A little bit of Paris but not the Olympics…

The past couple of weeks have soared by yet I feel I have little to show for them. A few gym sessions, a morning tea with a Tassie travel organisation and playing with the dogs.

I also really enjoyed a book I finished this past week.

The book…

I first heard of this author via Intrepid Angeleno’s post of Paris in July.

She discussed a different book by David Lebovitz but I couldn’t find that one. However I did find this book l’appart:  The delights and disasters of making my Paris home.

David Lebovitz was living in San Francisco and decides he is going to begin living in Paris. It is something he has always wanted to do. So he bites the bullet and dives straight in, buying a fixer upper apartment in the 11^th arrondissement.

He takes us with him as he goes through the bureaucracy of actually working with the realtor and all the other bureaucrats he must deal with. What a palaver to actually finish the process. All of this happens between his visits to cafes.

Then he hires the contractor Claude. He decides to treat Claude as his friend makes friends as he thinks it will make things go smoother and faster. Everyone around him says, “Don’t do that. It will backfire. The Frence treat workers much differently. You must be their boss!!! “

However he does not listen, taking the contractor to lunch, making him pastries and ice cream. The more he does for this guy the worse it becomes. Incompetency, lateness, no shows begin happening and only get worse and worse. Every time Claude arrives with het another excuse, David must turn over more checks. I can’t believe how gullible and forgiving he was. These moments are laugh out loud one minute and cringeworthy the next.

The apartment is not hooked up to the water main at the street. As he is living in this apartment block there is a rule that in order to get his water hooked up to his flat there must be a formal city meeting with all the other tenants in the apartment complex and they all must vote on whether they will allow the water main to be connected.

Lebovitz is a chef. He begins baking all kinds of goodies and passing them out to the neighbours, trying to get them all on side. None of them seem very friendly to begin with but it works. The water is finally connected.

I might add the book is filled with wonderful French recipes. Do not read these if hungry. You’ll need a large pantry.

Once the renovations are completed an inspection takes place only to reveal a completely disastrous result.

The flooring is ridiculous. The plumbing deep in the underground of Paris tunnels is creepy.

You really need to read this book to believe how horrific it is. The reader can’t help but shake their head and there is a lot of tut, tut, tutting going on looking at these pages.

I thoroughly enjoyed shopping with David and Claude especially at Ikea. It is a nightmare experience and so unbelievable. The way one gets served is so bad you want to close the book and never think of going to an Ikea. The bureaucracy is just lunatically bizarre if there is such a phrase. I mean really crazy.  I thought America and Australia had bureaucracy but they are really a walk in the park.

Well, I think this gives you the gist of the book. I really enjoyed it.

Check out my other life post of the week if you haven’t already here https://travellinpenguin.com/2024/08/11/spring-is-getting-closer/.

Until next time…