Its been a while since i announce the reunification with my wife, so i thought since im back at the folks for a quiet couple of days (you know how that is...) i would take a chance to keep y'all updated on how we are getting on.
So we decided to give things another go back in November, and it took us a good month to make a plan to make it happen. I was waiting on a good long term work contract to put food on the table which came good about a week before xmas. That meant i could pull the trigger on an apartment rental in paris, make the travel plans and get the ball rolling.
I managed to book our apartment through a temp/sublet agency which was good - apartment leases are for a minimum 3 years and require lots of formal documents like residency cards etc and take ages to deal with in France and buying is even worse - we booked our apartment on the Friday and moved in on the tuesday - more on that in a moment.
So i got everything booked in, my wife had been staying with a russian girlfriend and helping out as an au pair in return for her staying - i arrived after xmas on the 28th December, weighed down will 3 suitcases i had 1 hour to go and get the apartment lease signed before the office closed for the holidays - no mean feat getting from Paris CDG airport on the RER 'burban line, then taxi through paris rush hour on a friday night but luckily the helpful agency girl stayed late to make sure it got done.
We got a fully furnished apartment from a guy who is working out in Hong Kong, the apartment is beautiful - about 50 sq m in a 300 year old "hausmann" building in the MontMatre district on Paris at the bottom of the steps to Sacre Couer, its a lovely spot full of artists - our next door neighbour is a fantastic Jazz pianist so we are getting the full Parisian flava or life already.
The apartment was "all in" complete with towels, bedding, cooking stuff even the owners exceptional CD collection not to mention very chic furniture and a 42" pioneer plasma on the wall - all at a rent on a short term basis about 1/3 cheaper than i paid for my unfurnished place in London and about 1/2 what i paid for my NYC home, so Paris is proving a econimical home as well.
My wife loves the apartment especially being next to the church - we have a view over the entire city from where we live. In traditional Russian fashion she thought the apartment very nice but we could have got the same space for 1/2 the price without the fancy furniture - like all RW she has to find SOMETHING to complain about but she seems to be very happy none the less!
We had new year at the Champs Elysee - champagne at 40 USD a bottle was a bargain compared to London and the whole night was really quite cheap given the location.
So we have settled into our new married routine at last, its amazing what a difference a couple of years makes, when we got married she didnt want to know about being a houswife, now she incessantly cleans the apartment until it sparkles and cooks, shops and washes my laundry on a daily basis.
No complaints in the bedroom either - apart from a lack of sleep!
I start my new work in a couple of weeks so we have had some playtime together which has done us good, after such a long time apart and run of bad luck to have made it through and start our life together albeit in a 3rd country seems a great outcome to us both, we have generally concluded that the fact we were at least able to live a normal life together was more important than where we lived but then living in the Montmatre is hardly roughing it and Paris's reputation for romance is doing wonders for smoothing over our much battered relationship from our visa woes.
It does amaze me how resilient RW can be - it feels like we have been through hell but now we have a place to live, a little food on the table and each other it doesnt seem to matter to her. We are utterly broke and get by on 20 - 30 euros a week while i'm waiting to get paid but thats the second great string to a RW's bow is the ability to work wonders with the food budget and accept the normality of financial hardships - its been a tough few weeks with a lot of expenses while i wait to get paid but its actual left me with a nice feeling that my wife is prepared to take the really rough times with the smooth and money is just something irrelevent for her that is simply used to live, we hear so many awful tales of money grabbing girls that i thinks its sometimes nice to be reminded a genuine RW will do miracles with the household budget and she is very careful not to waste anything.
We have some fantastic rows of course - down by Pont Neuf after she spent 22 euros on Rabbit food (we have acquired a Fluffy white angora rabbit, when i say we i mean SHE) - we had a blazing row in front of a large group of tourists - the sort of full blown full bore ding dong most have us have witnessed on the streets of Russia or in our families apartment blocks - it was so severe as to cause a passing frenchman to remark jovially "welcome to paris - the city of love!" - it was all over in minutes and not mentioned again - but my ancestral irish temper coupled with her fiery cossack nature really does cause the lid to blow off over certain things - i remarked on that recently and she said "its good to quarrel then nothing is left unsaid".
Life with a RW is nothing if not entertaining, and Paris as a back drop certainly adds even more adventure!
More Soon!
