21 April: I Really Like It When a Shower Head Is Attached to the Wall
Ah yes, the European shower. Or, to be more precise, the tub with the shower head attached to the faucet. It'll take a few days to figure out the right strategy for optimal bathing--should I kneel or just sit? where to put the shower head while soaping?

Our studio apartment--dubbed La Traviata by our landlords--is quite wonderful and wonderfully quirky. We have a large main room with a very funky Full-sized bed, used originally in a performance of La Traviata, staged here in Paris. It has a decent-sized kitchen (that's not very fully equipped--we used mugs to down some Burgundy wine last night). The trickiest part of the apartment is getting to the bathroom (which is about as small as you can make a bathroom and fit a human into it). You have to ascend a short set of stairs to an elevated salon area, in which resides another bed, and then down another set of very thin stairs to the right of the landing. It's especially daunting in the middle of the night. Oh, and if you're over 5 foot 8 inches, remember to duck your head as you're coming back down from teh landing; otherwise, you'll bonk your head on the massive, dark brown wooden beam that straddles the room that's reinforced by several metal braces. That's going to leave a mark.

You can see some pictures here. Oh, by the way, that funky, slightly heart-shaped chair... it's not the most comfortable chair I've sat on. But it looks good.