Inside / Outside

(These opinions are solely my own.)

Street doors

In my experience, most of the older residential buildings in Paris are built on a courtyard system. A set of massive doors face the street. Through those doors is a passageway, often containing mailboxes and such, with yet another wall or barrier at the end of that hallway.  One key-code (or, less commonly now, one physical key) opens the outer doors, another opens the inner doors. Then, of course, there are keys to each apartment.

The building containing my apartment  is exactly so. One code to open the outer doors, another to open the inner ones, then two keys for my apartment.

Many apartments in such a building face into an inner courtyard area which is usually quiet and calm. Often there are ornamental plants growing there. Other apartments face the street and usually have double-paned glass in the windows, to block most street sounds.

My apt is a street-facing one this time, and has all-day light and cheerfulness because of that. The courtyard-facing apartments are, I’m sure, quieter but also darker.

For those of you who’ve ventured to New Orleans, it’s constructed this way as well.

There’s a sharp demarcation in Paris between “out there” — the street, the outside world of travel and business — and “in here,” the world of home, calm and family.

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A few further Paris observations.

Vaping (using electronic cigarettes) is dead here too, as I observed in London. Almost no one uses E-cigs, and nearly all the stores selling them — which were so numerous last year — are gone.

Most men I see on the street are carrying some kind of shoulder-bag or have a backpack. I guess men have more stuff to haul around than they used to.  (Hey, I walk around with a backpack too — water, ‘phone, light jacket, small umbrella, notebook, sunscreen, etc. Gotta have your items.)

EVERYTHING IS A STREET.  Anywhere a car, moped, motorcycle, bicycle can go, it WILL go. Which basically means, you are never safe as a pedestrian.  You can never lower your guard. This has been the case since my first trips to France.

Pedestrians – Attention!