Experiencing My First French Apartment

Getting it was hard enough, now comes the "fun" and expensive part..

I love the name of my new street. Intriguing!

To add to my “interesting“ French experiences, I have moved into my first French apartment. That sounds like an accomplishment, albeit not an enormous one, but then you would be mistaken if you thought that. Finding an apartment in France is, to be blunt, a hellish experience. I was made to feel like a hobo, woman of no means, and certainly a woman of no class whatsoever.

As it turns out, to get an apartment in France, landlords and realtors really like for you to have French income. Strike one. Additionally, that French income needs to be three times of the rent that you are considering. To be generous, they will count a US pension, but unfortunately, my Social Security payments aren’t three times what my rent was to be. Strike two. So I was a pariah, a woman nobody wanted. It was extremely depressing and beginning to have an effect on my overall demeanor and good mood. Enter my French angel to the rescue. When I told my friend in Paris, Guiliane, what a predicament I was in, she said “That will never do! We need to do something!”. HOME RUN!! She called a friend in Tours, where I live now, who didn’t have an apartment but had a friend that she thought might. She called her friend - no apartment, but she had a friend named Florence and she maybe had something. It was basically a Round Robin of helpers. As it turned out, Florence‘s mother had an apartment to rent, and the tenant was just moving out. I eagerly accepted her appointment to view the apartment and was thrilled that it was in probably the most perfect location ever. So now I am happily ensconced in a petite one bedroom apartment, just half a block away from the main thoroughfare, full of the best shops and trendy restaurants. Sweet, sweet relief and a testimony of the power of friendships. I think I still have all of these ladies over for apéro one afternoon to express my gratitude and let them all get to know one another.

Now, I fancy myself to be an interior decorator, totally untrained, but full of inherent taste and discernment. Ha ha ha ha ha. I do love to decorate, and actually have gotten some positive feedback through the years in that regard, but this is a whole new ball game. First of all, my eyes are bigger than the measuring tape, and I bought a beautiful piece to put my TV on and it was delivered yesterday. Oops! It takes up a lot more of my precious square footage than I expected. Now I’m rethinking everything. In France, closets aren’t part of the building process so you have to buy them. Everyone flocks to IKEA, so I followed the thundering herd and picked out a closet system for my bedroom. The other thing there that I bought was a liquor cabinet. I definitely have my priorities in order— clothes storage and liquor storage. Actually, it isn’t the storage of the liquor, it is the quick access that nudged me into the purchase. But, my dwindling funds still need to provide things such as a couch, a television, a coffee pot, a dining table, a coffee table, an occasional chair, silverware, glassware, pots, and pans, and so on. You get the picture— it’s a massive list. To make this project more impossible is the fact that the dollar is sinking faster than the Titanic, making every purchase cost me about 20% more. Thank heavens I’m not trying to buy a house. I will not make a political comment here about the person or persons responsible for this inequity between the euro and the dollar, but believe me, I have some very strong opinions on the subject.

The piece that is a bit over the top sizewise

One reason I moved from Mexico was that the heat had gotten pretty unbearable there for about three months of the year. After that, it’s perfect. However, France is experiencing one of the worst summers in history as far as heat is concerned. It may well reach 100 tomorrow. Oh, and should I mention that nobody has air conditioning? So the French do this thing with their shutters. You close them all day so no air comes inside whatsoever, and you open them at night and in the early morning to let the cool air in. So basically you capture that cool air all day. In this heat, it ain’t so cool by the late afternoon. Pardon the use of ain’t, but this heat reminds me of living in the south where some of the folk like to use that word. Added to that is the fact that with the shutters closed light doesn’t enter your dwelling either. Basically, you sit in one place with the fan pointed straight on you, drink cold beverages, which for me excludes alcohol because it makes me feel funny in the heat, and try amuse yourself. Personally, it’s endless time on amazon.com or other websites that can deliver the items I think that I need to live comfortably in my new apartment. I hate to add to Mr. Bezos income, but it’s entirely too hot for me to go from store to store procuring. Last night, I realized that my heart felt funny and knew I must be dehydrated. I swallowed as much water as I could, and everything went back to normal. Lesson learned.

I’ll add a “before” picture or two and hopefully within the next month and a half I can add the “after” pictures. I love the process of decorating, so it’s something fun for me to do while it’s too sweltering outside to do anything like walking through a park. And I’ll continue perusing websites ad nauseam. Oh! Wait, the high temp is in the 70s on Friday! Out I go, into the beautiful town of Tours searching, searching, searching for just the right accoutrements!