Place at the Top

I’ve finally settled into my cute little Paris apartment. I love living like a Parisian for two weeks each year. I call it my Place at the Top because it’s a FIVE story walkup. No problem with eating Pain Chocolate, or Crepe’s Fromage. Maybe this is why the French are slender even though everything you eat here is filled with butter, cream, cheese or all three. I wonder how many of these gorgeous skinny Frenchys are climbing 4 or 5 flights daily?


I learned quickly not to forget anything once I left the apartment and to get everything I need while I’m out. The first day I had to go up and down 5 times. First, to get groceries, the second because I forgot my phone, the third because I forgot my umbrella, the fourth when I got back from the site, and the fifth when I came back from dinner! That equals TWENTY FIVE flights of stairs in one day! I don’t mind telling you that the last time up I was going pretty slowly. Hopefully I’ll be running up them when I leave in 14 days, and I’ll go back to Los Angeles looking like a skinny French girl!

On the plus side, my windows look out onto Boulevard St. Germain, the main street running through the St. Germain-des-Pres quarter. This quarter has been the intellectual and cultural site for Parisian life since the 1930’s. The rich and the trendy mingle with artists, authors, and philosophers at clubs, brasseries and upscale shops that line the Boulevard.

I love this area and know it well. I’ll take you on a tour of the shops, small streets and café’s later this week, but now I think it’s time to go to the site.

The metro station is right across the street, its 7 metro stops and a ten minute walk to Roland Garros.

The US started out with 19 players and is down to 15 with four wins and four losses. This is good news, definitely an improvement over last year’s showing when none of the Americans made it past the first round.

Harkleroad, Querrey, Ditty, and Osterloh, will be packing their bags, while The Sisters, Blake and Odesnik prepare for their next match. Odesnik, unseeded and currently ranked 106, scored a 7-6, 7-6, 7-6, 10-8 nail biter over 29th seed Guillermo Canas.

This is Odesnik’s first appearance here and he is the one U.S. player that loves to slide around in the dirt. He’ll play Hyung-Taik Lee in the next round and if he prevails in that match, he will probably meet Djokovic in the third round. Djokovic is scheduled to play Miguel Angel Lopez Jaen of Spain in the second, and the book is that he will advance, but of course there are always upsets at Roland Garros, so we will just have to wait and see how it goes.

Venus survived a little scare in her opening round match. She won the first and was up 4-1 in the second but dropped the set to 35 year old Tzipora Obziler of Israel. Umbrellas were up as rain drops fell on the court and threatened to stop the match in the third, but Venus stepped up her play and won the set 6-2.

After Venus I headed for the Isner/Chela match. Isner won the first two sets, but rain stopped play in the third. I decided this would be a great time to get a bite to eat since it was already 5PM and I hadn’t had lunch, so I headed to the food court where fans huddled under umbrellas meant to shade them from the sun. The food was closed down and it was ten deep at the bar, so I packed it in for the day and headed back to my Place at the Top.