Letter From Paris: Stopping for Gas

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In case you didn't know, though I've blabbed it on every Social Media site possible, as well as this website, husband Jim and I have been looking for a new apartment in Paris.  A wonderful one, of course, and we snagged one.

So yesterday we rented a car to go to Ikea where we have been compelled to find, imagine, and create a closet unit for our new bedroom.  For those who don't know, many apartments in Paris are bare rooms with no closets because the buildings are so old.  And once upon a time people used their rooms for many functions--not like us 21st Century Americans with a room for anything we can think up.  Space is tight in Paris.  Unless a room has been renovated with built-ins, one has to buy closets.

There is nothing to say but:  I like clothes...and shoes and boots...and bags of all kinds...and hats, gloves, lingerie, and scarves.  I would like to have a dressing room as big as my current Blue Salon.  Hmm, what else?  I love to wear costumes to any occasion.  I feel myself in my personal style.  I express myself with it.  I strut my tail feathers with me in my collection of eclectic fashions, many vintage, that take up a truckload of room. 

We had made a mad dash to Ikea on Saturday via the RER and were in a crush of last minute back-to-schoolers of all sizes and ages.  It was horrible!  We couldn't figure out the closet in English or French.  Couldn't get a taxi to take us back to the train station and, once we were there, were in another crush of vendors and attendees of the Maison d'Objet returning to gay Paree.  So yesterday, we decided to rent a car to get to the Ikea so we could again be beaten down with the entire Ikea experience.  Once we found our way through Parisian suburbia to the frickin store, we lucked into an employee who actually wanted to help, and she explained the closet labyrinth, repeatedly and in detail so we could get it in our heads.  We bought one. Over.  Done.  Back to current chez nous.  Out to new chez nous with tons of books.

Before we returned the Ford Fiesta that served us well, we had to have gas. But where?

 

Jim looked up, and it was right in a Parisian street.  All we had to do was pull over and fill 'er up.

                                                                      ---Beth Arnold in Paris

Unless otherwise noted, all photos taken by Beth Arnold on her iPhone.

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