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14 Rue Général Ducrot
Strasbourg, France
October 14, 1960

Dear mother,

At last we have located an appartement, at the above address, & will move in next Thursday.  Until the present and perhaps until next Thursday we have been maintained at Institut expense in the city's finest hotel, the Hotel Terminus-Gruber, right across from the railway station. Our room would cost $8 a night, possesses a very complete (except for tub) private bath, & is very comfortable. Right now the hotel is full of delegates to the Council of Europe which is meeting here, and their huge cars line the front of the building.

Our future apartment is laid out as follows:
[[drawing of layout of apartment includes placement of windows and doors, and walls]]
balcony large, enclosed [[back right side]]
bedroom large  bedroom small  study & living room
bath  hall  dining room
kitchen  hall dining room    
door [[centered, with steps to an outside door]]

It occupies the top floor (2nd) of a villa with a garden behind it & some trees in front (not large), and another family without children lives downstairs.

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Gorodetski arrives sometime next week. By then we should be fairly well established.

We drove up in the Vorges last Sunday (about 20 miles) and enjoyed the spruce, pine & poplar & beech plantations up there (all controlled cutting covering the hills, which are fairly well forested). There are many trails.

As we were told in advance, Alsatian is spoken by the residents. But they can also all speak French, fortunately. It is almost impossible to understand a word of Alsatian; it sounds something like Dutch. We can get along everywhere. Jack's colleagues do not prefer to practice their English, so he will most certainly improve his French rapidly. They are mostly young people, all French I think. The only other foreigner seems to be a Japanese, who can speak only English (besides Japanese). We have been a comfort to him recently.

We will be interested in hearing of your progress. Give our regards to the Emerys.

Love, 
Doris - Jack
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