Goodbye Paris, hello Montpellier

Wednesday, September 1, 2010 Day 63

Roger made a reservation yesterday for a taxi to take us to Gare de Lyon – we had too much luggage to manage the trip on the subway. He specifically requested a large taxi, explaining that there will be two passengers and eight pieces of luggage. At a few minutes before the appointed hour of 9:00, we received a call from the taxi company saying that there as a problem with the taxi, and that he would call us back. We tucked the final things into our luggage and Roger took the bags downstairs, while I hung out the window looking for the taxi to come. At 9:15, Roger turned off the gas and electricity, we made sure the refrigerator was open, I closed the shutter and we went downstairs to await the taxi. I called the taxi service, who told me that the taxi was on its way and would be at our apartment in 4 minutes. Six minutes later I called him again, and he insisted that it was only 2-3 minutes away. Of course, our anxiety levels were rising during this wait, but the taxi dispatcher assured me that we would make our 10:20 train in plenty of time. Finally a huge box-shaped vehicle pulled up and we loaded up. On the way he explained that we had asked for too large a taxi – that there are three sizes of taxi in Paris, small, “bric,” and grand, which is what we got. And because he had to come from outer Slobovia, there was already a charge of 25€ on the meter. Sigh. We knew there would be a charge from the time the taxi left to pick us up, but we didn’t expect this much. But it was because they sent such a large taxi, and there are few of them available.

When we got to the station, the driver emerged and opened the back to begin unloading the luggage. Almost immediately a guy showed up with a cart, and began placing the luggage on it. Brilliant! This was going to be a lifesaver, whatever the cost, as we were going to have serious trouble getting all our luggage to the train, particularly since we were now running well behind the time we had wanted to arrive at the station – indeed, it was a couple of minutes short of 10:00 when we pulled up at the station. Roger paid the taxi driver and began to pull one of the two bags which hadn’t fit on the cart. I had the other one. As we approached the station, another guy, this one in a black sweater with an orange armband reading “Security” on it approached and insisted on taking over the cart. The other guy protested, and continued to walk alongside Mr. Security, protesting some more, but the latter said something to him and refused to relinquish the cart. I fished a couple of Euros out of my purse and gave them to the first guy, who I think got rather cheated in the deal, but . . . c’est la vie! Mr. Security pushed the cart all the way around to the train, offloaded the luggage onto the floor of the entry to the train, and left. Roger offered him a tip (it was worth every bit of ten Euros for the assistance) but he waved it off!!

Once we got our luggage onboard, the trip to Montpellier was uneventful. There was ample room for our luggage on the train, and we settled in for the two-and-one-half hour ride south. Montpellier was the end of the line for this particular train, so we knew we would have sufficient time to get our luggage unloaded. When we arrived, we were delighted to discover that the Montpellier gare has modern conveniences galore – both escalators and elevators! We located the taxi area and I moved the luggage closer to the taxi exit while Roger went to find some sandwiches and drinks. I had my first cola drink since arriving in France. That’s a record and then some! After eating, we started carting our luggage outside. I approached the only taxi in line, but it was empty. A moment later a gentleman approached me from the bar attached to the station and asked me if I needed a taxi. When I told him where I needed to go, he suggested that I just walk, as it is on only a 5-minute walk. I indicated that I knew that, but that we have eight pieces of luggage. He turned and looked at where Roger was bringing out the last of the suitcases and his eyes sort of popped! He opened the hatchback and eyeballed the luggage and the floor of the car. He put two of the pieces in, then turned to Roger while I was dealing with some of the other luggage, and made a suggestion. Roger agreed, and the guy put the back seat down and began loading in the rest of the luggage. Roger explained to me that I would ride in the front with the luggage, and he would walk! I think it should have been the other way around, but that is the way we settled on things. The driver gave Roger some general instructions, and we had looked at the map, and we were here last fall, so Roger felt reasonably comfortable in walking to the apartment.
Montpellier, like Reims, is giving birth to a tram line and the city is full of construction. Unfortunately it is full of traffic as well. Very full. Extremely full. It took us roughly 20 minutes to drive the 5-minute walk, with stop and go traffic the whole way. Near the end, when the driver pulled onto our street, he entered a lane for buses and taxis only, which is what runs in front of our apartment. It is a single lane, and it runs between the curb and two lanes of oncoming traffic, all of which is stop and go, mostly the former. When he located our apartment, he was forced to just stop in the middle of the street, blocking the entire lane, with a bus right behind us! The driver hopped out and began offloading our luggage to the high curb. He announced the cost at 25€ and I paid him, tipped him and he scurried off. The bus driver never honked – clearly there was nothing else the taxi driver could have done, and the bus driver was very patient. The cost was quite high for us – it should have been about 10€ plus another 8 for the luggage, but it was fair for the taxi driver, who had, indeed, spent all of the 20 minutes driving (or waiting, more often than not), and had not taken me out of the way at all to drive up the cost. It is the passengers in this case who are paying the price for the construction in a long and costly taxi ride.
All that being said, when I got to the apartment building, there was our name on one of the buttons. I buzzed and the door opened. Roger was in the street a few doors down, and was really grateful to see me – he had gotten lost twice and then couldn’t find the apartment number above the door. He came back down the street, picked up two pieces of luggage and started into the building and up the stairs. I took in two more and went back for more, fearful of leaving it standing on the curb for more than a moment or two. We were greeted in the entry by a real mess – dust and dirt everywhere, and two guys in dust masks doing some work in an airshaft. When they saw my dilemma, one of them came out to the curb with me to get the last of the luggage in, and the other one grabbed two suitcases and followed Roger up the stairs. The second guy then took two other large suitcases and I was left with a couple of smaller ones to bring up the rear. Our apartment is up three flights with no elevator (something we already knew), and we were exhausted when we got to the top. The guys were coming back down, and they both refused a tip. We were really grateful for their help! We seemed to have lucked out in the handle-the-luggage-for-no-fee department today.

As we entered the apartment to greet our landlord and landlady, the Stevensons, they suggested first that we take off our shoes, otherwise the apartment would need vacuuming very quickly, since the trip upstairs through all the dust and dirt had gotten our feet very dusty. The Mrs. Stevenson offered us a welcome glass of water, and we made introductions all around. They showed us the particularities of the apartment, and were off in less than an hour.

Half an hour after they left, there was a knock on the door and Mara McGregor, the woman from one floor down, introduced herself. She wanted to know if the Stevensons had already gone, because she wanted to talk to Elliott about something or other. She is a French lady who married a Scotsman (now deceased) and who speaks very good English. She said to be sure and let her know if we need anything.

Our apartment is rather shabby – it reminds me of the place where I grew up. It is full of cheap and amateurish work-arounds for many of the problems that invariably arise in a European apartment. The walls are not plumb, nor is the floor, which slopes just slightly to the south. There are unfinished tile areas, plenty of things that don’t fit up correctly, mismatched closet doors or none at all, covered by a curtain; the salle de bain (room with bathtub but no toilet) is in the inside of the apartment, with no ventilation, so there are two small openings cut in two opposite walls, which have then been fitted with small window blinds, and this serves to ventilate the room; the covers for the electricity and gas meters are small half-boxes which lift away from the controls; there are only indoor shutters, not outside ones, which do not fit together properly but which do manage to block the afternoon sun pretty well. The whole place needs to be gutted and redone, but at the same time it is livable. There are bright spots as well – an unusable but very pretty fireplace with marble mantle (unfortunately dulled the surface of the marble by using the wrong cleaning product – I am going to look into fixing that later). The largest issue for us is that there is no internet. The landlord and landlady sort of said “well, it was working last week – good luck – call Francis, here is his number,” and dashed out.

We settled in somewhat, unpacked a few suitcases and explored the apartment in more detail to inventory the food, dishes, things in the storage closet, cleaning products under the sink, and began a list of what we would need in the way of groceries. The refrigerator is quite small – it comes up to about my shoulder. Much of the main shelf is taken up with a 3-litre box of cabernet sauvignon, which we will have to deal with before buying much in the way of perishables. I was not under the impression that cabernet sauvignon was to be refrigerated, but that shows how much I do not know about wine. I located some sugared honey in the cabinet and began to set that straight. That seems to be my mission in life – to de-sugar everyone’s honey!

The next-largest issue, and one which is going to be harder to fix, is the so-called shower. It consists of a tub with a hand-held shower head, but there is no place to hang the shower head to turn it into a shower, and even if there were, the hose for the connection is too short. This is going to take some work.

The apartment is cheerful despite its shabbiness. There is a brand new television, which the landlord said was not even properly set up yet (they left that for us to do as well!). I am not sure when or if we will bother, although I was thinking about trying to find a weekly series of some sort to watch to try to improve my French. The tile floor looks fairly new. Whoever installed it chose to lay the tiles on a diagonal – probably a very good choice as it serves to disguise the uneven walls. Unfortunately there is one broken tile in one of the main paths, from the living area to the bedroom. There is a lovely curved mirror over the fireplace. There was a parched, almost-dead ivy on one of the windows overlooking the street, so I took it in and began to try to revive it. I probably should toss it and start over, but it is the only growing thing I have right now, and I don’t know exactly when or where I will get more.
After we relaxed a bit, we set out to find some dinner and explore the area a bit. We ate at a place called La Tomate, which, while much cheaper than Paris, was disappointing. We had a tomato-based fish soup which had very little flavor – not of fish, or tomatoes, or much of anything else. Then Roger had steak and I had a couple of roasted quail with a tomato sauce. Roger says he doesn’t think the French know how to cook steak. My quail were okay, but not particularly tasty. Both were served with fried potatoes and some tired-looking green beans, which turned out to be nicely seasoned and quite tasty. I bailed on dessert while Roger had a tart with a scoop of ice cream. Afterward we walked to the local grocery store for some milk, then went home, made our double bed and fell asleep.