Flowers on the balcony

15-9-2010
Originally uploaded by cspatrick

Wednesday, September 15, 2010 Day 77
After our half-hour stair workout this morning, we walked down to the Office de Tourisme to get a bicycle map, then on to the grocery store because Roger wanted some ham for his lunch. We ended up buying a planter box there – one with a saucer in the bottom of it. It was a bit cheaper than the one we bought last night, and larger as well. I am not surprised that the guy near us has to charge a premium. Today was apartment-cleaning and laundry day. Indeed, I wrote part of this from the laverie where we go to dry our sheets and towels.

We have a problem with our electricity. We first noticed it a week or so ago, when the power went out for no apparent reason. We flipped the circuit breaker, turning it back on, and went about our business. It happened a couple of other times, but we didn’t think much about it – we just reset the circuit breaker again. Yesterday, however, we began to have continual problems. The circuit breaker must have tripped at least eight times. We reduced our electricity consumption by turning off lights and unplugging our computers, but it continued. We are unable to pinpoint the issue – probably a short in something, but we cannot determine what it would be. At one point the only thing in the entire apartment which was drawing electricity was the refrigerator, and I sure hope it isn’t that! Even though it would be up to our landlord to replace it, I don’t want to have to deal with the whole issue. Today was much better. We ran the fan, charged our phone, ran the computers off of power, charged the toothbrush, washed two loads of clothes, and only had the circuit breaker trip twice. We wrote the landlord about the problem, and he told us who to call, but we don’t really want to have someone in to check it out until we can source the problem. Otherwise we are likely to have a repairman thinking we have lost our minds because we can’t duplicate the problem with him.

One of my followers asked what a carte de sejour is. When U.S. citizens come to visit France (or any other EU country, I think) all they need is a passport. They are entitled to stay for three months with no other paperwork. However, if they intend to stay beyond three months, they are supposed to apply for a visa and a carte de sejour (long stay card). The visa is issued in the U.S., then the carte de sejour is issued by the local immigration office after the visitor arrives. The visitor is supposed to apply for it within three months of his/her arrival in France, and the application is made in the city where the visitor lives. It is the card which makes us legal in France. If we intended to stay in France for our entire year, or in France along with other EU countries, we could probably get by without it. However, we intend to depart from France in January, and return later that month, so we probably need to be completely legal.

In the photo, note the geraniums on the top floor. They are ours. We have those two windows in our living area, which look out over Boulevard du Jeu de Paume. Noisy street, but the windows are double-paned and really block out most of the noise. Our bedroom is in back so we don't hear much street noise there.