Finding "Normal" in a Foreign Land

Here goes...another chronicle in the story of our adjustment to living in Paris! We are doing well. The kids are sleeping through the night without interruption, we are all sleeping when the sun goes down (well, the kids are but we adults are not in bed quite that early) until the sun comes up and are feeling very good. It would seem our jet lag is pretty much passed.

We've been in Paris for 5 full days now and here's an update on what we've been up to.

Our teammate, Carissa, wanted to take us to Notre Dame Cathedral. We took a bus for the first time to get to the Seine River near the Notre Dame. That was an experience! The bus was jam packed with people. But, we survived and learned that our Metro tickets work on the bus as well. Good to know. Here are some photos of Notre Dame, a truly spectacular place!



The back of Notre Dame...

We could tell that the kids were 'wilting'. They were still not getting great sleep at night and the sun was beating on us while we walked and they just seemed to need a break. We happened upon a large sandbox along the Seine River and decided to stop and let the kids play in the shade. Low and behold, there were other kids playing in the sandbox. Look what happened in just a matter of minutes:




Is there any doubt that our kids will help us get to know the French people? Isn't that just amazing! We asked the kids about their new friends. This little girl was French and they were speaking French with one another the entire time they were playing. This little girl was 6 years old. I cannot wait to meet the kids who will become regular friends of our children!

Now for some more 'sights of Paris'. First, you have the sign in the window. It says something like on vacation until some date in the future. These signs are in tons of windows right now because August is vacation month in France. We knew this and have been very pleasantly surprised by how much is open around us. Phew!

It just seemed right that we take a picture of the pigeons. People know they are here, but here's a photo to confirm it!

Another sad reality is the homeless in Paris. What's this man's story?


The beautiful and famous Seine River...

Mopeds with covers. Ryan and Todd love these...plus all the motorcycles everywhere!


We got to celebrate our 14th anniversary here in Paris! What a great deal for us! Here we are by the Seine River on the big day.

Our teammates took our kids for dinner and let us go out for our anniversary. We splurged and went to a restaurant called Le Murmure. It was really, really good food. The atmosphere was not what we expecting, though. We sat alone at 7 p.m. People began coming to eat dinner just as we were finishing around 8 p.m. Then, there was the music that was playing in the restaurant. We've been told that by law they must play one French song for every American song, otherwise the French music might not be played. (I think we are understanding that correctly.) Anyway, we sat there listening to American music by Michael Jackson (lots of it!) and Prince. Music we hadn 't heard for years in America. Interesting!

Here we are with our dinners. Mark got steak. He said it was fabulous.


I got pasta. A tortellini stuffed with spinach and a tomato basil sauce. Absolutely spectacular!

So, the thought has crossed our minds, how exactly do the French move? We just put all sorts of stuff into a container to ship here, so we are wondering how do they get things like beds and couches into these apartments? You'll see below, the stairs and the elevators are not large enough, how do they do it?

Thurdsay we happened to pass evidence of how the French move. Here it is. A ladder with a sort-of flatbed elevator attached to it. Here are pictures to show what I'm trying to explain:

A close-up of the top of the ladder, just at the window of the apartment where they are putting the stuff.

Here's a view from the side.


We got to take a drive around the 15th arrondisement, where we are planning to start a new church. Here are a few pictures of the 15th.


Here are kids in a park in the 15th.

You gotta love a place where there's a flower shop called "Happy!"

We began trying to find an apartment on Thursday. We've been looking at the search sites online, but are not finding much available, so we decided to stop into the Immobilier stores. They are real estate offices. Between Thursday and Friday I think we've visited 5 now. Mark has begun to do the talking as we enter these stores asking if they know of 3 bedroom apartments available in the area.




Friday we got to visit an apartment. It was a great experience to finally see a place. It was in a great location, but it was just a little bit too small for our family, and the apartment was not available until October 1st. So, we will continue to search. Please pray that God will lead us to the right apartment for our family...and by the time school starts! He can do that!

Now, I just have to show the staircase to the apartment we are living in right now. We're on the 4th floor. It's just so very French!

Or, you could take the elevator! See how big it is!?! Our entire family cannot fit into this elevator. Needless to say, we are getting some good exercise on those stairs!

Finally, here's a photo of our first trip to the grocery store. Lena and I went together. She is amazing. She catches everything anybody says! She's absolutely invaluable to me right now! So, we will be doing our shopping together for a little while until I learn some French. She loved managing the shopping cart, which is owned by the missionaries who live in the apartment we are using this month. You bring that cart into the store, fill it up and take it through the check-out line and then fill it up again. Very handy!

Here's Lena after the first totally successful shopping trip! We are finding lots of foods that we really like. I have yet to make a meal from scratch, but I am very hopeful that I'll be able to manage the kitchen just fine in this place.


So, we are slowly finding "normal" here. We know it will only be temporary until we find an apartment that we can call our own. But, it is good to be figuring out many aspects of life in this city.

If you think of us, would you pray with us that God would lead us to an apartment very soon! We see two apartments that look very hopeful on paper on Tuesday next week. Pray that we would find favor in the eyes of these landlords and find housing by the time school starts and our shipment from America arrives.

Many thanks! We'll be in touch...