Chez Nous

I’ve received requests for a blog about the house that I’m staying in, so here goes…

I share I big room with Roxana on the 3^rd floor. We also share a salle de bains (notice the shower head in the picture…it’s called a telephone shower head!) and les toilettes (which I call the throne...you can see why in the picture). Down stairs on the first floor there is a shoe/coat closet where everyone puts their things after coming home. There is also a family room with a TV (that I have never watched) and just across the hall is the dining room where we eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. The kitchen is big for France (not so big for US standards) and very quaint. Denise even has a dishwasher AND a microwave (that she never uses, but is fairly rare in France…only 50% have them). Every day when Roxana and I leave the house, we have to lock our room, unlock the house door, lock it behind us, unlock the gate, and lock it behind us. The gate and the front door are always locked, even when people are home…I don’t think I’ve ever used a key this much in my life, but at least I know we’re all safe night and day! =) When I walk out the front door, I see the garden and the cobblestone pathway leading to the gate. It’s our little piece of peace before we hit the big city! The biggest differences here at the house is that the toilet is not in the same room as the rest of the bathroom, in fact it’s down the hall, another difference is all of the locking, and keeping all of the doors closed all the time, everything being smaller, and being VERY aware of the water and electricity we use because it’s so expensive here. But with all of the differences here, I really like the lifestyle and the rhythm of life here. It’s not like the big cities in the US…it’s kind of like a really, really big small town… =)

*more pictures SOON! (my computer ran out of battery when I was uploading them)