Appartement, rue de l'Université, janvier 2000

In late January of the year 2000, we spent three or four nights in an apartment in the 7ème arrondissement of Paris, on the rue de l'Université. We had flown to Paris for a long weekend. It was very extravagant, but maybe not as extravagant as it might seem. The other alternative to a quick trip to Paris from San Francisco was a quick trip to Las Vegas, and that, as it turned out, would have cost even more. It was a lot more fun to go to Paris. I've written about this trip several times over the years, including in a post in March 2019 and again in a post in January 2020.

The apartment we rented for that weekend adventure was in the building above. There were long, narrow balconies across the front. Since we were there in January, being able to sit outdoors to enjoy a meal or a drink wasn't exactly a priority. Even so, it was good that the building across the street was the one pictured below. These are the offices of the Institut National de Recherche Agronomique. In the evening there was nobody there to see us in our apartment, so we didn't have to worry about shutters or shades. We were on the top floor.

In fact, January 2000 was not really cold, but it was pretty damp. We enjoyed walking all around the city, but we took our meals indoors. What we did like about the apartment, which consisted of a living room/bedroom with a separate kitchen and a separate bathroom, was the view we had out the front windows over the rooftops — photo below.

We also enjoyed the neighborhood. We were only there for three or four nights, and we were happy to eat in restaurants. We didn't do any cooking. I also didn't really take any pictures inside the apartment because, to tell all, we had stayed there one time before, in 1997, for a much longer time. That was before I began to take photos. That year, I was on sabbatical from my job at Apple and I spent a month in Paris. Walt spent two weeks but then had to go back to San Francisco and return to work. My mother and my 15-year-old niece flew over and stayed with me for the rest of the time. My mother hadn't been to Paris since 1982, and my niece had never made the trip before. We saw Paris and then went to spend a few days in Normandy.

Even though we didn't do any real cooking, it was nice to be able to run downstairs (there was an elevator, actually) and get a fresh baguette and some croissants for breakfast. There was no lack of boulangeries in the neighborhood.

We also enjoyed dinners in neighborhood restaurants. One of them, the Thoumieux, was also a place where we had enjoyed meals on earlier trips. I saved the receipt when we went there again in January 2000.

Remember when prices were still listed in French francs? The dollar was really strong against the French franc at that time, so the full meal for two — with starter salads, a bowl of cassoulet, a steak, (too much) wine, a cheese, a dessert, and coffees — cost us less than a hundred dollars U.S. (the U.S. dollar was worth 6.7 FF).

By the way, Walt just pointed out to me that he has photos of our 2003 gîte in Provence, which I posted about yesterday, on his blog in three posts here.