We’ve spent a couple of days settling into JP and Elli’s studio and waiting for our art supplies to arrive from Dublin. One of us needed to be around all the time to greet the delivery, so we didn’t do any sightseeing and couldn’t do much art work. Thanks to my VA colleagues who bought me the Kindle for retirement!

Yesterday the art suitcases arrived and we have begun to set up our studio in the kitchen. We each have about one square yard of floor space. The table will be used for anything that can’t sit on the easel. Today it is to rain all day, so we are going to paint. Perhaps I’ll have something to post later. There is no shortage of subject matter.

One daily routine is a trip to shop for that day’s food…the boulangerie for for bread, the boucherie for meat (if we want it), and one of the markets for other items. I also found a little Moroccan housewares store that is crammed with anything you might need. We are settling into a Paris apartment life. The apartment is in Arrondissement 11 for those who know Paris. The neighborhood once was blue collar working class, but is rapidly becoming gentrified due to the lower cost of housing than in other Paris neighborhoods. Seattlites could compare what is happening here to what happened in their Central District. 

The constant noise of the city is interesting. We are in a large apartment complex, surrounded by others. Our windows face other apartments with a small courtyard down the middle. That makes for a wonderful echo chamber. A babble of French coming from apartments above, below, and next to us, sirens, horns, jack hammers, and the ever present church bells each quarter hour. Monday night we “shared” in a birthday party across the way as they sang Happy Birthday, first in French and then in English. I have reverted to ear plugs at night so I can sleep.

Au revoir!