Bienvenue en France!

I'm going to make a valiant effort to keep a blog this semester. Paris offers lots of diversions, however, so we'll see how this goes. The flight over was fine, though it's really astounding how close airlines can put the seats without literally causing the crushing of bones. Every leg-stretching trip required immense contortions getting in and out of my seat. In any event, I arrived in Paris at 6:30am local time and was met by M. d'Hauteville in the bright yellow tie he promised. It was, of course, still dark and we sped nearly alone down the usually teeming grands boulevards.  I am living for the next 4 and a half months in the 9th arrondissement on the right bank: the location could not possibly be any better. I slept all morning until lunch at 1pm, which involved large quantities of baguette and a cheese cart for dessert. M and Mme d'Hauteville are extremely nice and wonderful conversationalists. They are both retired and have four grown sons and eight (soon nine) grandchildren; they have lived here for 40 years. The apartment is on the fifth floor, so that from my room, which faces a quiet inner courtyard, I can keep an eye on the other families in the building going about their business. Presumably they are doing the same. My after-dinner job entails shaking the tablecloth out my bedroom window to dispose of its breadcrumbs (into the cobbled courtyard below). I also enjoy the floor-to-ceiling scarlet of the cabinet (i.e. bathroom) with its gold leaf mirror at perfect viewing level for those seated on the john. The apartment building is quite old and has charming odd angles everywhere - my room is a pentagon!

After a deeply satisfying lunch -- the French have really perfected the art of portion control -- Mme d'Hauteville, her 4-year-old grandson Victor, and I went for a little promenade around the neighborhood. This pleasant stroll brought us past mouth-watering patisseries, Place de la Madeleine, the Ritz, the original Chanel store, through the Jardins des Tuileries with the Arc de Triomphe just visible in the mist down the Champs-Elysees, and onto one of the several bridges that crosses the Seine. From this vantage point we could see all over central Paris, the Louvre and the Christmas ferris wheel to one side, the Musee d'Orsay to the other, and the Eiffel Tower ahead in the distance. None of this is more than a fifteen-minute walk from my new home!