A Home Exchange To Paris
Home Exchange Blog
Over the years we’ve received some hilarious reports from members recounting various funny events that have occurred during their home exchanges, but one of the funniest had to some from Jeff who had arranged to exchange his one bedroom New York apartment for similar accommodation in Paris.
Jeff arrived in Paris late in the evening and took a taxi from the airport directly to Madeleine, his home exchange partner’s address. Following pre-arranged instructions, he located the concierge’s office to pick up the key and immediately ran into difficulties because the man wasn’t French (Jeff believed he was probably from an eastern European country).
Jeff could speak some French, but the concierge’s limited French was heavily accented, and as such was totally unintelligible to Jeff.
Several minutes passed with neither understanding what the other was saying, then Jeff pointed at his suitcases sitting in the doorway and indicated with hand-signs that he had just flown in.
A light bulb seemed to go off in the concierge’s head. Beaming, he took a key from a drawer, picked up Jeff’s suitcases, and ushered him to the elevator.
Jeff had been given to believe that the home exchange apartment was on the second floor, so he was surprised to see it slip by on the elevator dial. In fact they kept ascending until the very top of the building and the elevator doors eventually opened onto a private lobby with sumptuous red carpeting and high, oak doors.
The concierge placed the suitcases in the lobby, said something Jeff was unable to understand, handed him the key, and retreated back into the elevator.
The apartment was way beyond Jeff’s wildest dreams. It comprised of a huge living room, dining room, two bedrooms, both with luxurious en-suite bathrooms, and kitchen with adjoining wine cellar and pantry.
The furnishings and fittings throughout were luxurious.
Jeff simply didn’t know what to do. He explored the apartment twice then returned in the elevator to the concierge’s office, but this time no-one answered when he knocked on the door.
Every morning at nine a maid arrived to clean the apartment, but again she wasn’t French so he was still unable to hold any sort of an in depth conversation with her.
He explored Paris, visited the museums, walked beside the Seine.
Occasionally he bumped into the concierge and tried to hold a conversation with him, but he got no-where, plus the man became surly and clearly seemed to avoid him after a couple of days.
During the first week Jeff tried to call Madeleine in New York several times, but all he spoke to was his own answering machine. In the end he gave up and instead wondered how communication between himself and his home exchange partner could have been so bad that he had been under the impression they were exchanging similar accommodations.
He wondered how Madeleine was coping with living in his tiny space with limited facilities when she was clearly used to total luxury in Paris.
Jeff had planned to leave Madeleine a nice bottle of wine and a thank you note at the end of his vacation, but after several examinations of the apartment’s well stocked wine cellar this now seemed pointless.
Jeff flew back to New York and was pleased to find his little apartment neat and clean. Madeleine had left a short note on the kitchen counter stating that she has received his messages and had phoned her apartment in Paris repeatedly but never received an answer.
As he was reading the note, his phone rang. It was Madeleine, perplexed because she had arrived home to discover that her apartment had never been used.
Eventually the truth came out. The penthouse apartment in Madeleine’s building was owned by a large multi-national corporation and was used by visiting executives. The not-too-bright concierge had mistaken Jeff for one of these.
Madeleine was highly amused. The multi-national corporation eventually understood the mistake. For a while Jeff was wracked with guilt, not so much because of his two weeks in luxury, but because Madeleine had enjoyed no such experience and had been left to explain everything and placate everyone.
The following summer Jeff and Madeleine home swapped again. This time Jeff was greeted by a concierge who was a native Frenchman. This time he left Madeleine two bottles of wine, one for each of his visits to Paris.
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