Day 2 and dramas with the washing machine

Today was the day of the drama of the washing machine. The person before us in the flat had inadvertently jiggered up the washing machine by overloading it and the question then became who was to do what, and what about our dirty laundry? And while we were concerned about our laundry, the restaurant below us was more concerned about the flooding that was occurring. Was there a connection? A series of phone calls ensued from the Chef de Syndicate (strata title manager) to friends of the owner of the flat and then from them to the owner of the flat and back to another family friend who contacted the restaurant owners and then came to the flat to see what he could see. Meanwhile like a bad television comedy we stood in the corner mumbling our mantra, "I know nothing."

Eventually it turned out that the washing machine self-corrected and there was apparently no leaking. Where this leaves the restaurant, we have no idea but at least we know that we can have clean clothes!

The rest of the day was spent installing ourselves in the flat, doing some basic shopping and trying to figure out how to get internet access. In the end, being just above a restaurant which provides some access to customers, meant that we could "piggy-back" on their system for about 40 minutes a day. Better still, however, we found that a delightful café, just a minute's walk from our flat, Café Francoeur, had internet access. French cafés are intriguing places. You can order a cup of coffee and sit there all day without being disturbed or pushed on. As a result we can now have good internet access for the price of a cup of coffee or a glass of wine.

We went for a walk in the afternoon, wandering down to Place Clichy where we spent some time looking in shop windows and checking out the restaurants. One of our favourites, Leon's de Bruxelles is still there and I am looking forward to their mussels in the next few days.
Because we had a bit more shopping for groceries, we came back and went down to our local market area. There is a rather large greengrocery there. All of the fruit and vegetables are displayed as if they were works of art. They use an automatic spraying system which releases a fine spray periodically to make sure that everything is kept fresh.

Parisians, if not the French generally, seem to have two fascinations; food and drink on the one hand, and on the other the way they look. The children are magnificently dressed, not to mention the adults. Shop after shop has on display beauty products of a range unimaginable in Australia. As for food and drink, the French live up to their reputation. Every street has a charcuterie and there are often two or three boulangerie within a couple of hundred meters. Chickens are being constantly spit-roasted outside of shops and everything is fresh and elegant.



We came home, read and did a few odd jobs and thus ended our first full day in Paris.