Apéro With Scott

You may recall Scott, with whom we had some drinks on our first real day here. Yesterday Scott invited us up to his apartment for apéro and then we’d go out to dinner. Yes, we are still pinching ourselves at our incredible luck at connecting with this group of people.

We arrived at about 7pm. So drinks and nibbles at 7pm would of course mean dinner much later than that. Yet another data point that Caroline is settling in to Paris life and might no longer be in the ‘Early Bird Special Club’. Scott welcomed us and showed us around his lovely apartment. I was coveting his kitchen. He did have a bit of an ulterior motive: since he knew we were looking at apartments to rent he wanted our opinion, as he is thinking of renting this apartment out later in the year. And give our opinion we did. His apartment is fantastic, and if he were renting it now, we would have snatched it up. But, he won’t be ready to rent it out until late spring/early summer, and that’s just too late for us. C’est dommage.

After chatting and snacks and killing a bottle of wine(!), we left his building and he walked us around, showing us around Monmartre.

Speaking of which, this is what you see when you walk to the end of his block:

He lives smack dab in the middle of the fabric district (Marché Saint-Pierre), which was very quiet after all the merchants close up.

But he is right next to the tourist craziness of Sacré Cœur. Exhibit A being that picture just above. As we walked around, he pointed out one incredibly busy street and said “There are about two million Eiffel Towers for sale down there”, and I think he was low-balling that number.

Our stroll took us to Chez Toinette where we had a lovely dinner. And also killed another bottle of wine.

After our meal, Scott took us to Chez Camille (they only have a facebook page. Sorry, not linking to that crap), a funky little bar filled with mid-century American music memorabilia. We had another drink, and then we said our good-byes and headed home. Thankfully, it was early enough that the Métro was still running. On a Saturday night service stop at about 1:30AM.

A wonderful (and unexpected) evening. It was worth the hangover.