The chateau for which we swapped our Manhattan apartment is lovely. It has a dining room and salon fit for a palace, and five large, stately bedrooms decorated with period antiques. The home-owners have been renovating since purchasing the chateau six years ago. Many amenities are new and modern, but a 200-year old house always has quirks. Since coming here, we have discovered some of them.
THE COLDEST WINTER I EVER SPENT WAS A SUMMER IN BRITTANY
As usual on home exchange, we always expect something will go wrong. Just as in our own home, we use ingenuity to solve the problem. In this case, it took two days for the ancient radiator system to heat up enough that we did not feel cold when downstairs. The upstairs bedrooms are still not warm but we found extra blankets and are comfortable.
I know it sounds odd that we are cold with July just around the corner, but this is Northern France, not the Mediterranean! We actually needed to buy sweaters for the children since we did not think to bring any. Since this is the first day of the bi-annual French sale period we were able to get some lovely clothing for just a few Euros per piece.
APPLIANCES
Just before leaving, the home-owners decided to move the clothes washer and dryer next to each other and plug them into one outlet using a two-plug adapter. The ancient electrical system of the chateau did not like this. When I attempted to wash my own clothing while simultaneously drying the laundry my swap partners had left in the washer the outlet shorted. I notified the owners and they suggested getting an extension cord and using a different outlet (with just one machine plugged in at a time). That is working fine.
FLEXIBILITY
When you are a home exchanger, things may not go exactly as you planned. But even if the washer shorts out and you can't fix it, remember that in a hotel room you would not have your own laundry machines. Nor would you have five luxurious bedrooms and a mile-long view of a verdant valley, as we do here. Appliance fun aside, the 40th Birthday Home Exchange is just as fabulous as we had hoped.
SUBSCRIBE NOW
You can subscribe to this blog to receive each day's post. Just enter your email below :
No comments:
Post a Comment