Paris du Jour: Coffee and Coiffures

Our first weekend in our apartment was weird. Moving in wasn't at all like moving as we only had clothes, camera gear and a couple of computers. Oh...and a coffee grinder! And whole coffee beans.

I did not pack a blow dryer but I did bring a travel sized flat iron. I thought I would buy a blow dryer there and use the transformer with the flat iron. Or maybe buy a flat iron. I hadn't fully sussed that one out. We planned on brewing our American coffee in the morning, just like at home, but while staying at the hotel we discovered our transformer was broken.

In order to survive in Paris, and I truly mean survive because how can one even begin to think let alone survive without coffee in the morning, we needed to solve the coffee problem. And the hair! Who wants to survive, even with coffee, if every day is a bad hair day? Solutions to both these problems were a top priority.

As I perused the offerings in our "fully equipped" apartment I discovered a blow dryer in the bathroom. Yay! None of that wimpy 900W must-hold-in-the-button-whilst-drying blow dryer business. From now on my hair will be dry in 2 minutes. Problem solved! BUT...what about the flat iron? A partially bad hair day is better than a full bad hair day, so I'm still jonesing for a flat iron. I need to either find and buy a transformer or buy a flat iron.

The kitchen comes with a Russell Hobbs coffee maker. It uses ground coffee and filters, just like our Mr. Coffee at home. Actually, I am convinced that Russell Hobbs is Mr. Coffee's real name. So with a broken transformer, we will need ground coffee. Or we can look for a transformer and use the coffee and grinder I brought. Or we can try to buy a coffee grinder.

With these things in mind, our Friday night was spent going to Quatre Temps, the BIG mall at La Defense. We know there is a Darty there (akin to Best Buy I guess) and we figure they might have a transformer, or a coffee grinder and surely they have a flat iron.

Darty for a 1/3 win. We got a flat iron. No transformers. No coffee grinders.

We went back out into the mall and found a mall map, a very cool interactive mall map that you can set to English. We found several housewares stores - so we set off looking for a coffee grinder. We found coffee grinders - but they were industrial size and cost over 100 Euros. Um no. That won't do.

However, on the way out of the last housewares store, we found another electronics shop and lo and behold, there was the transformer!

Our 'fully equipped" apartment is missing a lot of things, but there's time now to take stock and fill the coffers. We will have our coffee and we will be perfectly coiffed.