Trading Spaces

Ottawa Citizen Saturday, December 27, 2003
Edmonton Journal Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Calgary Herald Saturday, February 14, 2004

By Barbara Carver of Victoria, B.C.

With a home exchange, I lived free in Paris

Last summer I was a Parisian. My family and I would wake up in the morning to the sound of pigeons in the courtyard garden, and I'd head out to my neighbourhood boulangeries for butter croissants and pain au chocolate. I'd make cafe au lait for Jeff and me in the kitchen, and we'd enjoy our petit dejeuner with the sound of French sirens, delivery trucks and neighbours in the street below. I shopped for cheese, dinner and wine in the specialty food stores along Rue Cler, and I visited the cafe next door for an afternoon kir or a quick cafe. I loved my new life, even if only for a month.

 The best part was that it was free. It was our first house exchange, and it's the only way I want to travel from now on.

 I started planning the previous September, after discovering it was a done thing among several friends and neighbours. I checked the website (www.homelink.org) and I was hooked. Ian would be 13, Carrie would start Grade 12 in September, and this would be our last "family" holiday. For 10 years, we camped around B.C., great adventures all, but I wanted my kids to see some of the world, be in a minority, taste great food, live in a city that was itself a monument to art and discover a place that both Jeff and I had loved as travellers in our 20s. It was a good plan -- and despite the fact neither of the kids liked Paris at the end of it, I consider it a great success.

I think a house exchange is the perfect holiday. You have a comfortable home base, you get to know a neighbourhood, and if your hosts are like-minded, they will introduce you to their lives. You also spend at least one minute every day thinking about how much money you're saving -- which justifies the occasional outrageous splurge (like a rainy-day lunch of French Onion Soup and frites at Au Pied du Cochon that cost $120 Cdn. But hey, we weren't paying for a hotel!).

It is also a leap of faith, and a reminder of the real joy of travel -- meeting strangers who quickly become friends, who share their lives and their homes. Based on a few e-mails with a stranger half way around the world, the kids and I arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport after a long and exhausting overnight flight from the West Coast. We hopped a cab into the city, a little worried about what our new home would be like. Heading in on the highway, passing an IKEA, factories and endless suburbia, the kids wondered why anyone would think this was such a beautiful city. Our driver took an exit ramp, and the next thing, we were bumping over cobblestones as we whipped around the Arc de Triumph. The look on the kids' face was worth the cost of the airfare right there.

Odile met us on the sidewalk, and we were reassured. When we got to the apartment, we were overwhelmed. It was clean, large, beautiful and comfortable. It had a modern kitchen, five bedrooms, four bathrooms with various combinations of sinks, toilets, bidets, showers and bathtubs. Fabrice and Odile showed us around our new home: don't run more than three kitchen appliances at a time; no "wets" in the garbage chute; lift the flushbox lid to stop the running toilet; which remote control turns on what piece of technology in the living room; and please use tablecloths and placemats to protect the 200-year-old dining room table.

Then came the surprise: despite our agreement, they would not be travelling to Canada the next week as planned. Could they hold their part of the "exchange" open for a year? A spontaneous trip to Africa had blown their travel budget. For a minute, my jet-lagged brain couldn't figure out where everyone would sleep. But Odile and the children were heading to their place in Brittany, and Fabrice, who was working in Paris through the week, would stay at his Mom's house in Versailles. They gave us cellphone numbers in case of emergencies, passed us the keys to the apartment, told us which of the three neighbourhood grocery stores was best, kissed us all on both cheeks and left us to start our new lives.

Hmmmm, I thought heading for the shower. I think I like house exchanges.



Our new home was in the 7th Arrondisement, smack dab between the Eiffel Tower and Les Invalides, a five-minute walk from the metro, and surrounded by restaurants, shops and markets. After a late dinner, we'd wander across one of the bridges to watch la Tour sparkle with lights, a leftover from the millennium celebrations. Parisians might think it was tacky, but I loved it. We'd walk to Rue Cler, four blocks away, to buy olives and olive oil, our daily allotment of fromage, fresh fruit and vegetables, half a roast duck and maybe some fois gras. I learned to scorn the three- or four-Euro bottles and splurge just a little. Spending the equivalent of $12 to $16 Cdn. bought incredible wines. Besides, we could afford it: we had free accommodations!

We also had wonderful adventures, the kind you can only have in Paris. One Sunday, wandering around the Latin Quarter with the kids, we stopped at Shakespeare and Company, the 50-year-old legend in English-language bookstores. We poked through the main-floor shelves, reading the signs and looking for new books. My daughter was taking photos at every turn. The young Australian man behind the desk watched us for about an hour, then offered this tip: "George is hosting a tea party upstairs. There should still be time before the last serving at 4. Go on up." We headed for the narrow, steep staircase, and met "George" on the landing.

According to popular rumour, George Whitman, the owner, is a great-grandnephew of the famous American poet, Walt Whitman. He's an old man himself now, and quite the sight in his short shorts and saggy ankle socks, carefully balancing a sugar dish and a plate of cookies on a tray as he climbed the last twisty flight of stairs. We followed him into a sitting room on the top floor, with its magnificent eye-level view of Notre Dame through old French windows framed by wrought iron. The walls were lined with bookshelves, photos and built-in benches. We sat and spent the next hour drinking sweet, strong tea and talking books and movies with a curious mix of customers and travellers.

Then George stopped serving tea and started setting the table for dinner. The party was over.

On the Road

When we set up our exchange, we arranged to include the vehicles. By Week Three, we were ready to visit friends in Brittany. Fabrice made sure the car was in top mechanical condition -- we'd done the same for him before we left. Knowing we were nervous, he took us for a drive out of the city the evening before we left. We headed down the right bank of the Seine and onto the autoroute, with Fabrice identifying turnoffs and markers. The next evening, we were in a classically beautiful Breton town on the south coast of the peninsula. Once outside Paris, driving was an absolute pleasure. Twisting our way through the narrow Breton roads, breathtaking views round every turn, I found myself thinking that the next exchange should be here.

A Great Adventure With Kids

I had high hopes taking the kids to France. Ian would discover food and broaden his palate past microwave soups and Tim Hortons' chili. Carrie would learn to appreciate the classics and the joy of small museums. I wanted them to love a city that I loved, to want to see the world with their own eyes. And I wanted them to know that it could be done.

Well, it didn't work out exactly as planned. Ian did not want to be away from home in the first place, and pretty much stayed in the apartment -- except for dinner, trips to the video store and Brittany. Carrie got tired of the big city and declares Paris to be grey and ugly, not worthy of a return visit. Once the heatwave of 2003 hit, no one was particularly eager to explore, and by the end of the trip, all they wanted to do was get home.

But a month after our return, if I listened carefully, I could hear what I was looking for: The kids had very strong opinions about what they saw; they tried to understand when things were different; they appreciated the hospitality of our hosts, and every one of the small efforts many Parisians made toward them; Carrie loved Brittany and would love to return; they look at Canada as a fabulous place to live now; they express regret about the things they didn't do. They watch the video Amelie with familiar eyes, and when Ian's class talked about Versailles one day, he knew what it was about. It was a month of gentle exploration. Some days, we did nothing more "Parisian" than shop for groceries. But that's exactly the holiday I wanted.
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        Making

How to do it
Join Homelink.org Pay the fee, follow the instructions online. We got cancellation insurance to make us feel better, but I wouldn't count on it. Skip the online pic, but do the website - even a rough site gives people a sense of your home and your community.

Solicit far and wide. Don't expect people to flock to your doorstep: take the first step. Of the 80 emails I sent out, we had about 10 offers that we could have seriously considered. I received only one email from someone I hadn't contacted first. Don't be discouraged: consider it a shopping expedition.

Once you've finalized the exchange and booked the dates, contact a travel agent to watch for cheap flights. In February, our agent booked us on Air Canada for $1200 per person, everything included, Victoria B.C. - Paris, return. Not bad for July/August travel.

If you're not traveling together, Mom and Dad should carry a notarized letter from each other parent giving permission to take the children out of the country. Jeff joined us five days later, and the last thing I wanted was to be turned away at the gate for fear that I was kidnapping our kids.

Set basic groundrules ahead of time: my teenagers agreed to no gratuitous whining if we kept cultural obligations to a minimum (my son skipped the churches, museums and tourist sights - and politely endured Versailles because our host, Fabrice, really wanted to show us around his favourite monument). Trade offs make everyone happy.		   Arrangements

While you're waiting

Read Hemmingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Moveable Feast; The Many Lives and Sorrows of Josephine B, Sandra Gulland's rendition of the French Revolution as a soap opera - history through the eyes of people; Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik, and 60 Million Frenchmen Can't be Wrong (why we love France but not the French), by Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow, is a great political, cultural and social primer by a bilingual Anglo-Franco Canadian couple who spent two years in Paris, studying the French attitude towards globalization. It reads like a personal and interesting sociology book with essays about food, politics, society and looking at the French through Canadian eyes;
Paris in a Basket, Markets: The Food and the People by Nicolle Aimee Meyer and Amanda Pilar Smith was the one piece of gastro-porn I indulged in. I even packed the hardcover with me so I could check out the neighbourhood revolving markets in Paris.
Paris: The Collected Traveler: An Inspired Anthology & Travel Resource (one of The Collected Traveler series) by Barrie Kerper is a collection of eclectic pieces already published that bring

Movies: Must rent Amilee; Breathless; Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring; Man on a Train; pretty much anything subtitled
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Former "Ottawan" Barbara Carver is a freelance writer now living in Nelson, B.C.

Writer Barbara Carver and her family swapped their home in Victoria, B.C.,

for this Paris apartment
 'This picture doesn't reveal at all what's inside,'
Barbara says.
'Whenever I saw someone else heading for their front door, I wondered what wonderful homes were hidden behind such bland exteriors.'

Despite son Ian's less-than-enthusiastic reaction to sightseeing (above, he's in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles), Barbara Carver says that in the end, the kids had the experience she was hoping for.
Colour photos by Barbara
Click on photos to zoom for larger images
Apartment owner Fabrice, left, shows off the Louvre to his new Canadian friends, Jeff and Carrie Davies.


Carrie Davies didn't have to worry about getting lost on the way back to the borrowed digs. She used the Eiffel Tower as a guidepost.



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