Uncomfortably French

As Matt mentioned in the last post, we're both shaking off the remnants of whatever it is that we caught. One of the less-fun parts of expatriating is that we can probably expect to catch every bug that goes around town, simply because it's completely unrelated to anything our immune systems have seen before.

Sometimes over the few weeks, I've been surprised at how the small things often make me feel the most foreign. Last week, it was the discovery that virtually every medication the pharmacist suggested was in an effervescent form. At home, I would have just swallowed a pill or two. I had the same trouble when I ran out of multivitamins -- almost everything I found was in a powdered form, meant to be taken in a glass of water. When I finally tracked down a capsule form, the checkout woman was so surprised that she asked if I knew what I was buying -- after all, "most people find it easier to take the powder." We've made lots of small changes to the way we might do things at home (e.g., transforming my grandmother's chicken noodle soup recipe into one for duck noodle soup, to save more than 50% on the meat!) but I somehow can't get used to the idea of dissolving and drinking my vitamins each morning.

Foreign or no, I am now a legal resident of France for the year -- I had my official medical appointment this morning, and received my carte de sejour. The process wasn't too tedious -- I arrived at 8:45 and was done by 10:15. Like all things French and govermental, though, it was thoroughly bureaucratic -- I was seen by three different medical technicians. The first checked my height, weight, and corrected vision, then sent me back to the waiting room. Then, I was sent for the chest x-ray (testing for tuberculosis): I was ushered into a small changing room, told to remove everything from the waist up, and left to wait until the technicians were ready for me. (There were actually three changing rooms, which each had one door to the hallway and one door into the radiography suite -- I presume that the techs could just go from one to the next, taking one film after another.) After spending yet more time in the waiting room, I met with a doctor who read my x-ray, listened to my lungs and heart, took my blood pressure, and asked me if I had any communicable diseases. Then, she signed and stamped a form certifying that I was adequately healthy to be admitted into the country.

The last step in acquiring my carte was to submit that health certification and 55 euro tax (payable only by stamp, which may only be purchased at convenience stores -- seriously). And after all that, I received a 3"x5" laminated card which documents my right to reside in France for the year.

An uneventful week

This past week and a half I have had the flu, and Jess as well, although hers was a lighter case. Since not much has happened, I thought I would talk about the metro system here in Paris.

Classes have been going well so far. Much too early for my taste, especially with the metro ride to get to school in the morning. Tomorrow there might be a transit strike, so even earlier to rise, wahoo.

Getting to school usually involves getting up at seven, getting ready and then hoping on the metro. The Paris metro has some charms. There are long walkways reminiscent of those that can be found in the London Underground. Paneled with white ceramic bricks, the underground labyrinth with so many people marching somewhere reminds me much more of New York’s system than that of DC. But unlike New York’s, the metro here is clean. That cleanliness is not accomplished at the expense of an overbearing security force that arrests pregnant women for finishing a granola bar like in DC; there are even vending machines in some stations here. The only issue I have with the metro here on the cleanliness front is that there is one stretch of tunnel at the Remeau-Sebastopol station (where I change trains) that smells of stale urine. I guess one of the denizens of that station can’t be bothered to go outside and find facilities.

But despite the homeless in the metro (there are actually far fewer homeless in Paris than in DC), there have not been the kind of ‘crazy’ encounters here as back home. One of the more memorable anecdotes so far happened on an evening when Jess and I were going to some event with Jess’ school friends. There was this guy that I was out of the corner of my eye putting what looked like a nylon stocking on his head. I of course thought that something bad was about to happen. I haven’t seen people become physically aggressive on the metro before, but the guy singing about how he wanted to shoot everyone who worked for the government came close. But, I digress, this guy actually turned out to be even less harmful than the enthusiastic young LaRoushies we ran across in DC. He was actually performing a scene from a play by Moliere – the white nylon beanie was a part of his costume. He wasn’t even fishing for money, just wanted to put on a performance and encourage us to buy tickets to the full-length show; I don’t quite think we are in DC anymore.

The trains themselves are a nice ride, they actually run on what appear to be rubber tires; at least some of them do, which is odd in its own right. The cars are oddly proportioned. There are seating sections in between the, let’s call them foyers. These foyers in front of the doors have seats that can fold down if there is room, but more often than not, there is no such room, so everyone stands packed into this small area in front of the door desperately trying to grasp one of the two poles available to be held onto. The idea of overhead rails like those found on the cars in DC or New York has not caught on as of yet. Conversely, the seating sections I mentioned earlier only have the seated passengers and so are quite roomy even when the rest of the train is cramped well beyond comfort. There is just not enough room to stand between the seats nor anything to grab onto; in an odd layout.

But in the end, everything else is perhaps compensated for by a metro stop that we rarely ever pass. There is a stop near the Louvre that has a small collection of some artifacts drawn from that museum’s collection. This is not a completely innovative idea, but still one of the most charmingly mundane aspects of this city that we both find ourselves taking for granted, but occasionally amazed by nonetheless.

La Rentrée

Last week, our summer vacation ended and it was back to school. We celebrated with a group of my classmates by gathering to watch the sun set and the lights of Paris come up. Turns out, the Eiffel Tower sparkles for the first few minutes it's illuminated. (The Tower is bathed in blue lights and decorated with gold stars to celebrate the French presidency of the EU -- it's currently their turn in the six-month rotation.)


The next day, we headed down to check out the pet market. We'd first discovered it two weekends ago, when we happened to wander past just before they finished packing everything away. This time, we enjoyed checking out all the small pets being offered for sale -- many, many beautiful birds (everything from finches to fully-communicative parrots); hamsters; guinea pigs; chinchillas; and even chipmunks. Our informal assessment is that chipmunks don't take well to caged life -- they were incredibly edgy, and (apparently) trying to work off the nervous energy by sprinting loop-the-loops around their cages.

We also picked up a few new toys for the cats, who have made themselves completely at home in the new apartment by losing every one of their toys. Since we've been slower than they at discovering all the best hiding places, the easiest thing to do (read: "thing that prevented yowls of boredom at 3:00 AM") was to replace a few of them.



After the weekend's fun, we put our noses back to the grindstone:

Matt is in class every day from 9:00 until 12:00, and Tuesday and Thursday afternoons from 2:00 until 5. He's in a beginning French class, but it's moving at a much faster pace than any class I ever had: they had their first unit test this morning! (The goal, of course, is to head home ready for the translation exam required for his PhD -- at this pace, I have no doubt he'll be good to go.)

I have seven classes (six law classes, plus a French class), with my week beginning at 7:15 PM on Mondays and ending at 12:15 on Thursdays (plus, of course, however long homework takes). One of my less-favorite elements of studying at Sciences-Po -- but something the university is famous for -- is something called the "exposé." This is a ten-minute presentation on a specific aspect of the course topic: it sounds simple enough, except that 2/3 of your grade for the course will depend on how the professor scores your presentation! My first exposé will be on Thursday morning, and my second will be next Wednesday night. (Fortunately, both of these classes are conducted in English -- public speaking in a second language is a fear I can put off for a few more weeks yet.)

The Techno Parade and a Ficus Plant

Who: Large trucks bearing oversized speakers, and lots of half-clothed, half-drunk techno music fans
When: Saturday afternoon
Where: Directly between our apartment and the grocery store

When we decided to make a grocery run on Saturday afternoon, we had no idea what was lurking 500 feet from our front door: the Techno Parade. First we heard the party, then we saw it. Traffic was stopped, and the street was absolutely packed with people. Every minute or two, another music truck would roll slowly by: each truck had a DJ, at least eight six-feet-tall speakers, and a contingent of girls dancing to the beat.

We fought our way through the crowds to pick up the things we needed. But as we entered the store, we noticed that plants were on sale for 50% off. We'd been talking about getting a plant to fill in an empty corner of the apartment -- but it would have to be reasonably tall and fairly hardy (Gloria has a habit of chewing the leaves off small potted plants). What we found was a four-foot ficus plant. Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures (after all, we'd just been headed out for groceries!), so I'll have to ask you to imagine Matt, carrying a large plant, and trying to find his way through a the crowd.

We do, however, have somewhat more typical pictures of Paris. Last weekend were the National Patrimony Days, when museums, government offices, and historic sites throw open their doors for no admission charge. We didn't take as much advantage of this as we likely should have, but we did enjoy climbing all the way to the top of the Arc de Triomphe (284 stairs!) and getting some beautiful views of the city.

Chez nous

It's hard to believe we've been in Paris for nearly two weeks now! The first few days were filled with a seemingly endless to-do list -- there are still many, many things left to do, but we're finally beginning to feel a little settled in here.

For those who don't know, we celebrated our wedding with our families in St Andrews on August 7. We took a brief honeymoon to Colonial Williamsburg, then drove (20 hours) from Virginia to Kansas, where my parents hosted a combination wedding reception/going away party. Then we drove (14 hours) from Kansas to Michigan, where Matt's mom hosted a similar event. And then, we drove out to DC (11 hours) to try our own hand at a reception/party for our DC friends, as well as get moved out of our apartment.

We flew from DC to Paris (by way of Copenhagen) on September 2, with four heavy suitcases and two thoroughly unimpressed cats. Even though they would rather have been at home, the cats travelled like champs -- we didn't sedate them at all, they didn't complain (most people near us on the planes didn't even know we were travelling with pets!), and they even ate and drank during the long flight. Getting them through customs was far easier than we expected: no one asked for any of their health certification, or even looked into the carriers -- we just walked right through. (Both of us have wondered if we might have gotten away bringing Rosslyn, but I somehow doubt everything would have gone so smoothly if one of the carriers was quacking...)

We went straight from the airport to our new apartment, and met the manager to pick up the keys. We have a great one-bedroom apartment, one floor off a relatively quiet street in the Third Arrondissement.

I'm now about one-third of the way through an extensive orientation program Sciences-Po (my university for the year) has designed specifically for the American students in my program. We're taking a language class designed to bring our French up to snuff, as well as a methology course designed to teach us the formatting, protocol, etc. that's expected by French professors.
"Real" classes start on September 29. I have six classes this semester -- two required classes, plus four electives. Three and one-half of my classes will be taught in English, and the other 2-1/2 are in French (obviously, there's one bilingual seminar).

Matt's school (he's taking an intensive, year-long language course) is on a more traditional French schedule, so he won't start classes until the end of the month. Until then, he gets to slowly explore Paris, although he's also doing some ongoing work related to his PhD.

Much of our "free" time has been taken up by trying to satisfy the bureaucrats. Matt and I each received student visas before we left the US, but, because we're planning to be here for nine to twelve months, we have to convert them to temporary residence permits. As it's been explained to me so far, this basically requires four steps: (1) registering at the university as a student; (2) acquiring health insurance; (3) qualifying for the residence permit; (4) proving that we're adequately healthy to be allowed to stay in France for awhile.

So far, I've done (1) and (2). Registering for health insurance was shockingly easy, and entirely online: I just completed a simple registration form with my name and address, then ticked off which form of insurance I wanted to pay for. I stood in line for 90 minutes to get my student ID last Wednesday, and was one of few students to succeed (read: have all the necesary documents) on my first attempt.

So, it's on to Step 3 -- now, I'm trying to get my carte de sejour (residence permit). The number of papers they require is truly amazing. To give you an idea, I've got to submit my birth certificate; my student ID; our apartment lease; our renter's insurance policy; a copy of my student visa; a copy of the picture page of my passport; our marriage certificate; a letter certifying that I was admitted to Sciences-Po; a form certifying that I have registered for classes; my health insurance card; two photocopies of everything; and a self-addressed, stamped envelope so everything can be returned to me after it's reviewed. I've triple-checked the list, and I think this is everything I'll need -- so, after I finish class tomorrow, I'm headed off to the office, where I'm sure I'll be told what I've forgotten. :)

After this, Step 4 requires an offical government medical exam -- I'm not 100% sure what to expect, but "they" say it's basically a quick physical, plus an X-ray to check for tuberculosis. I am 100% sure, though, that this exam isn't very useful at protecting the public health, as I will have spent several weeks in France (theoretically infecting the public-at-large) before I see a doctor. Neverthess, it's required unless you desire to be an illegal immigrant -- a status to which neither Matt nor I aspire. :)

Since the whole process begins when you enroll at school, we'll get to run through this all over again as soon as Matt's classes start -- I'm hopeful, though, that it'll be a little easier because we'll know what he needs, based on what I needed.

We'll try to post weekly updates, just to share what's happening in our lives. We hope all of you are well, and hope that you'll send us your news (just let us know if you need our address)!

Rosslyn

UPDATE: In preparing for our move to Paris, we learned that we would not be able to bring Rosslyn with us (international customs issues...). We turned her over to a wildlife rehabilitation center near Cleveland (Penitentiary Glen). They say she's happy and healthy, and may even be able to be reintroduced to the wild.

Many of you have heard the crazy story of how we adopted a duckling, so we thought perhaps you'd like to see her...

These were taken the day we found her; we think she was just one or two days old.

Swimming in the kitchen sink, about one and a half weeks old.

In the bathtub, about two and a half weeks old.

When you're a duck, the awkward teenage phase comes before you're even a month old. (Look closely, and you can see her adult feathers starting to come in around her wings.)

Our Trip to Italy

A few of my favorite pictures from our trip to Italy for Spring Break:

Sunset over Rome, seen from the Spanish Steps.

Feeding the pigeons in Venice. (I was legitimately scared of this pigeon: he was hitting everyone who he thought might be threatening his access to the corn in my hand, including me.)


Walkway to the Castle Runkelstein in Bozen.

Florence, just before sunset, from Piazzalle Michelangelo.