An Angel Arrived

An angel arrived today in form of an old friend, long time Paris resident, ex-pat extraordinaire. My friend Suzan came bearing gifts--a sharp knife, a plan de Paris and a telephone. She spent four hours with me beginning with organizing the apartment and then setting off on the street to show me the ropes--the quincaillerie (hardware store) for hooks, the telephone store for a sim card, the photo store for ID photos for a still-to-be-bought metro pass, the Metro for a temporary 10 ride carnet, ED the super discount post soviet style store that has all the cleaning basics and some food to boot. Along the way we popped into a librarie for Paris weekly and as we sauntered we loaded our bags with fruits and vegetables and pain (bread). Finally she picked out a quaint little bistro to sit down and have some lunch. (How do you tell which ones are good when there are at least 5 or 6 cafes/ bars/ bistros on every block? She told me her cute little terrier, Sindbad made the choice. Yes she is so parisienne that she has her darling little purse dog that jumped inside when ever we went into a food store as dogs are not allowed.)

We sat down to eat and it was a truly authentic bistro. In the neighborhood for decades, with wonderful fresh food in a dark wooded room with a zinc topped bar (even the toilet was the original hole in the ground though with the updated feature of real toilet paper instead of newsprint--ouch.) Suzan started talking to the two women next to us and before we knew it we had recommendations to several other neighborhood restaurants, the name of one of the women and we promised to use her name as an introduction to be served properly. Turns out she was the proprietress of our bistro. Somewhat of a local who's who. Now i know where i will be eating my lunch time meal.

Un peu y un peu things are falling into place.