25/03/2024 – Housekeeping/keeping house

I thought you might be interested in how we are living in Paris as perching strangers. It is a positive combination of practice traveling together and great planning by Hannah (https://travelbyhannah.co.uk/ ).

Our aparthotel room is large, cleaned weekly with fresh linens and equipped with stove, microwave, kettle and fridge. I already mentioned the large bath, which is a treat, now I have learned not to fall out of it…

There is a launderette directly across the road, fully automated, card friendly, open 24/7.

We have one suitcase and one backpack each. Our clothes are quick-dry, “performance” wear, purchased from the discount racks over the last 6 months. These pack small, don’t crease and, while we have a launderette in Paris, should handle the “wash it in the sink and put it back on tomorrow” routine of the camino. In 2018, I wore-washed-wore my socks every day for a week, then threw them out and pulled out a new pair… I also tossed four t-shirts, wrung out and towel-dried too often.

We have a bag of replenishment clothes waiting in the jeep for our Canadian road trip.

The same small arcade has an excellent neighbourhood bakery. I pop over of a morning. My “standard” order: 2 pains de chocolat, a pain au raisin and a butter croissant. We make fresh Americanos in our Aeropress (a pocket-sized, travel miracle) and, voilá!, breakfast.

The ground coffee and milk powder come from the large Monoprix supermarket, just down the street. We swing by on our way home – through the deli, fruitier, laterie, grocery to choose dinner, which we prepare in our room. Served with wine, of course. We eat like kings for the price of a so-so “tourist menu”. To quote the placemats in our Calgary condo: “La vie est belle”.

We bought a few supplementary cleaning supplies, toiletries and fell upon a heavily discounted fleecy throw which, to avoid the descent into barbarism, gives Carey his nap blanket. With ample outlets for charging, good wifi for chats/podcasts and VPNs turned on to access our streaming subscriptions, we have all mod-cons.

This is how we travel: maximizing our dollars, but not at the cost of enjoyment. We are not only about visiting the free stuff and buying from the discount chiller – although a splendid time is being had majoring on these things. We just ordered a “Paris 2024” Olympics poster, even though we already have our memento (see 05/02/2024 post). It is simply too joyful to pass up, emblematic of this time and place. As you know, we are paid-up “amis du Louvre” and splurge on a daily Starbucks - a luxury which tastes (and I quote Carey) “way better here”.

Nevertheless, walking IS free, our favourite pastime and toughens us up. We’re doing 10 miles/16km per day for now. A typical camino day is +/- 14miles/23km.

We walked part of the coulée verte du sud Paris today, passing several scallop blazes. Turns out, it’s part of the camino too.