Settling In

The first meal after an eight hour time change is always eclectic.

Upon arrival into Paris, James and I first met the landlord, Falih, at my apartment. With no traffic from Charles de Gaulle we were 10 minutes early. As we stood on the street, luggage galore in tow, we both began to take in our surroundings. We sensed immediately that there was something ‘foreign’ to this land. James turned to me and said, “Are you going to be ok here? Are you ready for this? Can you do this?”

“I think so…I mean yes! Yes, I can do this. I am ready,” I replied.

Then I stopped to think, “Paris is here. The day that I thought about for so long was upon me.” And so we jumped right into life here.

Once we finished the neighborhood tour and some coffee with Falih, we did our own walking tour of the land.

Our first stop was at my bank to handle some business. Nervous as hell about speaking French, I put my head down and barreled my way up to the receptionist. As I proceeded to ask if Mme Bidi was available and if I could pick up my check book in French I began to calm. I was calm until the receptionist responded to me.

“They are talking back to me, why?” I thought to myself. I had been so worked up on what I would say, that I forgot about what they would say. So after a mumbled moment of mine explaining that my French is not that good – we determined that I should come back on Monday for my check book.

Heart racing, we left the bank and started our ‘dry-run’ to Le Cordon Bleu from my apartment. The 1.5 km was slick. Passing many shops, cafes, hotels, and venues that all need to be explored. James and I were secretly hoping that the school would be open and that I would be able to retrieve my schedule. We weren’t so lucky. We gasped at the epic-ness of what is yet to come for me at LCB, smiled at each other, and started the walk home.

By this point we were ready for some food. We trialed an organic grocery store, Bio. Once we navigated our way into the store we picked up some items for dinner; camembert, pizza with chèvre, potatoes for James’ mashed potatoes, a small baguette, some fruit for the morning, and salami.

Not quite sure what dinner was going to be, I began boiling the potatoes for James. The only means of getting the potatoes mashed was a fork – and that wasn’t going to happen. So once the cooked, cubed potatoes were finished I sprinkled them with some salt, dashed them with a bit of vinegar and slapped a nice wedge of camembert on top.

Eclectic is was. Delicious as hell!