A château, a hamlet, and a Parisian apartment

C’est fait; I have moved to Paris. I am living in Paris in the springtime (cue music). One day in the near future I will be able to say sentences that start with ‘when I lived in Paris’. I’ll know ‘this little place in the 15è arrondissement’. I might even develop a truly Parisian sneer. I’m already on board with their uniform of black jeans layered with a black top and black jacket, and maybe the odd bit of grey on a very joyous occasion. It’s surreal. I feel a little bit like I’m playing at being a Parisian adult and at some point someone will collect me and tell me it’s home time, but until then, I’m rolling with it.

Yesterday I visited the château of Versailles. It was as grand and overbearing as one might expect from Europe’s largest château, although in many ways I preferred its vast preened gardens to the almost blindingly gold interior. You can rent a golf buggy to drive around Versailles, which I was massively keen to do until I found out you have to be 24 for the privilege. Not a proper adult yet, then. The perfect age to visit Versailles, I have calculated, is 24 or 25, the only two years where you can get in for free if you’re an EU citizen, and get to whizz a golf buggy around the gardens.

Better still than the gardens themselves was Marie-Antoinette’s little hamlet, located in the North of the Versailles complex. What I loved most about this was not exactly the buildings of the hameau, cute and rustic though they were, but the entire concept behind them. Frivolous Mazza (as her friends definitely didn’t call her) escaped bustling Paris to the château of Versailles, then had to escape the château to a smaller massive palace, the Grand Trianon, then to the Petit Trianon, and finally jacked in the whole living-in-a-castle business. To be fair it must have been terrible. Instead, she ordered that a hamlet be built for her in the gardens, so she could play at being a peasant. Like the best game of pretend ever, only she was 28 at the time so you’d think she could have plenty of fun riding one of the golf buggies instead.

This hamlet was built on almost exactly the same site where a previous village was razed to build the Grand Trianon, so it seems like a lot of hassle could have been saved by just going to live there in the first place. No wonder they chopped her head off.

Back in Paris, I’m trying to apply Mazza’s love of the simple life hameau philosophy to our little slice of Parisian real estate, which is, er, basic, to put it generously. The area is wonderful, the local boulangerie does fabulous croissants, and we have TWO local fromageries. But the flat is fairly typically Parisian; there are many things that do work, but in a slightly “quirky” way. They quirk. Not bad, just not brilliant. Still, I suppose this is to be expected of a huge city on a minuscule student budget, and mostly I’m just happy to be living with a good friend, near cheese. I’ve got a week to get myself in order, then I’m off to work on Monday, joining la foire d’empoigne (rat race, or literally the funfair of grabbing) as I metro off to my actual job. Dressed in monochrome, bien sûr.