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"Homesick For France In Newport Beach, California"

Volume I, Issue 39

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As it turns out — last week’s newsletter didn’t get to you due to a series of technical problems. Please forgive us! — So instead of sending two at the same time, the following is last week’s with an update for this week (back in Paris):
I am writing you from Southern California — this year’s venue for the bi-annual International Living Live Overseas Conference — in Newport Beach. There are 140 people here who are seeking a new life in another country, whether it be Panama, Mexico, Nicaragua, France or any of the other viable destinations we discuss over these five days.
With a show of hands, most of these folks not only want to experience another way of living, but they want their investments to reap rewards. Who wouldn’t? They’ve worked long and hard and deserve to
retire or even semi-retire without worrying about where the next baguette is going to come from.
One reason you may be receiving this later than usual is because since I left Gay Paree last week, everything technical that could go wrong…did. Last weekend a virus hit my laptop and almost put me out
of business. The PowerPoint presentation extolling the virtues of France I had prepared in advance was on a CD that wouldn’t open. (I spent all day yesterday at my display table rebuilding it from
scratch.) Yesterday, the chip in my digital camera was corrupt and I was lucky enough to retreive all but of a few of the images I had taken of the beautiful new Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown L.A.
desgined by Frank Gehry.
In spite of the lack of “cyber” connection, we’re here connecting in person — one-on-one with real people who come to learn how to make the move, discover where to make the move and to do it with
confidence…that comes from the help of organizations like International Living.
What’s at my table? But of course…a couple of inflatable Eiffel Towers from the “Why” store on rue des Francs Bourgeois, little packets of Herbes de Provence for anyone who wants one (they smell
great and always get a laugh when I tell them they’re to eat, not smoke!) and samples of all our various publications on France. Behind me on the display wall is a map of France and a detail of Paris.
I’m awfully homesick with all of these French reminders.
A bientôt,
Adrian Leeds
Editor, French Property Insider
Email: [email protected]
P.S. There is talk among us to hold a third Working and Living in France Conference, but this time Stateside, very possibly in San
Francisco in the Spring…two and a half days with our finest speakers. If you are interested and want more information, please email us
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Volume I, Issue 39, November 6, 2003
and
Volume I, Issue 40, November 13, 2003
In this issue:
* The Brits Came, But the Yanks are Coming
* Stocking Up at IKEA
* Paris on the High-Rise? True or False?
* Rilke Was Miserable Here…a Poetic Tale of the Hotel Istria
* A Currency Exchange Update
* Hot Property: A Glass Loggia in Montorgueil
* Property For Sale: The Best in Paris
* General FPI Information…
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MORE ON THE BRITISH EXODUS — BECOMING A U.S. MIRROR?
By Jocelyn Carnegie
The 21st-Century equivalent of the 100 Years War continues apace except this time it is colonization by stealth rather than longbow and siege engine!…the French Tourism Office figures indicate that 500,000 British people now own property in France. A staggering 60,000 properties were sold to UK buyers in 2001 alone. Moreover, since the late 1990’s Britons have been flocking to France with 36% per year of UK residents leaving British shores moving to France.
A rising number of our US clients are disgruntled enough with the state of the nation to be considering seriously the thought of moving and France seems to be one of their preferred destinations despite the ‘Freedom Fries’ debate!
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STOCKING A HOUSEHOLD — REPORTING ON RUE DE LA HUCHETTE
By Adrian Leeds
Thanks to the Swedes, there is one-stop shopping if you’re moving into a new apartment or home anywhere in France and need to outfit it with everything from the toilet brush to the tea kettle —

The founder of IKEA is Ingvar Kamprad, but it is owned by a foundation, Stichting INGKA Foundation, which is registered in Holland.
The responsibility for developing the IKEA range of products rests with IKEA of Sweden in Älmhult, which is the same the whole world over, and consists of around 10,000 products. The basic thinking behind all products is to make well designed, functional home furnishing products at low prices available to everyone.
Both internal and external designers analyze new products while still on the drawing board and give products their crazy unpronouncable names, such as GUSTAVA and STOLLE.
There are 14 IKEA stores in France, 5 in the Paris area alone:
Bordeaux, 1990, 21,000 m2
Lille Lomme, 1988, 15,400 m2
Lyon Saint Priest, 1987, 20,200 m2
Marseille Vitrolles, 1985, 16,300 m2
Metz La Maxe, 2000, 22,000 m2
Nantes St Herblain, 2002, 23,800 m2
Paris Evry, 1983, 31,600 m2
Paris Plaisir, 1992, 26,600 m2
Paris Roissy, 1986, 33,400 m2
Paris Vélizy, 2003, 4,000 m2
Paris Villiers sur Marne, 1996, 22,600 m2
Strasbourg, 1999, 21,900 m2
Toulon La Valette du Var, 2001, 19,600 m2
Toulouse Roques, 1995, 21,200 m2
Porter Scott, Property Rental Manager, and I spent five hours at IKEA this week shopping for the new rue de la Huchette apartment. Cleverly,
IKEA routes you through two levels in such a way that there is no turning back or short-cutting through the store, without some sly maneuvering down hidden staircases and back doors. We found one or two to speed the process, but nonetheless, it was time well spent as almost every household item needed to get the apartment to quality rental shape landed in one of our huge shopping carts ready for use, including drapes and comforters, champagne flutes and pot holders.
The only drawback is that if your style isn’t contemporary, every IKEA item may not fit in, but with classic, clean lines, most can blend well with almost any decor.
The budget? Allow about 1000 euro for a household full — which we estimate would have cost at least twice as much if we had opted for the traditional BHV (Bazar de l’Hôtel de Ville).
For more information and to find the directions for the store nearest you in France, visit their site at http://www.ikea.fr/ Most are accessible by public transportation as well as by car, of course.
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DON’T BELIEVE MOST OF WHAT YOU READ…
This past week, I received a letter from a close friend and colleague who had panicked after reading an article in the International Herald Tribune. I found it hard to believe and immediately sent it off to our contact at the Mairie de Paris, Laurent Queige, Director of Paris Tourism. I offer you excerpts from the letters, the article and the responses…an insight into how information can be badly misconstrued and misused.
PLEA FROM LONG-TIME PARIS RESIDENT, JONATHON ROBERTS
Dear Friends,
To quote the Prefect of Police Louis Renault (Claude Rains) in Casablanca, “I was shocked, shocked…”
As I gathered up my Monday edition of the International Herald Tribune, I was shocked and dismayed to read that the very progressive Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë (who I usually support and admire) is seeking to strike down the 30 year-old ban on high-rise construction in Paris.
In the IHT article below, his deputy states that “the historic center around the River Seine – including Notre Dame and the Louvre – would be spared from any high-rise projects but said that tall buildings would be viable in the surrounding areas where old and new already mix…”
It is sheer madness to even contemplate destroying the architectural harmony of this magnificent city. This must be stopped, period. It cannot be permitted in ANY of the 20 arrondissments. The urban planning bill to be introduced next year simply cannot be allowed to pass.
My friends, in truth, no passionate political diatribe is actually needed here in opposition to this proposed project, because ANY right thinking person residing in Paris will immediately recognize this as sheer aesthetic lunacy and municipal suicide.
The purpose of this email is twofold: to alert concerned Parisians of this imminent threat; but more importantly I am reaching out to those knowledgeble and influential people in Paris who might best know which groups exist to fight this and how I might contact them and join their efforts? Any feedback would be appreciated.
Also, I strongly urge those of you who work for print or online publications or are part of a viable local communications network to take the opportunity to spread the word in opposition.
Ever since I first moved to Paris, I have often daydreamed about how that miserable abomination, the Tour Montparnasse might be removed from the Paris skyline. At one point, I even contemplated writing a letter to Osama bin Laden and suggesting…uh…nevermind.
Ultimately, the prospect of seeing the Tour Montparnasse on every corner of my beloved city is simply more than I can bear.
I ask you? What can be done?
Kindest regards,
Jonathan Roberts
THE ARTICLE: PARIS LOOKS SKYWARD TO SOLVE CRISIS IN HOUSING
Reuters Monday, November 3, 2003
PARIS In a move some fear will ruin the skyline of a city that prides itself on its beauty, Paris officials said Sunday that they might turn to skyscrapers to solve a chronic housing shortage. A 30- year-old ban on high-rise construction has left Paris with a city center that is strikingly uncluttered compared with those of New York or London, where historic monuments j2999tle for space with modern tower blocks. But with more people reported sleeping on the streets of Paris because of huge waiting lists for public housing, Mayor Bertrand Delanoë is under pressure to meet an election promise of providing 50,000 new homes.
“We are not talking about creating a Manhattan in Paris,” Delanoë’s deputy, Jean-Pierre Caffet, told the newspaper Le Parisien. “On the other hand, our city cannot become a museum city.” Any decision will have to await a new urban planning bill, expected to be introduced next year. But conservatives are already up in arms, with former Mayor Jean Tiberi declaring himself “stupefied” by the plans. Caffet promised that the historic center around the River Seine – including Notre Dame and the Louvre – would be spared from any high-rise projects, but said that tall buildings would be viable in the surrounding areas where old and new already mix. “Paris has got a surface area of just 105 square kilometers – that’s tiny for a major city,” he said. “So one of the solutions is to build upwards to win space.” Paris is no stranger to disputes over its skyline, including the one that greeted the opening of the 324-meter, or 1,063-foot, Eiffel Tower in 1889. The writer Guy de Maupassant mounted an unsuccessful petition against what he called “an odious tower of bad taste.” A similar outcry greeted the construction of the 209-meter Montparnasse Tower in 1972. Two years later, a new urban planning law limited building heights to 31 meters within city limits and 25 meters in the historic center.
IN RESPONSE FROM LAURENT QUEIGE, MAIRIE DE PARIS
This is – of course – absolutely wrong. The journalist is definitely incompetent as he completely warped Bertrand Delanoë’s statement. The Mayor just said recently that he was okay to think over building a new tower / hotel within the Exhibition Center at Porte de Versailles, in order to improve the facilities for our business visitors, close to the Périphérique, and of course NOT in the city itself…
Here is another proof of medias’ ascendancy over people’s opinion…
Laurent Queige
 
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“Rilke Was Miserable Here”
By Kathleen Spivack (Originally published in “The Harvard Review” 1998)
“In this hotel,” the plaque reads, “Modigliani lived and worked. Here the Spanish painter Picasso created his masterpieces. Painters Pisarro and Degas derived inspiration. The famous Kikki of Montpa
rn
asse held court and modeled for the famous artists of her day. Man Ray and Henry Miller came from afar and did their best artistic work here in these very rooms. And the poet Rainer Maria Rilke was miserable here and wrote the “Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge” while, poverty stricken, he worked as a secretary to the greatest sculptor of his time, Auguste Rodin.”
The Hotel Istria, located on the Rue Campagne-Premiere, stands, a modest brown facade, sandwiched next to an extravagant art deco glass fronted pile of ateliers, lavish studios through the windows of which can be seen mountains of bookshelves, complete with books and ladders with which to reach their orderly largesse, and, through other glass, the twisted reverse curves of chrome and white furniture. Although one has waited in front of the massive door to these ateliers, one has never seen a human enter or leave. Instead, large groups of earnest French architecture students or sometimes elderly French tourists, can be seen, gathering in expectant knots, notebooks in hand, a smartly dressed guide at their head, discussing the architectural ramifications of this almost transparent building.
But in front of the abutting Hotel Istria, nothing happens. No one waits, notebook in hand. No one lectures to a throng. The misery has taken place inside, not out on the street for everyone to see. Poets, painters, photographers squirreled away like rats record their misery in private. The rooms, one surmises, are as small and brown as in any two star hotel room anywhere.
Wind sweeps down the cold street of the first Campagne, so named because of some connection with Napoleon and with the countryside, that fictional presence maintained so faithfully by Parisians. It is just as cold here as on all the other streets of Paris, for it is December, and although proud France has better public relations than any other country, it seems to nevertheless suffer the exact same dreary climate as does London, a glum city with a poorer self image…
The presence of so many great artists of the past, streaming from all corners of the earth into Paris, the continuation even now of that tradition, brightens the soul. The artists who put Montparnasse on the map when they moved away from what they consider too high priced Montmartre into shabbier digs still breathe along this now-modest street. There is the Camelon, a neighborhood cafe, the Post cafe, opposite the post office, a dry cleaning establishment now almost supplanted by a self service laundromat, a lovely restaurant “Natacha,” and one before which one hesitates to enter, named “La Mere Agitee.” The Agitated Mother, indeed.
There is a deserted school at one end and two small stores run by “Arabs” of indeterminate origin, all stocking the same tired carrots and potatoes, often frequented by the street’s inhabitants too exhausted or too lazy to make a big production out of shopping.
Hidden away from the street, behind the shutters and heavy doorways and closed gates, down twisted alleys and little secret ways next to the garbage cans, are the remnants of old studios, now cut and subdivided and divided again, so that, for the price of a whole house in the United States, one has the privilege of squeezing into an upright coffin, the ceiling three times as high as the allotted floor space. Maybe, if you are lucky, a small window, a hot plate, a toilet down the hall, a communal shower. Only foreigners, writers, or international students sent to the city to learn French, or foolhardy types engaged in playing “artist” would tolerate this set-up; the French themselves are much too smart for this squeezed living: their inheritance and practicality have assured them this.
It is not hard to imagine, as one shrinks oneself, with a sense of stepping into a much loved image of living-in -Paris, that many artists worked here, fell in and out of love, struggled with loneliness and drink and self doubt and in the case of at least one, Modigliani, leaped to his death. Darkness, despair, depression, all take on a jubilantly grim overtone in Paris: Artists “were miserable here.” We too are unhappy: hooray, we are part of a great tradition!
The nearby “Closerie de Lilas,” where so many artists and writing wanna be’s gathered, is as beautiful as ever, garlanded with vines and flowers. The piano player still plays for tea and the evening cocktail hour, but the prices are now so high no artist could ever afford to enter: $6.00 equivalent for a cup of coffee, $10 for a glass of sour house wine, Lots of atmosphere and history and pretty chandeliers and gleaming wood. The soft red lampshades glow softly in the beautiful old interior. Earnest yuppies come here after work. It is said that publishing and movie moguls find their way, with the occasional Kikki look-alike clad in black: black fringe, black velvet ribbon around the neck, dark eyes sparkling and a tight black dress. Perhaps they too are miserable in another way, but the high-priced whine of computers humming all over town, barely perceptible to the ear, is sufficiently anethesizing. The Past recedes.
An appointment, even for lunch, is a subject for endless negotiation. Everyone is so busy in this yuppie yippee world. One must endure the repetition by the initially invited lunchee, of his or her schedule for the upcoming month. “Let’s see…On Monday I have my analyst. On Tuesday I have a meeting. With someone very important. ” You try not to grovel as you court and outwait this impossibly busy, and, let’s face it, impossibly self important Parisian personage into finding a spot for you somewhere. “Wednesday. Perhaps Wednesday. No, no, that is quite impossible; on Wednesday I must see my mother. Maybe Thursday. No, not Thursday. I have an important deadline . Perhaps Friday. Well, can you call me later in the week?”
You are grinding your teeth with frustration. “Bien sur. Of course.” You have no intention of telephoning again next week to inquire politely if perhaps, just possibly, your friend might not have already filled her calendar with other more pressing engagements. The little omelet you had in mind at the “Raspail Vert”, the small cafe at the other end of the street, seems unimportant after all.
Behind its blank face, rue Campagne- Premiere conceals its hidden alleyways and gardens. A tiny number,” 8 bis,”half concealed on a mildewed wall, indicates a driveway behind a large gate. It curves past the post office parking lot. And then, as one rounds the curve, flowers appear; a magnificent old tree, gnarled and flourishing, neatly rimmed with its own little wall. And overlooking this, a sprawling stucco barracks of a building, divided and subdivided into a rabbit warren of studios, small dank apartments, and here and there, something a bit larger, shared by several foreign students. Always the clatter of shoes going up stairs, the entries smelling of damp and cat piss, and the few old ladies bravely dragging their shopping carts, their canes tapping “make way make way.” “Bonjour Madame,” you will have learned to say, relatively impersonally. For by now you have rented the rabbit warren: was there ever anything so cold and dark? You have put down
a deposit, put down key money, both of which you will most probably never see again, signed a lease, paid three months in advance, and moved your few possessions in. Unfortunately, every French person trying to rent must undergo the same unreasonable process. That’s why so many of the young adults still live at home, necking like mad in the subways and parks, desperate for a little privacy somewhere. Still, “you’re paying much too much,” the concierge tells you. You cross her palm with silver and hope she will not throw away your mail.
For you are after all an “American,” toward whom the French have an array of ambivalent behaviors. Well, honey, learn their language–but not too well. It is said that Modigliani lived in your entry. Picasso also. Naturally. If one were to believe the reports, these artists lived everywhere, blessing the numerous semi-habitable addresses with their fictitious presences.
In the five years that you have lived and worked and forever returned to Paris you have moved at least as many times. You have sublet tiny barely heated flats, only to have the owners return unexpectedly under emergency conditions. Illness in their families, maybe a death. Sometimes the apartment in which you have established a temporary existence is sold. Or the landlord needs it for his daughter. Everyone is terribly courteous and apologetic, yourself included. So you leave, starting the whole stomach -aching process of searching yet another damp and dark and over priced studio room. “This is Paris,” you tell yourself. You experience a permanent sense of dislocation. You move your two suitcases and boxes of books again. “Keep it light, keep it simple.” You try to keep warm.
In the past five years you have moved through this great city of Light, hauling your boxes of possessions from one location to another. You have sublet on the Rue de Seine, your introduction to Paris. There in the heart of tourism you lived a dream of Paris, Paris of images, of movies. And you have also lived on the rue Charles Beaudelaire, around the corner from the magnificent Marche Alligre, overlooking a tiny gated park with a pergola and an organ grinder and a bakery right out of a rainy Paris fantasy with an oblong black sign, “Boulangerie,” across the square. You could see it from your window. You lived next to a lingerie store with bold advertisements and models in the window that would make Frederick’s of Hollywood look tame. You rented the flat on rue Charles Beaudelaire sight unseen, taking it for the name only . It is the one street on which, you later find out, Beaudelaire never lived, although during his short life he moved 40 times, occupying 40 different addresses on 40 different streets.
Most bourgeois Parisians, you learn, never move at all. They stay on in the buildings into which they have been born, quarreling and not- speaking-to and having interminable Sunday dinners with their families of origin.
On rue Campagne-Premiere at night the cobblestones gleam in the rain and the corner rings with laughter and birdlike voices calling to each other as they part. You are an outsider here, living in a dream of a past so obviously not yours. The nights of Paris call to you and your chest resonates with an answering ache of longing. For what? For a past which has colored your imagination all your life, a past where art and literature are worth living and dying for, or for a present which treasures its cultural past? No matter that France neglects most of its actual living starving artists,–we have read about that, heard it portrayed in opera and song; even that neglect has become “romantic” in the world’s eyes. There are always the few artists and writers sanctioned by the Establishment and by the State, linked inextricably. But perhaps it is better to be neglected in France right now, which at least gives lip service to valuing artistic heritage, than in your own native land which appears to despise it. France still spends fortunes on art exhibits and theater and subsides for dance and music. Writers appear on television, reading their favorite classics aloud. Paris hosts a large Salon de Livres each year where publishers and booksellers and booklovers come together– all subsidized. When its artists die, France is proud of them. Streets, city squares and plaques on individual buildings all remind of the proud artistic and historic heritage. The “Patrimonie.”
Seen from the vantage point of this graceful culture, you cannot help but reflect on your own. And in the obvious ways, your country, young and bumptious, with its increasing lack of appreciation for both education and the arts, appears, in its public image, to be an artistic and cultural wasteland where violence alone is king. One has only to look at American movies, –one winces at the quality that we export–television; at the values reflected inherent in our violent visual imagery, to understand the predominate big money values driving the nation, and the negativity with which we are seen. Yet, at the same time, in the U.S., for the arts that still manage to survive, there is an amazing vitality. France is a country of history, and manifests deep pride in what is seen as “pure French.” That means, traditional, mandarin, elevated. By contrast, you come to value the multicultural diversity of your own country, mainly grassroots, largely regionally sponsored, reflected in its art and in its literature, in its poetry readings and poetry slams and energetic dance performances and drama. There is a vitality to literary and artistic production in the United States today that is remarkable, raw though it may be. And, because we are a new country, there has been, since its inception, a sense of freshness; we are not yet worn out by our classics. We will have plenty of time to lie back on our divans: but first, we must create our body of great literature. This sense of possibility, these many multicultural voices speaking out from all over the United States, is something one misses abroad. Where smaller countries respect mostly its mandarin writers, in the U.S, each region is alive with voices reflecting our immigrant populations, voices which find their way to be heard, regardless of “budget cuts” and other details that try to impede their expression. While big publishers, and big money, tethered together in giant conglomerates, attempt to dominate the marketplace, beneath this monolithic domination are other ways of being heard. So our encouragement of variety and vitality is appealing, the other side of the impressive and exquisite French literary and artistic Pantheon. Europe and the United States stand like two poles, emblematic of the tension between tradition and the present tense. Always one reflects on what one has left. There is always a price for the choice.
Sometimes melancholy, the solitude in the midst of a crowd, burns like a sickness in your body. Forever an outsider, you keep exploring your foreignness as one explores an aching tooth. How strange, this hole in one’s formerly complete existence, how dark with possibility, this ache.
Homesickness, a longing for family left behind, for friends, for one’s own language and setting,
for the familiarity of natural surroundings that comprise that complex concept “home;” is the subtext of living elsewhere. So many writers and artists have flocked to Paris over the centuries; some are political exiles, but many come because they are cultural exiles in their own lands. How to explain this, the feeling of alienation at home; the feeling of recognition of self that one finds in France. The Muse, whoever she is, lives and breathes on these humid streets, circling you in a death grip, her cold breath rising. You want to sob out your heart; you don’t know why or to whom. Instead you spill that fullness of emotion into your art, onto the canvas or the page. The Muse encircles you with promises: culture, literature, the fellowship of your own kind. You look at the many other exiled artists here, past and present, and they are your family now. Like them you are forever both participant and observer at the same moment. You have no choice but to accept and embrace that which has always been at the heart of your own existence: alienation, marginality, the soaring moments of pure epiphany, a yearning to create meaning out of difficult truths, the joy in doing so. Your life’s endeavor.
EDITOR’S NOTES: Kathleen Spivack is the author of The Break-Up Variations, The Beds We Lie In (Scarecrow 1986;) nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; The Honeymoon (Graywolf 1986;) Swimmer in the Spreading Dawn (Applewood 1981;) The Jane Poems (Doubleday 1973;) Flying Inland (Doubleday 1971;) Robert Lowell, A Personal Memoir; and a novel, Unspeakable Things. Published in over 300 magazines and anthologies, her work has also been translated into French.
Kathleen Spivack has taught in France full or half time for the past thirteen years.(1990-present)A Fulbright Professor in Creative Writing to France (1993-94), Ms. Spivack has been Visiting Professor at the University of Paris VII; VIII , the University of Francois Rabelais, Tours, the University of Versailles, and at the Ecole Superieure (Polytechnique). She has held grants from the National Endowment for the Arts; Massachusetts Artists Foundation; Bunting Institute; Howard Foundation; Massachusetts Council for the Arts and Humanities; is a Discovery winner and has been at Yaddo, MacDowell, Ragdale and Karolyi. She is currently Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rom.
In Boston and Paris she directs the Advanced Writing Workshop, an intensive training program for professional writers. She has read her work widely in both the United States and Europe. Ms. Spivack has been Writer-in-Residence, most recently at the University of New Mexico, 1995, gives theater performances and master classes. She has taught at conferences in Aspen, Santa Fe, Burgundy, and on the high seas, (Holland American Line). Email: mailto:[email protected]
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“DR. DEREK’S” ARCHITECT’S ADVICE AND SERVICES
If you have basic questions concerning apartment and home renovation, contact our resident expert Derek Bush by visiting https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/frenchproperty/insider/services.html
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TODAY’S CURRENCY UPDATE
A service of http://www.xe.com
Subscribe for free at: http://www.xe.com/cus/

Rates as of 2003.10.22 20:39:31 GMT.
Rates as of 2003.11.13 13:34:30 GMT.
1 U.S. Dollar equals Euro 0.856130 (0.874491 Euro last week)
1 Euro equals U.S. Dollar 1.16805 (1.14352 last week)
1 U.K. Pound equals Euro 1.44082 (1.45709 Euro last week)
1 Euro equals U.K. Pound 0.694048 (0.68630 last week)
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SEEKING A MORTGAGE IN FRANCE?
The International Living Paris Office can help you secure a mortgage in France with interest rates as low as 3.35%.
Visit https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/frenchproperty/loan for more information or contact us
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* FOR SALE: FPI HOT PROPERTY OF THE WEEK

We are constantly looking at properties for sale to offer to our subscribers only. Each week we will be bringing you one or two properties we believe are especially worth your consideration. As a subscriber, you will have an exclusive first look at these.
Properties sell very quickly in Paris. The best way to find the apartment or home of your dreams is to allow us to do a preliminary search before your arrival so that you visit only the best of the properties and can make a decision quickly.
To learn more about our property search services, visit: https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/frenchproperty/insider/propertyconsultation.html
** PARIS 2nd: LOGGIA VIEW OF MONTORGUEIL
A 37m2 single room apartment in the Montorgueil district of the 2nd Arrondisement. The apartment is in a building which has been totally
renovated (new build with period 19th-century façade) on the 4th floor
with a modern elevator (large!). Separate kitchen and bathroom and
large double séjour with parquet flooring with two 4m2 balconies. One
balcony is presented as a glass loggia and gives fine sidelong views
of the pedestrian streets below. In need of redecoration, the space
offers much scope for redesign to allow for a separate bedroom and
open kitchen. Parking space available in an underground lot.
Asking price 195,900 Euro + 2% Finder’s Fee
Serious enquiries to Montorgueil_Loggia
* FPI PROPERTY LISTINGS – SALE
All of the following apartments are for sale by owner. There are no agency fees incurred with the exception of a finders fee we place to connect you with the owner and assist you in the purchase. We have chosen two very high level properties and two very low level properties, but both in very rentable areas of the city, should you wish to make your investment profitable.
The prime rental neighborhoods are the 1st – 8th arrondissements, but each depending on location within each arrondissement. The most requested is the Ile Saint-Louis, second the 6th, third the 4th. The most expensive property in
the city is the Place des Vosges in the 4th, Ile Saint-Louis (also 4th) and the 6th arrondissement.
** PARIS 6th: A SENATORS PIED A TERRE
This apartment is for fitness obsessives as it is situated on the 7th floor without an elevator. Its four windows overlook the Luxemburg Gardens and the Senate. The apartment offers 25m2 in two rooms,
parquet flooring and individual kitchen in need of modernization. Electric heating and cellar. The WC is situated outside the apartment (this is the only apartment on that level) but could be incorporated
to create an extra room. The building has been restored and digicode security installed.
Asking Price 191,000 Euro + 2% Finder’s Fee
Serious enquiries to Senators
** PARIS 6th.: SHARE WITH IL ON HUCHETTE
32m2 Studio on rue de la Huchette in Paris’s historic and lively 6th. Arrondisement. On the 6th floor with an elevator (the elevator goes to floor 4½!) this ‘duplex’ apartment gives onto rue de la Huchette
and ‘the sky!’ Open beams and a fireplace give this renovated apartment a highly authentic atmosphere whilst digicode, interphone and cable bring you into the 21st century. Mezzanine bedroom.
Asking Price 243,800 Euro + 2% Finder’s Fee
Serious enquiries to Huchette_Duplex
** PARIS 4th. : TRIPLE LIVING IN THE MARAIS
Situated in the heart of the Marais on rue St. Paul, this apartment in ‘Triplex’ is on the ground, first and basement floors — a vaulted sitting room with a fireplace is situated in the basement. Offering
two bedrooms in a total of 86 metres squared, the property is also very close to the river on Quai des Celestins. This is a fabulous rental location directly across the street from Village St. Paul.
Plenty of living space with a 25 square-meter sejour and a glass-covered verandah. On the first floor is a well-appointed bedroom and bathroom. In addition, there is a small bedroom with a window on a
4th. level. A 3-bedroom town house in miniature.
Asking Price 510,000 Euro + 2% finder’s fee
Serious enquiries to Triplex
** PARIS 5th: A BALCONY ON CARDINAL LEMOINE
Recently renovated 50 square-meter apartment close to Métro Cardinal Lemoine in the 5th Arrondisement. The sejour is just under 30m2 with a fully equipped American kitchen, exposed stonework and a balcony. On the 4th floor with an elevator, this apartment has good west facing
light.
Asking Price 330,750 Euro + 2% Finder’s Fee
Serious enquiries to Lemoine_Balcony
** PARIS 4TH: ROI DE SICILE

A fine apartment of 35m2 in a good rental location on rue du Roi de Sicile, in the heart of the 4th arrondisement. On the 3rd floor (without elevator), the apartment looks onto Roi de Sicile (double glazing) and a good sized garden in the process of being landscaped. Original wood beams and exposed stonework in the main room give authentic 18th-century atmosphere. Open kitchen; separate bedroom; plenty of storage. A very well laid out apartment to maximize use of space.
Asking price 245,000 Euro + 2% Finders Fee
Serious enquiries to Roi_de_Sicile
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PARLER PARIS APRES MIDI MEETS TWICE A MONTH
NEXT MEETING: NEXT MEETING: November 25th AND EVERY SECOND AND FOURTH TUESDAY OF THE MONTH
This is your opportunity to meet twice a month, often with local professionals who can answer your Working and Living in France questions. You are invited to come for drinks and share your questions and comments about what it takes to create a life here, own property and enjoy what France has to offer. It is also an opportunity to network with other Parler Paris readers.
For a detail description of the past meeting and for more information about Parler Paris Après Midi, visitb https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/parlerparis/apresmidi.html
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INSIDER PARIS GUIDES DISCOUNT FOR FPI SUBSCRIBERS
Don’t forget that with your FPI subscription you are entitled to a discount on the purchase of any Insider Paris Guides. You’ll find details of the guides at http://www.insiderparisguides.com. When ordering, a box will pop up allowing you to enter the following username/password
Order more than one guide at a time and you will receive an additional discount!
Username: propertyinsider
Password: liveinfrance
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RENTING AN APARTMENT IN PARIS OR HAVE AN APARTMENT TO RENT?
If you are seeking to rent a furnished apartment for a week, a month or a year or you have an apartment you wish to rent, there are a couple of ways we can be of assistance. Click here for more information: https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/frenchproperty/insider/forrent.html
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THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW
– FPI Website: To access any password protected pages, the username is: fpiuser and the password is: paris1802. If your computer utilizes cookies, once you log into a subscriber only section, the login information will remain active for seven days, after which you will have to login again.
– Past issues of FPI are available on the website. You will find the “Past Issues” link on the left under “Subscribers Only” or by going to https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/frenchproperty/insider/subscribersonly/archives.cfm
– To re
ceive your free French Leaseback Report or the Paris Property Report, click on https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/frenchproperty/insider/subscribersonly/reports2003.cfm and download the pdf versions.
 
– Instructions for upcoming conference calls are on the FPI website. You’ll find the link under the “Subscribers Only” section on the left of any page.
– Get In On The Discussion: Care to weigh-in on current HOT topics of discussion on France? Get in on or start your own thread on our bulletin board at http://www.agora-inc.com/forums/index.cfm?cfapp=15
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CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING
==APARTMENT RENTAL==
In the heart of the Marais extremely charming 42 square meter studio with loft. Fireplace, exposed beams on a beautiful 17th century courtyard.
All amenities: telephone, fax, Internet, cable TV, washing machine, fully equipped kitchen, housekeeping once a week, piano allure
Métro: Arts et Métiers 600 euros per week / 2000 per month available year-round
Contact: Alexis Magaro
==APARTMENT RENTAL==
Elegant, Tasteful, Calm at Saint-Germain-des-Prés, 6th arrondissement, one bedroom apartment, sleeps 4. Amenities: Fireplace, Phone, Cable TV, Full Kitchen, Microwave, Refrigerator, Cooking Utensils provided, Linens provided, Washer & Dryer, Bathtub with Shower.
For more information, visit: https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/frenchproperty/insider/rentals/scott.html or contact FPI_Cherche_Midi_Rental
==APARTMENT RENTAL==
Stay in your own 17th-century pied-à-terre in the heart of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris, by the week or month. Sleeps 4. Newly furnished and redecorated. Totally charming. From $150 per night. Visit https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/frenchproperty/insider/rentals/mazarine.html or contact Rendez-Vous à Paris
 
==APARTMENT RENTAL==
Guest Room or Two-Bedroom Apartment Located in a 17th century Le Marais Hotel Particulier, this 70 square meter apartment two-bedroom apartment with lots of light is nicely furnished and is perfect for a single woman in the freshly renovated guest room when owner Adrian Leeds is in or for up to 4 people when she’s traveling.
The Guest Room is offered at $575 per week ($250 deposit required). The Entire Apartment is offered at $875 per week ($350 deposit required). References are mandatory.
Pictures and more details available at https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/parlerparis/apartments/rentals/leeds.html
For information and reservations email: ABLguestroom
== FOR SALE ==
DUPLEX ON THE LEFT BANK
Paris Left Bank — 13th arrondissement bordering the 5th, duplex on the 3rd and last floor plus a loft, total 87 m2 with 71m2 Loi Carrez (above 1.8m2). Quiet, sunny, lots of character (wood beams, traditional staircase) with stairs from living room to loft. Main bedroom downstairs overlooking east courtyard and living room overlooking rue Pascal. Two rooms upstairs, living room 27m2, toilet/shower/bath separate, equipped kitchen, storage room, cellar, double glazed windows and pine wooden floors. Rental history 1850 euro per month.
Asking Price: 445,000 euro
Call for private sale: +33 (0) 6.74.98.08.27 or Email: Duplex_on_the_Left_Bank
==APARTMENT RENTAL==
2 lovely apartments in the 1st arrondissment across the street from the Tuileries Gardens, 3 minutes form the Place Vendome. Available for rent by the week or longer term: 6 months to 1 year. 2-3 bedroom duplex w. 2 baths/ Tuileries view. OR 1-2 bedroom same building. Both are elevator accessible, non-smoking and no pet properties.
To check them out and for reservation and contact information go to http://www.youlloveparis.com.
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HELPFUL CONVERSIONS FOR REAL ESTATE
To convert square meters to square feet, multiply 10.763 by 3.281 and for more conversions, refer to:
http://www.onlineconversion.com
================================
SUBSCRIBE TO PARLER PARIS
If you’re not a regular reader of the Parler Paris daily e-letter, and would like to be, simply enter your e-mail address here (it’s free!): http://www.internationalliving.com/signup.cfm
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Copyright 2003, Agora Ireland Publishing & Services Ltd.

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