Recommencer : To begin again

Thank you to the many replies about the picture. Debbie was the grand prize winner who correctly guessed that it was clothes dryer/towel warmer. This nifty little invention heats up to either dry the towel you have hung on it, or to warm up the towel that you want to step into after you get out of the shower. My apologies to all future visitors but we will not have this luxury in our apartment.

So yes, the apartment. Organizing and preparing for this has becoming our all consuming activity these days.  We do have the apartment, but instead of it being available on Nov 15^th like we had hoped, we will not be able to get into it until Dec 1^st. This pronouncement put a dark cloud over things for a while, but we have had some good luck that has assuaged the twenty or so more days in limbo living. 

Firstly, thank goodness we are staying at a place that has everything we need from an equiped kitchen to a towel warmer. Again I cannot thank our long time friend Amanda at http://www.vividtravel.ca/ enough for finding us this place which has suited our needs perfectly and has a patient concierge who is always willing to extend our stay, even if it is week by week.

Our luck truly started yesterday when we went over to our future apartment to take some measurements and begin negotiating for the purchase of les machines (appliances) and cupboards. Going into the situation we were preparing for hard core bartering, but instead we easily settled on the price of the kitchen basics and then they began to throw in their kitchen table and chairs, bookshelves, laundry hamper and T.V.! It was a fantastic visit ending in them telling us to call them if we have any questions about Marseille. And this was all before 11:00 a.m. The only down side of the kitchen is that it does not have an oven, and does not have any space to put an oven that we can see right now. This is something we will have to look into a bit more, or we just have to get a bit more creative with our cooking.

Our afternoon was spent at Ikea. Again the bus system here is quite amazing. We were able to take a bus basically to the doorstep of Ikea. As always a visit to Ikea can be a bit daunting. They just have so much stuff and so many good ideas, but after sitting on many couches, lying on many mattresses, and opening a bazillion drawers we have made some preliminary decisions about what we are going to get there. After three hours we realized that there will be many more Ikea trips in our future. It finally hit us that we really have nothing but our clothes, and how expensive it is to start over again. Our purchases on this trip were two pillows, two pillow cases, and two sets of towels in a plumb colour (yes I love purple). I know what you are thinking, “That is all the light stuff.” Our next trip will involve dishes and kitchen utensils, so we will have do some pushups before then. Right now it is just about getting the basics. Sorry Elise and Aid, I think you will be coming to a very bare apartment for Christmas.

Aside from Ikea, we have been looking at LeBonCoin for second hand stuff. To finish off our busy day yesterday we had two appointments to look at a table and a night side table. I feel like we are experiencing internet karma. After giving away and selling most of our stuff in Kingston over Kijiji we seem to be reaping the rewards of second hand internet sites ourselves. 

Our first appointment was for a table which we will planned on using as a desk. This table can also be pulled out of the office when we have a lot of company to extend the small kitchen table we purchased from our predecessors earlier in the day.  The only down side about the new desk/table was that, if we liked it, we weren’t quite sure how we were going to get it back to our current residence. Quickly our problems were solved - we met Pierre (oh so French huh!) and he showed us the table which was actually already in his station wagon trunk and he said that we would drop it off for us. Then he asked if we needed a toaster, to which we said “oui”. We went up to his apartment and there he not only sold us a toaster, but an iron still in its packaging, an ironing board, salad spinner, coffee makers, lamp and night side table. When Pierre dropped everything off later last night he explained that he used to own a house and an apartment, but had just sold the house and moved everything into the apartment. To close this deal he invited us over for aperitifs next Sunday when his girl friend is in town.

Our night of LeBonCoining luck persisted after our meeting with Pierre, with a walk up one of Marseille’s many hills and the purchase of another night side table for a steal of a deal. The entertaining part about this purchase was getting it home. Since we have no vehicle, Keith carried the night table on the bus, on to the metro, and continued on as we transferred to a second metro line and took another bus before we got home.  I unfortunately didn’t have my camera with me and my cell phone camera just wouldn’t do the job, as Keith would not slow down for a proper portrait. This is the much travelled night side table and our newly acquired lamp.

It was a bit of a crazy day, but much was accomplished. We are starting to accumulate some stuff in our small residence, but it will all be worth it when we only have to carry it one kilometre to our new place. Slowly but surely we will re-establish ourselves, but I keep asking myself when will, what we have in the past termed “student living”, ever stop?