In America, everything is big. Big houses, big cars, and even big box stores. We’ve all heard that everything in Europe is smaller, especially the apartments. When we were looking for a place to stay for a month the options included spending $10,000+ a month for an American size apartment, or much less for a European sized one. We opted for the cheaper European version and spend the money we saved on traveling longer.
When we initially walked into the apartment after climbing the 6 flights of stairs, we were shocked at how small it was. To be honest, over our month there we often felt like rats trapped in a tiny cage. But after talking to other people, we soon realized that our “tiny apartment” was actually big. You see, the minimum size for an apartment in Paris is 7 square meters, which is 75 square feet. Can you imagine living in an apartment that was 7 1/2 feet wide by 10 feet long? That is smaller than one of our “small bedrooms” in our house back in Portland. In talking to one person they said that when their sleeper sofa is opened up they have a tiny bit of space on each side of the bed. Yes, their apartment is about the size of a bed. After hearing that, we were grateful that we had a loft and high ceilings. Grateful that we had a view of the Eiffel Tower and lots of light from the windows. Our apartment didn’t seem so small anymore.
So, before leaving Paris Sydney wanted to give a tour of our apartment and the stairs we had to walk up and down daily.