Chez Panda

WE'RE SO EXCITED!

We found an apartment! For the 9 months we will be living in Paris, you'll be able to find us on Rue de Belleville:

View Belleville in a larger map

Located in the 19th arrondisement, Belleville is close enough to the center of Paris to be convenient but not too close to be out of our price range. [Speaking of the center of Paris, did you hear about the guy who bought a parking spot for $654,000!?]

You can read about Belleville online (this podcast and blog in particular), but the short story is that it's a diverse neighborhood composed of many different immigrant groups (more Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese in the eastern part ("our" part), more North Africans and Arabs in the western part (a few blocks away)). There are tons of great supermarkets with super cheap Asian food, and on the nearby Rue Rebeval are many up-and-coming gourmet restaurants. Many people seem to point out that the area isn't your typical, "picture-perfect" Parisian quartier, but I'm more inclined to see it as a preview of what the future holds (for Paris and elsewhere). And in any case, there are plenty of fine, local boulangeries and patisseries, which is all we really care about.

As for our apartment, it's a recently refurbished one-bedroom with its own private courtyard garden and parking space. Go ahead, check it out!

The red, leather loveseat converts into a single bed, and we'll probably pick up an air mattress so we can host more than one person at a time. We hope you'll come visit!