A mezzanine in Paris, summer 2004

It set the standard.

Wherever we were going to live from then on, it had to be that good. Whoever had to find a place to for us to stay, it had to live up to that room;
preferably (didn't it happen always?) with a mezzanine.

We decided - she did and I agreed, as with most of our best ideas - to go to Paris for a few months, to get a taste of the city, a taste of the people, a taste of the language. It was the summer of 2004.


Carla Bruni, Le Ciel Dans Une Chambre

The city is fabulous, the city is Paris.
But I hold closer the memory of that place, lying above ground, well in reach of the ceiling. That and the dying moments of the night we would spend learning Portuguese from the tales of Fada Oriana, learning Italian through French and French through Italian. That and the moments we would fall asleep , well in reach of the ceiling, listening to slow music* about rooms that had none.

* As little as anyone could have guessed, little did we know we once fell asleep to the mellow voice of a first lady to be.