We currently have a leak; the drainage pipe that descends from the upstairs neighbor’s shower (our best guess, anyway) is currently dripping water into a large bucket that we hurriedly purchased a couple of hours ago. After calls to our rental agency and then the insurance company’s help line, the only thing we’ve been told …
What were, to this point, true chip-and-PIN (PIN-priority EMV-equipped) credit cards were replaced yesterday with the farcical, ridiculous, chip-and-signature style cards that are apparently going to be the interim card standard in the States. Thus while Europe has been on chip-and-PIN for the past 15 years and is working on phasing out swiping (and only …
We’ve been granted some respite from the heat; after a week spent oscillating between the mid-nineties and the low triple-digits, today was both wet and overcast enough that the temperature only managed to creep into the low 80s. As my fingers seem to have lost that sweaty adhesion to the keyboard, I’ve been working on …
Yesterday felt like a sort of karmic retribution, albeit for some unknown transgression; having started off with forgetting my phone (and though I wound up retrieving it, I subsequently forgot its slipcase), it progressed through needlessly standing in line at the Centre de réception des étrangeres for an hour as I waited to retrieve my …
I think I’m melting. While this is, without question, a marked improvement from the previous two weeks of I-think-I’m-dying (oh immunosuppressants, you (unfortunately literally tried to) kill me), I must confess that I find it alarming that it was 32 degrees yesterday (approximately 90F), and we’re all of a week into the month of June. …
After more than a year in Paris (though our official expatriation anniversary is coming up on Tuesday), I have a certificate that says that I know fuck-all about the French language. (EU language competency levels are located here, for those not in the know) I’d have a celebratory beer (or even better, champagne), but I …
From last week’s small protest in La Défense. It’s a bit weird to have to snake through protestors, gendarmes in full riot kit, and then mall security when all I’m interested in is acquiring a sandwich.
A recent survey asked 600 women in France if they had ever been sexually harassed on the Metro. 100% of them answered yes. 100%. I had talked about it with Geep last week or so, and said that I had never really had a problem in Paris. I am not the ideal parisian shape, I’m …
The Purrito and I are heading off to the Alliance française to begin phase 2 of our formal French education. While we’re still irritated at the system glitches that prevented us from being in the same course, I think that we’re both hoping that attending the evening classes at the same building, at the same …
These are from Friday evening’s wandering that featured a cramique, my camera, and a part of the 7e that we’ve never really walked through.
Fezzik In Paris 