It may seem from what I've been telling you that living here in Paris has been non-stop excitement, glamour and glory. Would I lie to you? But then you have to do laundry.
We actually do have a washer and dryer in the apartment. In fact they inhabit the same small body, a combination machine tucked away under the counter in the bathroom. A full load for our little helper would be a sheet, with maybe some underwear thrown in for balance. Toss a towel in as well and you're pushing its limits. To wash this load requires about one hour and ten minutes.
Yes, that's right, over an hour. And then you have to dry it. Depending on just what you have in there, you can select ten minutes, thirty minutes, fifty minutes, or more. Ten minutes to dry virtually anything is to laugh. Suffice it to say that the 50 minute button is the most often used, and that sometimes several times in a row.
You will recall that we just washed and dried a sheet. One sheet. OK, maybe I exaggerate. There may have been a couple of pillowcases as well. There's usually another sheet still to do, not to mention the towels. And the shirts. And the T-shirts. And the undies, although usually we hang those to dry on the nifty towel-warmer bars they have here. And of course the jeans.
So when people ask us how we spend our time in Paris, we lie. We're actually doing laundry.
