The Deluge

My aunt Sue and uncle Pat visited Paris this weekend along with their friend Heike from Munich. Wednesday was spent perusing the Champs-Elysees, where we happened upon a free Zazie concert and the French premiere of Letters from Iwo Jima (almost saw Clint Eastwood!). Thursday we enjoyed the perfect view from the top of the Tour Montparnasse (the only thing missing from the view is the ugly Tour Montparnasse itself), and savoured a 10 bite-sized course meal at none other than L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon (apparently he's a big deal).

Friday Pat contracted Napoleon's revenge and was forced to pass the day running between my bedroom and my bathroom, meanwhile Sue and I checked out designer furniture after finding the Musée d'Orsay closed indefinitely due to a strike.

Saturday Pat was back to life and I had planned out a full day of sightseeing to make up for the lost day. First, the Louvre, then lunch in Saint Michel, followed by Notre Dame, the Centre Pompidou, and a classic ending at Sacre Coeur overlooking all of Paris at night. After Notre Dame Sue caught a cab back because, "I can't believe how many stairs there are here. I feel like I've been to the gym three days in a row!" NOTE: Sue insists she lost weight over her 5 days here, and people wonder why Parisians are slim.

Pat, Heike and I wished Sue off and continued sightseeing. About half an hour later my phone rings, it's Sue:
"Erin, you've gotta come back, there's this massive flood in your apartment."
"What? What do you mean there's a flood?"
"There's water spraying everywhere out of the kitchen; I can't even get in to see where it's coming from it's coming so fast. You gotta call your super."
"I don't think I have a super. My landlord doesn't even live in Paris."
"Well call a plumber or someone cuz this is out of control."

I convey the preposterous news to Pat and Heike, then fish my landlord's number out of my wallet and begin to contemplate how to articulate something of this magnitude in French. I definitely don't know the French word for "leak," but I know "water," and I remember "flow" from a Apollinaire poem I had to memorize in high school. "There is water flowing in the kitchen" should get the point across. In any case, my landlord proves to be useless; she doesn't know of a plumber or of anyone else in the building to contact.

We finally get back to my building and are greeted with water slowly trickling down the stairwell and down the elevator shaft. Holy fuck. We push through the crowd of neighbors occupying the stairwell and make it to the 3rd floor, ground zero. Sue informs us that some handy neighbor with long hair and glasses has turned off the building's water, and thus stopped the flooding, but in order to turn the water back on I need to call a plumber asap. Just then there is a knock on the door; it's long hair and glasses; he has called a plumber, god bless him. He wants to speak with my landlord. I get her on the phone and give it to him. They do not seem to get along. He hands me the phone back after a bit and scowls, "She's not very nice, is she?" I get back on the phone with my landlord, who whines, "He's not nice at all, is he?" I choose to politely agree with both of them. I haven't used the formal "vous" form this much in my entire time in Paris.

The plumber arrives, a short young mustachioed dude with a shaved head. He acts as if spending his Saturday night fixing my leak is not a bummer at all. He assures me I did nothing wrong; the coupling on the tank was simply old and calcified. It's supposed to be replaced every 3 years or so, but this one looks like it's 8 to 10 years old.

Meanwhile neighbors keep poking their heads in to find out why their water has been shut off, or for a few lucky winners, why their flat is soaking wet. At this point my aunt is bundled up on the futon trying to warm up after being soaked in the initial blast. My uncle and Heike are drinking wine and occasionally interacting with spectators while I continue to juggle between the plumber, long hair and glasses, and my landlord on the phone.

Finally the plumber finishes his temporary fixit and turns the building's water back on. He'll have to come back Monday to replace the tank and until then my flat will be without hot water. He takes me aside and asks if I have renter's insurance.
"Uhh, no, I don't have any insurance. I never even signed a lease. I just live here with this guy who's a friend of the owner's family. Nothing's official; I can't even prove that I live here."
"OK, well Monday morning you should go with your roommate first thing to get insurance. I'll date my report later in the week so it'll be covered."
"Won't the insurance company figure that out?"
"Nah, that's how we do in France."
"But why should my insurance be the issue here. Aren't things like plumbing the responsibility of the owner, not the tenant? Doesn't she have insurance?"
"She says she's not sure, and in any case you're supposed to be insured so you gotta take care of that on Monday."
"She's not sure? How can she not be sure?"

My roommate Antoine, who is conveniently home for the weekend calls:
"What's going on? Corine (the landlord) called me, she asked if I had insurance. I don't have insurance. We are totally screwed. My dad is gonna kill me."
"Antoine, I'll call you back."

The landlord calls:
"Erin, I need you to pay the plumber and I'll pay you back when I come into Paris on Monday."
"OK, and what's the deal with the insurance?"
"You need to get insurance as soon as possible."
"Why didn't you tell me I needed this insurance when I moved in?"
"I should have; just get it on Monday and I think everything will be OK."

The plumber almost sits on what appears to be a pile of blankets but is really my shivering aunt. She pokes a hand out from her cocoon and waves "Hi" just in time. He chooses to remain standing and adds up the bill:
"The total including tonight and Monday will be 1283 euros. I need 600 of that tonight and the rest on Monday."
"I don't know if I have 600 euros to give you."
"Well if not you can write me a check for the whole thing and I promise I won't cash it as long as I get a check from your landlord on Monday."

ACCOUNT BALANCE: 554 euro. I am less than thrilled about the prospect of writing a check for more than twice the money I have in my French bank account.

Thankfully, just then, Amory shows up. This is good news both because he is a friend of mine and my landlord's son. Incidentally, he lives downstairs in a freshly watered apartment. Poor guy. He says he'll write the check on behalf of his mother. I am saved.

The plumber wishes us all a good evening. Long hair and glasses and the other neighbors return to their respective flats. I catch Amory before he leaves.
"So what's the deal with this whole thing? Am I gonna have to pay for all this? This wasn't my fault. Shouldn't your mom's insurance pay for this? I can't pay for this. I can't even prove that I live here."
"No no, I mean, I don't think you'll have to pay. My mom will have to figure this out. All the arrangements are really hazy I know (the word he used was "flou" meaning blurry, ethereal, unclear). It's the same downstairs with me and my cousin, who owns the flat. Don't worry about it; it'll be alright."

48 hours later I think he was largely right. I have a brand spanking new water heating, and the damage to my flat is minimal, the microwave might be fried, but otherwise all that was ruined was some tea and a cookbook. The water shot out of the leak so quickly that it didn't have time to stick around chez moi. Downstairs, chez Amory, however is another story. There the water trickled down through the ceiling and into the walls. The paint is cracked and bits of drywall have begun to crumble off. The electricity has been shut off for fear of starting a fire. Even on the first floor water is dripping from the light fixtures in the ceiling. I'm not sure who's paying for this but I'm pretty sure it's not me. Antoine rigged something up with an insurance company, and they said they'd backdate coverage for our flat to before "the incident." The landlord stopped by today and in so many words thanked me for dealing with everything.

Yesterday morning, right before my aunt and uncle caught their flight back to New York, we all enjoyed a pleasant brunch and rehashed the events of the night prior. The four of us were quickly hysterically laughing recounting the look on the plumber's face when he almost sat on my aunt, or the look on a neighbor's face when my uncle mustered up what little French he could remember to ask "Do you speak French?" We decided the whole incident could make a great sitcom episode starring John Leguizamo as the plumber, Hilary Swank as me, and Lily Tomlin and Jon Favreau as my aunt and uncle. Long hair and glasses would have a cameo as himself.

French Kids Say the Darndest Things...

During a lesson about American high-school curricula:

Me: What do you think "Social Studies" is?
Kid: Euuhhh, Segolène Royale? (French leftist presidential candidate)
Me: Hah no, nice try, but it's not "Socialist Studies."

French Kids Say the Darndest Things...

Kid: But how do American universities decide who to accept if there is no standard exam?
Me: Well, you submit a dossier including all of your activities, sports, clubs, jobs, summer trips, career plans, and anything else they ask for.
Kid: That sounds like prison!

Vendredi soir

Stage 1: Perusing Near Eastern antiquities at the Louvre with Saul and Keith (free youth night). I tried really hard to offer what little knowledge I have of the archaeology of Iran, Iraq etc. without coming off as a know-it-all. I might have gone a bit far when I started quizzing Saul on my explanation of the origins of cuneiform. Incidentally, he did not pass.

Stage 2: Pasta and tequila chez moi. In a blind taste test all three of us preferred presumably crappy 10 euro tequila to presumably superior 50 dollar tequila (the latter a generous gift from a friend who had visited). I find this incredibly perplexing and shameful. Though it's nice to know my 10 euro tequila is palatable, it's distressing to find my palate is not nearly as discerning as I'd hoped. We controlled for a variety of factors--salt, lime, sipping versus shooting--the results were consisted across the board. If nothing else, the rigorous nature of this test did produce sufficient inebriation.
Quote of the night:
Keith- "Hey, are your roommate and his friend gay?"
Me- "No. What makes you think they're gay?"
Keith- "Hm, I guess it's mostly the way they were dressed. Come to think of it, I don't know if I'd be able to distinguish a gay French guy from a straight one."

Stage 3: Party at cité universitaire, the campus for international students in southern Paris. Each country essentially has a dorm, it's sort of like a bizarre combination of Epcot center and the Greek row at your average American university. As we wandered around looking for the party the conversation went something like:
Me- "Where the hell is this party?"
Saul- "The text message I got says it's at the American dorm."
Keith- "Well that's Canada and that's Germany. I think America is somewhere over here."
Me- "Man, it's a small world after all."

OK fine, I didn't actually think to say that at the time, but I wish I had...

Stage 4: The long trek home. The party ended abruptly and inconveniently at 4am. The Paris metro is closed from 12:30-5:30am so it really would have been nice if the party had lasted a measly hour and a half longer. Cité universitaire isn't all that far from where I live, but I had to hop on a night bus that went up to central Paris in order to catch another night bus that went down to my neighborhood in the 15th. I fell asleep on the second bus and woke up in time to find myself in Boulogne, sufficiently past where I was supposed to have gotten off. To add insult to injury it was raining. By this point it was almost 5:30 so I decided to take the metro home, which required three line changes. I finally got home at 6am drenched, exhausted, and my belly still full of an odd mix of high and low quality tequilas.