Paris Arrival

August 3rd, 2017

On August 1st, 2017, we landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport to begin our adventure of living abroad for a year. The “we” is my husband Glenn, our daughter Kate, our dog Sandy, and me, Sara. The last days before our departure were filled with lovely dinners with many of our friends and relatives as well as the stress of completing a dauntingly long to do list: wrapping up research projects temporarily, readying our MIT offices for visiting faculty, packing up most of the artifacts of our home life to either bring to France, give away, sell, donate, or store, in preparation for renting our house in Newton, completing the proper procedures and paperwork for our and Sandy’s stay, as well as a million other smaller tasks. (The house has never looked better, by the way.)

Still jet-lagged, we are starting to settle in. We have a lovely apartment in Paris in the 6th arrondisement, across the street from the Odeon Theatre and the Luxembourg Gardens. We are a close walk to a few Metro and RER stops, so transportation is very easy. We don’t have a car, so we will be relying on public transportation. We even used it to make a trip where we bought more things to outfit our apartment than we could carry: glasses, dishes, a coat tree, hangers, storage bins, etc. (We mostly used public transportation. We gave up and took an Uber for the final leg.)

Sandy lounging in our new living room

Our first impressions of the apartment and neighborhood are very positive. There are dozens of restaurants within a close walk that we are interested in trying. There are interesting shops. The Luxembourg Gardens are lovely. Sandy’s first impressions of the apartment and neighborhood, however, may be somewhat less positive. (Some of this might be colored by eight hours in the hold of an airplane, locked into a little crate.) He loves walking in the Luxembourg Gardens, but there is only a limited part where dogs are allowed. Furthermore that part does not include any grass. (I saw two dogs today violating the prohibitions, though.)

Map of Luxembourg Gardens identifying where dogs are 
allowed---note the conspicuous absence of grass-
covered areas.

There are also a lot of metal grates on sidewalks. Sandy does not walk on metal. He will learn soon, though, that dogs can sometimes come to restaurants, which I hope will compensate for the other Paris-based canine indignities. Also, he’s allowed to ride on the Metro in a “carrier.” We’ll try to figure out the definition of a carrier and report back.

Chiens interdits