day 1

our good friend, marie picked us up at the airport and fit all of us, plus our mass of luggage into her smart little european minivan. it was tight, and maynard and crate would never have fit. marie lives near our old neighborhood. she is near the bastille, in the 11th arrondissement. we were on the other side of the bastille, in the 12th. it always feels familiar to be at her apartment.

we had our requisite nap and then started researching apartments and trying to make appointments. we went to the bank to get some money. luckily, i had not closed my account 12 years ago, when we left for san francisco, and had left some money there too. i did it because i knew how hard it was to open an account if you were not normal and french and i had the idea that i would come back someday. many things in france are very complicated. another thing i learned back then about the french banking system is that it's best to go to your home branch to do anything that would involve a teller. there are plenty of basic things you cannot do unless you go to the actual branch where you opened the account. it’s a weird system where each branch is like an independent duchy that has distant relations with the other branches. plus, always allocate plenty of time. i just went to make a withdrawal (i don't have a bank machine card- need to order one), but there were 2 people in front of me, so i waited 25 minutes. this is normal. when i first came to france, another ex-pat told me, “don’t try to do 3 things in a day. be happy if you accomplish one thing”. that’s the way things work here.

afterwards, we came back to the apt to meet joel and leslie and s, who were wrapping up their paris vacation and were leaving the next day. joel and leslie had been living in paris when we were here last, and when we moved to boston, we got a house that was 5 mins from them. we went to eat at the “cafe de l’industrie”, a hip soho style restaurant that had very reasonably priced meals. (maybe we will be able to eat out once in a while, after all). we were pleased with the food. this particular restaurant was also special, because it is on the same courtyard as the apartment of our friends mary and roy, where we have memories of wonderful parties with the old gang of ex-pats. we sat with a view to their old front door.

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