a paris apartment

“Home is where the heart is.”

We have rented a lot of AirBnB apartments and have had mostly excellent experiences. However, my parents and I had one that is worth mentioning. The whole experience was a comedy of errors. It was Ezra’s idea to just copy the thread of emails back-and-forth as is. As a side note, we love France and the French. Any jokes are just that – a joke!

Ez – You are not going to believe the experience I had today with this apartment. My parents and I have been dying over it. I will just list them for you:

1. No internet that appears to work.
2. Random half drunk water bottles all thru the apartment.
3. Baby formula all through the apartment.
4. Nothing is plugged in.
5. The toilet has no light fixture, at all. Nor a window. It is like being in a dark closet.
6. She wrote me and said she forgot to tell me there was no light. The fixture is in the bathroom. The ladder is in the closet. She was going to put it in at 1:30 when she was going to meet me. So I guess BC I didn’t get in at 1:30 we don’t get a light. Or I guess I’m suppose to put it in BC she told where the ladder is?
7 . I got major ‘tude because I wanted to check in before 6:30 pm. Even though the check in was at 6, which is ridiculous anyway.
8. I had to go across town and meet her to get the keys. Worst. Directions. Ever. Took me over an hour and my parents had to wait in a cafe with all their luggage.
9. The (I presume) apt manager questioned us when we came in and didn’t appear to like nor know what was going on.
10. The refrigerator and freezer is full of their food. Including a used toothbrush.
11. The full kitchen is really just a sink and microwave. The two heating plaques are really just one hot plate…. on the floor.
12. The microwave was not plugged in, because there was no plug in where it was. We had to move and set it up.
13. The hot plate was in front of boxes that held the stove – that was not set up.
14. There is a TV, it has no service to it.
15. I shut the bedroom door and got locked in because the door knob fell off. There was tape over the hole. We’re guessing so it doesn’t lock because the door doesn’t work. Regardless the tape didn’t hold and I was locked in the room for quite awhile.
16. I’m sleeping in the bedroom BC my parents don’t feel comfortable. While the description states the whole apt has curtains there are none in the bedroom. The huge window faces a busy street with office buildings.
17. There are curtains in the living room but they only cover the top 3/4 of the window.
18. There are dirty sandals and slippers lying about.
19. There are huge IKEA type boxes all over the apartment and cleaning supplies everywhere.
20. Weird teddybears and other kids toys lying about.
21. She mentioned she was going to skip her lunch break to meet me so I could check in, and that I better write her a good review. I replied that I wrote her 10 days ago to arranged a time and would have canceled if I’d known sooner that this would be a problem. She didn’t apologized, said she had work commitments and was doing me a favor and that I knew she was making herself available at 1:30 for me (our train was late). She was not polite in her responses. I guess that is also when she was going to put a light in the bathroom? Considering she was so strapped with work, this makes sense.

There are a few more gems I’m forgetting but this is what comes to mind at the moment. Needless to say my parents and I have been laughing (mostly) at how ridiculous this in. We will drink wine in Granada together and craft a scathing review. I think she deserves it.

Hope you are having a lovely night in Granada. The internet may be slow but at least you don’t have a dirty toothbrush in your refrigerator.  Xoxo

Love,
Angie

hilarious. only because it’s not me. you should just post a blog entry with the above exactly as is, i was dying. and that’s why i hate the french. 

love you,

ez

A couple more things…

1. I woke this morning to a jackhammer outside my window and hammering in the apt above.
2. The water in the whole apartment stopped working. Mid-shower. Oh, she forgot to tell us the water was being turned off.
3. She wrote back and said the internet should work and also, yes the information about the ladder was for me to put the fixture in. Apparently its easy…

did she tell you how to work the jackhammer as well? maybe you’ll need to use it to get the water working. maybe you’ll need to clean the whole place too before you leave and fix the door. and the shades. you should double-check.

 

ez

mis padres

“Respond to every call that excites your spirit.” – Rumi

We arrived into Granada on a Sunday and already I left on Thursday. But for a good reason, my parents were coming to visit! They’d wanted to see us in London but now there was one little catch – Ezra couldn’t return to the UK unless he wanted to start paying taxes. Because they still wanted to see England they decided to head there first. Ezra stayed in Spain and I met up with them. It was cute to see how excited they were about everything and to hear their stories about what they’d done so far on their own. It was fun to do touristy things and take all the silly quintessential pictures!

We decided to visit Stonehenge and because we are gluttons for punishment we decided to take a tour called “England In A Day.” If that doesn’t tell you something about how tortuously long this day was I don’t know what will. But England we saw.

After Stonehenge and a drive thru the Cottswalds we arrived in Bath. Bath would definitely have been the place I chilled back in the day. I think I was more interested in this than my parents.

 

I took a little swig of water, which tasted very mineral-like. I guess this is what makes it so special:

More driving up to Stratford on Avon where we saw Shakespear’s birthplace and were rewarded with a strawberry cream scone and champagne. This was much needed before a long drive back. I was tempted to ask for seconds.

After a quick ride in the chunnel we were in Paris and had literally about 48-hours to see as much as we could. We had a very interesting apartment experience which I will recap in my next post. We hit the major attractions, drank a bunch of wine and ran around the Louvre like crazy people so we could make our appointment to go up the Eiffel Tower.

View from the top (well halfway up).

 

Treats!

It rained a lot.

  

After Paris the three of us flew over to Spain to reunite with Ez. We were staying in the old part of town, the Albaycin, and wandered around the narrow Moorish crooked streets.

Sierra Nevadas

We spent a day at the Alhambra palace but not before partaking in a nice leisurely lunch and glass or two of wine. We have learned that drinking makes sightseeing significantly more fun.

View from our apartment – not too bad, right?

Lots of great intricate details and carvings.

We drank a bunch of Sangria and have since turned my dad into a wine drinker. As long as the wine is sweet, he will now drink it! Obviously the rest of us never had this problem.

 My parents had a flight south out of Malaga so we took off for a weekend by the coast. We took a boat ride that promised free sangria (would we call punch a drink?), walked thru a park listening to noisy parakeets and watched an uncomfortably close Flamenco show. Then mis padres were off – midwest bound.

The smell of orange blossoms abound.

 

Oh yes, there were more drinks.

 

After my parents left we briefly returned to Granada. We loved where we were staying, but the cell service was non-existant and we weren’t really fond of the rest of town. Ezra had a trying week or two trying to make it work but as soon as my folks left, so did we. After being further south by the water we completely shifted our focus. The “musts” on our list now resolved around the “Med”, the sun and sleepy relaxed towns. This is how our week in Nerja was born. Which gave us a dose of relaxation and a sense of calm after trying to make work, what previously just wasn’t.

We were just in time for Holy week known as Semana Santa. The music, the crowds and the penance processions were all quite moving. It was hard to see past the hoods at first (which bares no relation to the KKK) but it was hard not to be touched by the outpouring of community.

  

 

 

 

 

 

a tale of two cities

“Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.”  – Charles Dickens

We’re back at it again and what a way to start – in Paris. France has long been a place I’ve wanted to visit, or maybe even live, but for one reason or another never made it to. Our first few weeks were an adjustment to a new routine, and we quickly realized that staying in a tiny hotel room was not going to be conducive to the lifestyle we wanted. I spent some days aimlessly wandering, killing time until Ez was finished for the night. Him working from home and taking calls meant I had to be as quiet as a mouse. The housekeepers must have thought we were strange and were confused we didn’t want clean towels and toiletries all the time. How uncivilized we are!  We also used our balcony as a refrigerator…

I was sorting through my feelings of leaving home again so quickly and not working. It’s ingrained in our culture to feel productive at all times. Even my free-spirited disposition is susceptible to it.  So, at first I was a little blah about it all. Coming off our last trip I wasn’t feeling particularly interested in being a tourist. I was looking for some purpose and I also had feelings of guilt that Ezra would be working so much.

While I wrapped my head around what the next five months would look like, I walked around and had this as a spectacular backdrop.

Lots of love locks…

Eating pain au chocalat and browsing the bookstalls.

Not surprisingly, the millions of people who’ve waxed poetically about Paris couldn’t all be wrong, and I soon started to glimpse a layer or two of the spectacular City of Light. I read the book Paris by Edward Rutherfurd and this helped me to gain an appreciation for the historical significance of this beautiful city. From the revolution and aristocracy to the arts and bawdiness there is a lot to know. This was my first visit, but surely will not be my last. I looked forward to returning this spring and seeing the city come to life as winter fades away.

 

Unfortunately the memory that will pervade the most during this visit was the shootings. It was surreal being here during the midst of this all unfolding. Artwork and the phrase “Je suis Charlie” began popping up all over the city. We briefly went to the demonstration. It was moving to watch and brought back some of the feelings we Americans experienced during 9/11. Ones of sadness but also of connectedness as everyone joined together. I cannot help but feel, that while freedom of speech is sacred and must be protected, we must treat our words with more care. While these individual shooters were extremists, I don’t believe just because you can say something that you should. In a world where information is immediate why provoke? I think a level of tolerance and maturity needs to be brought to such sensitive situations. Whatever the solution, I do not know it. In the end the families of the victims suffer, the city’s psyche suffers, as well as muslims who will unfairly experience the consequences.

And then it was London calling and under the channel we go. The plan was one week here for every three away. Ez was allowed 30 days in the UK for every 90, and traveling back-and-forth became tiring for him. So this is how one trip a month came about and our scheme to stay in Europe. I’d been to London once before, so did not feel pressure to be what we call a “super-tourist,” and instead just walked about leisurely.

One day I spent a fair amount of time in the British museum and couldn’t help but appreciate how incredible it was – even if much of its bounty is the result of conquering other lands. I’ve been to Greece and Egypt and racked my brain to remember if I ever saw such incredibly preserved artifacts in the respective countries.  Of course these countries would now like back what the British Empire plundered. The Brits take credit for the preservation which they claim may have otherwise been lost. It is not my battle to fight so I just admired the view.

The Rosetta Stone:
I don’t know much about the Assyrians but there was an incredible exhibit.