This is a typical courtyard in Paris.

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You walk by door after
door, big, heavy doors, blue or green or red or stained and have no idea what
is behind them. Sometimes, and this occurs more often than one would expect,
the doors are open and there is construction going on either in the main
courtyard, or an apartment inside. The amount of construction all over the city
was amazing…. I just read that apartment prices in Paris are down about 8% for
this year, making it, maybe… the time to buy. Well, someone certainly is doing
that!

I showed you our courtyard in an earlier post.  The amazing
thing is, with so many apartments all opening on this enclosed space, it is SO
quiet! 

And THIS is the renovation that took place in our apartment about three years ago. Adrian Leeds, who owns it, did a REALLY FABULOUS JOB!  

APT(Thanks to Adrian Leeds for many of these pictures)Apt2

While staying in the apartment a funny, quirky thing happened: I asked Adrian if she had ever heard this, but no, it was news to her…..  READ ON!:

Twice, in the
evenings, we heard loud rap music coming from somewhere in the courtyard … couldn’t place
just where. Well…… within 10 minutes, both times, a whistle….yes, an old gym
type whistle, was blown and all was silent!  We were, well, flabbergasted. That’s the best word for sure.
Who blows it? And these people “obey”???? 
In New York the music would probably be turned up even louder!  A different culture? Did the building
have a meeting and this was decided upon? Who knows!

A final view of the courtyard:

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