared to be a closet....just a toilet...no sink or tub...
two more feet and you were standing in the kitchen.....
This is why the French are so thin.....If all French kitchens are this size you couldn't possibly weigh over 110 pounds.....

and what a kitchen it was.....first thing I noticed.....no oven....see that toaster oven on the cluttered counter.....I learned to cook a mean roasted chicken in that baby....

One more croissant and daughter would have needed Vaseline to extract me from between the counters.....But I made the most of things.....We ate all our dinners at home the entire time we were there....we would grab a bite out during the day time but I cooked every night....

walking straight ahead past the kitchen you walked into a small long room....Window to your left......futon along the long wall....closet across from futon....t.v. and a narrow table next to closet....Closet smelled of moth balls....to the right side of the futon was a door leading into the rest of the bathroom.....

a strange room....there was a hot water tank...a bidet...a weird tub...no shower curtain...and a sink...after a week or so demolition began on the apartment up above and every morning at 7:00 the jack hammering would begin.....one morning while getting into the tub I noticed a huge hole in the ceiling above my head.....Yes, the two Portuguese workmen had broken a hole in our ceiling exposing the bathroom to the world...They were two lovely men and they became our friends as the weeks went by....

The student that sub-let us the apartment claimed he had no knowledge that a total re-model of the above apartment would be taking place.......Oh, sure.

Now...every single street in Paris is scenic....window boxes with colorful geraniums.....lace curtains blowing in the open windows.....little patio's to sit out on....even tiny ones....what I'm basically saying is if you look out any window in the city of Paris you will see a pretty view.....

Except this window.....
Yes...this was my view of the City of Lights.....

scary......yes?

I put that plant there so I would have *something* green to look at....it was horrible considering what was all around us...

I usually would stay at home in the mornings while daughter was in class and when she would get home about 1:00 we would go out for the day.....

So all morning I would watch French game shows....that ofcourse I didn't understand....

and look out this window....

One day this is what I saw........

Some sort of French tour group peering inside these huge wood double doors that led into some sort of courtyard.....Something good must have been inside because the tour lady with the thumb...spoke for some time before spotting me above looking down at them.....

She saw me watching and asked me something in French to which I just replied....

"I have no idea what your saying".....

With disgust she just walked away taking her ladies group in tow....

we never found out was lurking behind those doors.....

Here I am saying.....

"What kind of crappy street is this?"

Where's the scenery....the French ambience?

did we have to pay extra for that?

They did keep the place clean....I have to say that much.....twice daily these green trucks would come around and hose down the streets......No "pick up after your dog" laws so I guess this has to be done... The daily food markets also leave a mess in their wake when they close down around noon and that gets hosed as well......It depends what time of day you are out and about....

You either think the French are slobs or you think they are extremely clean....

As I said in a previous post.....my name was plastered all over Paris....

this has nothing to do with the apartment I just had some left over pictures.....

I even had a whole bus line named after me.....

Well that's it.....our trip is over....We hope you enjoyed all our weeks showing you all over the city....it was a wonderful time and I would do it again in a minute....

Maybe when Miss Sophie goes to college she'll drag grandma-lady along on her summer abroad....

and see that final picture above.....

You know it must say...

Yankee go home...