What Will I Be Wearing In December?

As I pack my bags to return to Paris after a long absence (23 weeks to be exact), I am faced with the necessity to be clairvoyant.

What do I need to bring with me for the next few months? It's hot and sunny here, so I have to imagine that it's cold, rainy and dark. Then, I have to find these things in stores in Southern California in August.

It's all because of the Euro vs. the dollar, a popular blog complaint for me. Today I changed dollars at the fantastic rate of $1.497. I was elated until I realized that two years ago, it was at $1.18.

Even if the exchange rate were lower, I would probably try to buy most of my clothes in the US. It is much easier to shop with a car nearby. I get so tired trying to shop in Paris. And, if I buy a lot of stuff, I have to cart it all home.

I was regaling my sister with stories about our first days in Paris when we had to equip our apartment from scratch. We bought pillows, blankets, sheets, towels, bathmats, dishes, pots and pans and utensils in one outing at Montparnasse. We didn't know it would be hard to get a cab and we were so loaded down that we couldn't walk more than 10 steps without dropping something. We waited at a cab stand, no cab. We called a cab, no cab.

Other people got in line behind us, all with their own ideas about how to get cabs. It probably took 45 minutes for a cab to come and we were very grateful to get all our bounty back to our apartment.

This, of course, was in the days of the $0.98 Euro. Those days are gone forever, I fear.