The house of Love

Woke up, left the house and almost stepped on a cat who was asking me to caress him/her. The cat lives in the court of the building where I live. The house of love.

The house of love is all red. The owner must have spent a lot of time in Nepal or India, the house being decorated with extraordinary easternzenish taste. Budha included, this new housing situation is very interesting. My roomies, I obviously do not live by myself in a 100 sqm apartment in Saint Germain des Pres, the development cooperation Mecca, are Rob and Natasha. A British guy wasting his life in a hedge fund when he could actually be a painter and Natasha, a sweet Russian lady in the midst of her divorce who does not paint very well, but who cooks masterfully.

Cohabitation is always a good lesson of patience and understanding. I have lived with these people for 2 weeks and I just found out that they do not know my name. The house of love does not need names, just respect and cordiality (we missed a little bit of this last Friday when one of the roomies brought unfriendly people to the house).

The bathroom of the house does not have a door, it is a kind of transparent paper door which calls for a lot of roomie respect. From the shower, a naked lady stares a me. Weird. The bathroom mirror belongs more to Versailles than to a bathroom...but I guess this is Parisian chic.

But the best part of the house is indeed out of the house. Every morning when I close the door of the apartment in a rush to catch the metro a sweet buttery, sugary smell fills my mouth. There is a bakery in the ground floor and I wish I could better describe or videotape smells to make you understand the pleasure of spending a minute in my apartment block stairs.

If happiness is this, let happiness stay. Work is exciting and little by little I better understand this organization and its expectations. I still miss the sun, Africa, India, my family, close friends spread around the globe and Hugo. All this and those. But all those are to stay in my life forever and I can wait to savor them in the future.