Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Shifting Perspectives: Transportation in France and America

America is a car-centered society. We bought a car within a week of moving to Honolulu because we realized how necessary it would be to get around. In our two years of living in Paris, on the other hand, we took less than a dozen car rides, usually in taxis. Very few of the people we knew there owned a car, most preferring simply to walk and take public transit. Parisian public transportation may be grimy and congested at times, but tickets are cheap, service is punctual, and stations are everywhere. With the high cost of fuel and the absurdly expensive and difficult process of acquiring a French driver's license, for many people, public transit makes much more sense than car ownership.

Furthermore, Paris engenders a culture of walking. Everyone walks to the shops, to their dentist appointments, to pick up their children from school. Most neighborhoods have several grocery stores within a ten minute walk—I can think of at least eight near our old apartment. I mentioned in a previous post the three separate free medical clinics for mothers and children in walking distance of our home. I even knew women in Paris who walked home from the hospital after giving birth. With almost every amenity one needs so conveniently located, walking is often the logical choice. It became such a regular part of my daily routine that I thought nothing of spending a few hours on my feet each day, both for getting from place to place but also for enjoyment, exercise, and relaxation.
Maëlys certainly enjoys walking in Hawaii.
So I find it continually surprising how few people I see walking in Honolulu. Here, despite the year-round nice weather, it seems that most people only walk if they have to. For many people, stores, restaurants, medical facilities, and other necessities are too far away to walk to or are inaccessible by public transport. There are often no sidewalks on residential streets, confirming the dominance of vehicles over pedestrians. And while Honolulu has an excellent bus system that covers the whole island, I would bet that a majority of residents have never ridden the bus or have used it only a few times in a given year. Sadly, I must include myself in that category, as I have not yet tried out the bus system (though Rory and Maëlys have made one bus trip so far and it is on my list of things to do).

The funny thing is, it only took two years of living in France to completely change my perspective on the dominance of cars. Before moving to France, I viewed my car as more than just a way to get around town; it was my own private refuge. I enjoyed being in the car, listening to the radio. And if I had to walk for more than five minutes to get somewhere, I would usually just hop in the car instead. I don't think I was particularly lazy, nor was I unconcerned with the environmental impact of driving. But my perception of what was an acceptable walking distance was skewed. I had no sense of how far away places were except in terms of driving time, so walking typically felt like an unnecessary and inefficient use of my time.

After living in Paris, I now much prefer to walk rather than drive. The fact that a place is far enough away that I must drive to get there is now a deterrent for me going there. But alas, my options here are limited when it comes to stores, restaurants, medical facilities, and schools that are within walking distance of home, so I feel myself being pulled back into the habit of driving that I so easily gave up in Paris. Honolulu does have buses and a new bike sharing program, but service is relatively limited, and the convenience factor is far less than simply jumping in a car. So for now, to combat the influences of America's ever-present car culture, I'm trying to patronize the few stores that are located near our home (walking there, of course), take daily walks around our neighborhood, and avoid unnecessary trips in the car. And one of these days, I'll have to try out the bus.

Sunday, September 3, 2017

Iceland ahoy!

After I woke up this morning, September the third, my Google Calendar app reminded me of my flight to Reykjavik in a few hours. Boston to Reykjavik, it says, 1pm, don't be late!

To explain this state of affairs, I have to tell you the story of our leaving Paris. Let's start in, oh, March or so, when I'd accepted the job in Hawai'i and as we were making plans.

The goal: Get from Paris to Honolulu.

This presents a challenge, because this journey takes at least 24 hours. The journey with a baby would be particularly difficult. Plus, once we get to Hawai'i, the time difference is 12 hours - as big of a time difference as is possible. It'd be 8am, it'd feel like 8pm. At 4am, it'd feel like 4pm. Not an easy adjustment for adults, let alone babies.

However, it also presents opportunities. I checked a map, and apparently right between France and Hawai'i is a large continent known as North America. We have a lot of dear friends in Ohio (plus a storage unit with things from our old house that we didn't take with us to Paris), and family in Oregon.

So we decide to hop. Go to Ohio first (only a 6 hour time difference), spend 10 days there, see friends, pack up our storage unit and have it shipped to Hawai'i. Then onward to Oregon (a 3 hour time difference), spend two weeks with family. Finally make the last leg over to Hawai'i. Simple, right?

Yes and no. This plan has us getting to the US on June 30, and slowly travelling west until we get to Hawai'i on July 26. Here's the problem: my visa is only valid from July the 22nd. How can I get into the US on June the 30th?

Well, the first part of our trip is just tourism, I consider. I won't be working or earning any money - just seeing friends and family. So I could enter the US as a tourist, under the visa waiver program called ESTA. I enter on ESTA, and then change my status to my work visa. Simple, right?

Yes and no! You can't change status from an ESTA to a work visa. It's not allowed. You have to leave the US and then re-enter on the work visa. This sorry state of affairs then motivates a solo trip from Oregon up to Vancouver, Canada, to allow me to hop out and back into the USA. I book some train tickets and add it to our itinerary. A complex plan, but everything should work out.

We began our preparations in earnest. We sold most of our Paris possessions. We mailed a few boxes of books and things to await our arrival in Hawai'i. And the rest we packed. We ended up with four large suitcases, one smaller roller bag, one laptop bag, two backpacks, and a cello. And of course, a small baby.

We had emptied and cleaned our flat, our landlady had deemed it vraiment impeccable, très propre ("truly impeccable, very clean"), and with tears in our eyes we left for our airport hotel, where we were to spend the night before flying out the next morning. It was at this point we learned of a small flaw in our plan: we didn't have enough hands.

That is, there were more suitcases than we could easily move. With a luggage cart, it's possible, but with just the two of us, it's not straightforward. Even though our hotel is basically right beside the airport, we realize that we need to book a taxi to ensure that we can get to it effectively. I speak to the agent at the front desk and get a taxi booked, after I make sure he understands that we have a lot of luggage.

(It is here, at the hotel, I discover the value of speaking English and pretending not to speak French. The staff are more revealing when they turn to their colleagues and address them in French. But I'm listening...)

In the morning, we awake and await our taxi. It arrives, but it's plainly too small. They clearly didn't get the memo about our luggage. The driver calls in for another taxi to come, and we are resigned to waiting some more.

I'm a fairly anxious traveller, I'm not sure why, but these events send me spiralling into worry. We've barely begun our trip and there's a delay! What if they don't have a taxi big enough? What if the taxi arrives late and we miss our flight? How will we manage?

Luckily the taxi soon arrives. It's driven by a middle aged Japanese immigrant, who regaled our ears with easy-listening guitar covers of classic rock songs at high volume. He was really keen on it.

At the airport, we went to check our luggage. We had booked and paid for the extra luggage in advance, but I was expecting to have to pay 200€ for Talia's cello, which is technically oversize.

After weighing everything, they tell us that some of our bags are overweight and that we have to speak to another person to pay the fee and get the tags. I head over to the other person while Talia waits with Maëlys.

"Okay sir, for all of this, you must pay 750€."

My eyes boggle.

"No, there must be some mistake. See, here, I have already paid for these bags. I am only paying for an overweight fee for one of the bags." I brandish my receipt from when I booked the bags. (If there's one thing I've learned from living in France, it's that paper documentation is king.)

"Let me see. Actually, we can distribute the weight of the bags across all of them, so while this one bag is overweight, the total weight of everything is under the limit. So there's no fee. Let me print your passes now."

However, this was followed by brow-furrowing and talking to colleagues. The wait was long, and I was getting worried again. We'd arrived at the airport a little later than I'd wanted (because of the taxi) and now we're being delayed again. What if security takes forever too, and we miss the flight?

Eventually the airline people come to a consensus and tell me that although I'd paid for the luggage on the second leg of our flight (Frankfurt to Pittsburgh), the first leg (Paris to Frankfurt) was not covered. This is apparently because these legs are operated by Condor and Lufthansa respectively.

Never mind the fact that they're both part of the same parent company. Never mind the fact that when I paid for the luggage, I spoke to operators at both Condor and Lufthansa who told me that the payment covered both flights. Never mind that. Right now, they wanted 150€.

At this point, I pay. I reckon I could have stayed and argued my case, but to be frank I was happy to just get the luggage onto the plane and be able to get going. My anxiety was getting the better of me.

And, remember I expected a 200€ charge for the cello? They never mentioned it! So really, this was like gaining 50€. That's what I told myself, at least.

Security was fine, the Lufthansa flight was great. The flight attendant gave Maëlys a little toy to entertain her on the flight, which we got to keep. Everything was looking up!

Now for the Condor flight. Condor is a low-cost airline, and we got some great rates with them. So great that booking three seats (i.e. a seat for Maëlys, which is a game-changer, let me tell you) was actually cheaper than just two on some other airlines. However, there are restrictions, and their policy on hand luggage is relatively strict. I had read flyer reports where they actually weighed people's hand luggage to ensure it's below their maximum weight. This worried me, as we had a lot of stuff.

When we go to board, the boarding agent sees that our passes haven't been double-checked, and send us over to another agent. Here we go, I think, they're going to weigh our bags. No such thing happens. Instead, they check our passports.

"Two Americans and one British person. I see. Do you have travel authorization to go to the USA?" she asks.

"Yes, I have an ESTA", I say, referring to the visa-waiver program.

"And do you have onward travel outside of the USA?"

She asks this because if an airline brings someone to a country, and they are denied entry, the airline is liable for the cost of taking them back to where they came from. Airlines are really tough these days on anything that looks like you might be in violation of the rules. The ESTA, as a short-term thing, requires that you have evidence of onward travel to leave the country.

"Yes, to Canada." I show her the document. "And see here, I also have a work visa, so I'll re-enter the US as a worker."

"Hm. No, Canada is not good enough. You have to leave the entire continent."

For various reasons, going to Canada or Mexico (or various Caribbean countries) doesn't count for leaving the country. This means that, say, someone in the US on a student visa can go to Toronto for the weekend and not have to go through complex immigration procedures upon their return. Paperwork is minimized, student gets to go to Toronto, everyone is happy.

Except that this rule also doesn't make sense, because you have left the country. You can't legislate that away.

I argue my case, that I have a work visa and that I'll be re-entering the US. She stands her ground.

"I need to see onward travel out of the US. Here is a list of countries which don't count." It's a long list, with lots of Caribbean nations, plus Mexico and Canada.

"What do you want me to do? Just get out my laptop and buy a plane ticket right now?"

"Yes."

Great. So I do that. Due to a lack of foresight, my laptop was not charged, so I needed to find an outlet. The first one I found was not in a location with a wifi signal. The second one worked. Meanwhile, our flight is boarding and I am freaking out.

I do a quick search for flights from US east coast cities - Boston, Newark, JFK - to major European hubs - Paris, Frankfurt, London. I select a date in the near future which is within the 90 days I can be in the US on ESTA. I find a cheap flight with Wow Air for about 160€. It goes to Paris via Reykjavik. Since I'm in Germany, my computer has defaulted to the German webpage. I click through and order my ticket, hoping that my understanding of German was good enough. I get a confirmation page.

I run back to the agent and show her the flight. She glances at it, nods, and waves us through onto the plane.

And that is the story of why I was meant to fly to Reykjavik today.

Of course, the US immigration official didn't care about whether I had onward travel. He didn't even ask how long I was staying. When you are white and travel with two white Americans, one of whom is a baby, they don't check you very thoroughly.

I later cancelled the flight, as I had no intention of taking it, and was reimbursed the 35€ or so that they charged in taxes and fees.

In hindsight, I could have handled it better. I could have just bought tickets to Reykjavik without onward travel to Paris, that would have been cheaper. I also learned that US law entitles you to a full refund within 24 hours of buying a flight. (A rare case where US law is more consumer-friendly than EU law!) Since I bought my ticket through the German site, I wasn't eligible for this, but I would have been had I used the US site.

All this to jump through the hoops of getting to the US and dealing with our complicated itinerary and complex immigration laws. Our other travels within the US (and to Canada) were not without incident, but not quite as eventful or as stress-inducing as this first one. Maybe one day I'll make it to Iceland for real.

Friday, August 4, 2017

Aloha!

It's been a little over a week since we arrived in Hawaii, a very full week of moving into an apartment, buying an electric car, and spending hundreds of dollars on a car seat, stroller, high chair, fans, household goods, and groceries. Our internet was just set up today and our shipment of all our earthly possessions, including our new IKEA-bought furniture, should arrive within two weeks. For now, we're managing with borrowed air mattresses, TV tray tables, folding chairs, and kitchenware. Our “couch” is a lovely spot on the floor. It's not the epitome of comfort, but it works. After traveling and living at other people's houses for a month, it's at least nice to have our own place.

Our new apartment complex. Look at those mountains!
And besides, we're still marveling at how big our apartment is. Two whole bedrooms and bathrooms! A full-size refrigerator! A real oven and a stove with four burners! Four closets and miles of shelf space! Perhaps this place would feel small by American standards, but having come from Paris, where we had a 375 square foot (35 sq m) one bedroom apartment, this place seems huge to us. What a luxury.

A magnificent old tree
Furthermore, every window in our apartment has an incredible view. We live in a valley that's nestled between breathtakingly wild and imposing mountains with brilliantly green tropical plants covering the hillsides. There are beautiful palm trees outside our door. In the Manoa valley, the sun shines brightly every day, with brief intervals of “pineapple rain”— a fine mist that sprinkles down even when there are no clouds overhead. It's currently the height of summer, so it's very warm and quite humid, with unfortunately no air conditioning in the apartment, but a perpetual strong breeze flows through the valley and alleviates a bit of the heat. When we first drove through Manoa, heading deeper into the valley, I kept saying, “Wow! Those mountains are incredible! Look at the clouds—they're amazing! What a fantastic tree that is!” And every time I step outside, I still continue to marvel at the awesome natural beauty of this island. It's a privilege to live in the shadow of these mountains.

Although we haven't had too much time to explore yet, we did at least manage to get to the beach this week. It was the baby's first experience with sand, and she enjoyed letting it sift through her fingers and toes. We then waded out into the pleasantly warm water and saw schools of small shiny fish darting back and forth. The beach wasn't overly crowded. There were a few kids swimming and several people standing and balancing on surf boards, propelling themselves with a paddle. Para-sailing was happening in the distance. It was like a photo from a travel magazine, advertising an island paradise.

We have to keep reminding ourselves that we live here. Walking along a picturesque beach, driving up a mountain into the jungle, seeing colorful and unfamiliar birds at our feet; it all feels very fantastical and unreal. This is where people honeymoon or go for a getaway—we couldn't possibly live here, could we? You might think that having been in Paris for two years, we would be used to the idea of living in an amazing tourist destination. But Hawaii is completely different. In Paris, humans have bent nature to their will. Trees and shrubs are manicured to perfection. Architecture displays the marvels of human capabilities. The public transit system is a feat of engineering. It's a very peopled city, Paris. But in Hawaii, I have the distinct feeling that nature is merely allowing us to stay here for awhile. Humans and their work are not the main attraction, nor are we really in control of our surroundings, despite our best efforts. So it is with a wholly different feeling of awe and humility that I will explore our new island home. It may only be about forty-five miles to the other side of the island, but there's a lifetime's worth of new experiences waiting for us here.







Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Sunday, May 21, 2017

Carcassonne

In our last post, Talia described our recent trip to Barcelona. It ends with us boarding a train bound for Carcassonne, a town in the southeast of France. (It's roughly halfway between Toulouse and Montpellier, if you know where they are. If not, just imagine a line due south from Paris but stop about 65km from the Spansh border. Or just look it up on a map.) What adventures would await us there?

Something Talia didn't mention about Barcelona is how cheap everything was! It's a major city, but the prices in supermarkets and restaurants compared very favourably to Paris. I suppose the real lesson from this is that it is expensive in Paris, and we've just got used to it...

Anyway, the train ride to Carcassonne was lovely. It was just as the sun was setting, and we had great views of the Pyrenées and the Mediterranean. It was around Maëlys's bedtime, so she was a little grumpy, but we were all still able to enjoy most of the trip.
Water, hills, as viewed from the train from Barcelona.
The only thing that marked our entering France was that the automated announcements switched from Spanish, French, and English to just French. This was strangely comforting, in a way. While Talia is pretty competent in Spanish, I am very weak, and being in Barcelona - while enjoyable - it was very clear that I was in a foreign country.

By contrast, coming to Carcassonne, a place we've never been before, was very much like "coming home". The train station was basically like every other provincial French train station. We made our way to our accommodation (an AirBnB), and spoke only French with the host. We knew all the quirks of the French apartment and the French appliances. That it was all so familiar was surprising, as to a large degree France is still a foreign country to us. But it helped us to realize how much of a home it's become.

The next morning was Sunday, and I ventured out to one of the supermarkets to pick up supplies. (Being "at home" means realizing that not many supermarkets will be open on Sunday, and knowing that those which are are probably only open for the morning.) The town was dead quiet. It was a real contrast from Barcelona, full of people and wide thoroughfares with cars and mopeds. Here, I wandered down some cobbled streets, passing only a couple of people. The other people in the supermarket were tourists too.

One of the main entrances to the walled city.
Carcassonne is most famous for its medieval city. This dates back to Roman times, with fortifications being added over the centuries, to defend against threats from outside (those barbaric Spaniards!) and inside (those dangerous commoners!). After falling into some disrepair, a lot of it was rebuilt in the 1800s in an attempt to restore it to its former glory. As it turns out, a lot of the "restorations" were actually just people imagining what they thought a medieval castle should look like, rather than historically accurate rebuilding, but that seems to be part of the appeal. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Another entrance!
A view over the rooftops. Yes, those are houses - people actually live here.
A view from the ramparts down to the town and countryside below.
A view of the southern end of the city.
As you can probably tell from the pictures, we had cracking weather. It was about 25C (77F) and sunny, with clear skies. Great weather for a holiday!
A window in the Basilica of Saint Nazaire, inside the old city.
You may also be familiar with Carcassonne as the name of a board game. The game, inspired by the real city, involves building cities and roads between them in rural medieval France. We saw it for sale in one of the tourist shops, which I thought was quite appropriate.

The aptly-named "old bridge" over the river Aude.
Naturally, each region of France has its own culinary delicacies. Carcassonne is famous for cassoulet, which is a type of stew consisting of white beans, pork sausage, and duck meat, all cooked in lard for hours. Talia had some for lunch, and didn't need any more food for the day.
When in Rome...
After our trip to the old city, we meandered our way back to our accommodation, which was in the newer part of town. Because there isn't really too much to do in Carcassonne, there was none of the usual "tourist-pressure" I feel of having to go and see everything and maximize the amount of experiences enjoyed. Instead, it was extremely pleasant to have a leisurely time. The next day, we enjoyed a relaxed morning before taking a little boat trip along the canal. In the early evening, we took a local train to neighbouring Narbonne, before boarding the high-speed train bound for Paris. Again, the train ride was excellent. For the first portion, the track mostly hugs the Mediterranean coast, providing excellent views. Then, turning left, it's northward to Paris, through the French countryside. We got home at about 11pm; a sleeping baby and tired parents.

Carcassonne was a lovely break. Of course, it's definitely a tourist town, but that doesn't really detract from the beauty of it. (And we live in Paris anyway, so being around tourists is just part of life...) If we had the time, it would have been great to rent a car and just explore the region, stay for a week or so. The pace of holidaying in rural places is quite different from that of Barcelona, and I'm glad that we managed to fit both of them into this trip. I'm also glad that we did it in this order - the quiet timidity of Carcassonne and the comforting familiarity of France was an excellent sequel to Barcelona. The other way round wouldn't have paced itself quite as well. Roll on our next holiday adventure!

Sunday, May 7, 2017

¡Barcelona!

A colorful market in Barcelona
When I first learned we were moving to France, I was both excited and a little disappointed. Disappointed because throughout high school and college, I spent a considerable amount of time learning Spanish, and had always wanted the chance to try out my language skills in a Spanish-speaking country. I thought Spanish would be a much more useful language to know than French, what with the number of Spanish-speakers in the US and the proximity to Mexico and Latin America.

Imagine my surprise, then, to find out that I was moving to France. I had to shove my hard-earned knowledge of Spanish to the back of my brain and start cramming French in there instead. I enjoyed the challenge of teaching myself French and have done reasonably well at learning the language. But I still harbor an appreciation for Spanish and Latin cultures and that dream of communicating in Spanish. Thus, the close proximity of France to Spain was something I wanted to capitalize on while we were in Europe.
Amazingly beautiful gelato

It took us nearly two years of living in France, but I finally realized my goal of seeing Spain. Last month we took a short trip to Barcelona and had two-and-a-half days to see the sights. Here's what we found.

Barcelona is full of life. Compared to Paris, it felt sunny and open and friendly. On our first full day there, we did a walking tour loosely based on the one in the back of the novel The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. One of my favorite books, The Shadow of the Wind is a page-turner of a gothic novel set in Barcelona in 1945. Zafón sweeps you up into a twisting story of shadowy characters and intricate mysteries, while expertly painting the scene of a dark and dismal post-war Barcelona. I was keen to see some of the places that figured so prominently in the story, so we took a stroll down the Ramblas, a long pedestrianized street that takes you through the heart of Barcelona's gothic quarter. We saw an epic outdoor market with amazing foods, then joined the sea of tourists that made its way past the flower vendors, souvenir shops, theaters, restaurants, and living statues, and ultimately emerged at the marina in front of a massive statue of Christopher Columbus. In addition to the Ramblas, we saw a wide variety of architecture, including some fantastical buildings created by Antoni Gaudí in the late 19th century, as well as the outside of La Sagrada Família, the enormous modern basilica designed by Gaudí that has had construction ongoing since 1882. Rounding out the day was a trip to Jansana, a lovely gluten free bakery.

Going incognito and keeping the sun off
We did a lot of walking that first day, and in our vacations pre-baby, we would have felt obliged to go out again in the evening to cram in as much sight-seeing and experiencing as possible. But now with an 8-month-old who goes to bed around 7:30 pm, we had a perfect excuse to have a quiet evening in our AirBnB apartment, cooking ourselves a simple dinner and having hot chocolate on the patio. It was a relaxing end to an enjoyable day. Despite my initial worries about vacationing with a baby, it all worked out splendidly. Maëlys seemed to enjoy the new sights and sounds and she managed to sleep fairly well in an unfamiliar environment. Plus, Spanish people seem to love talking to, smiling at, and touching babies, so she made us quite popular with the locals.

I should note, however, that on the speaking Spanish with locals front, I failed miserably. First of all, Barcelona is part of Catalonia, so they speak both Catalan and Spanish there, and Catalan sounds rather like a mixture of French and Spanish, which confused me. Secondly, my brain is now wired such that when I hear a foreign language, I automatically respond in French, regardless of the language I hear. I kept saying “oui” instead of “si” and “merci” instead of “gracias”. So when trying to order in Spanish at restaurants, I would stare blankly at the server while my brain cycled through the English and French words before coming up with a French pronunciation for the Spanish word. It was frustrating but amusing.
Casa Batlló, designed by Gaudí

GF cake at Pasticelía
On our final day in Barcelona, we first got lunch at another excellent gluten free bakery, called Pasticelía. This time, after again being struck dumb at the sight of the waitress and having to order in English, I mentally rehearsed a couple of Spanish sentences explaining that our sojourn in Paris had left me struggling to speak Spanish. She chuckled and told me (in Spanish!) that she didn't know any French, so she appreciated the effort. It was a small victory.

Sagrada Família basilica
Afterwards, we took the subway, a funicular, and a cable car (excellent views of Barcelona) up the hill to the Montjuïc Castle. Montjuïc was a 17th-18th century military fortress that was the site of a number of battles and symbolized Spain's defeat of Catalonia in 1714. It served as a prison and a house of torture for three hundred years, and is mentioned in The Shadow of the Wind as the grim place where one of the characters was tortured. There is a small historical exhibit inside the fortress, but we mainly just walked around the grounds and on the ramparts. The castle's unpleasant past is not really on display too much, but a somber air pervades what's left of the fortress. At the end of our visit we walked down the steep hill through well-tended gardens and back to the funicular. In the evening we hurriedly made our way to the train station and caught a two-hour train to Carcassonne, a medieval town in the south of France.


I would love to spend more time in Spain. Barcelona was a very colorful and inviting place and with two-and-a-half days we barely scratched the surface. But at least we made it there and at least I was able to use a little of my mostly-dormant Spanish skills. The next part of our vacation took us “back home” to France, and was a great contrast to the bustle of Barcelona. Rory will tell you about that adventure in our next post. Stay tuned.

Statue (should be) entitled, Naked woman pondering ice cream cone.

Monday, April 17, 2017

Giverny, the home of Claude Monet

Spring is in full swing here and we are trying to make the most of the two and a half months we have left in France. Although we're eager for our Hawaiian adventure to begin, there is so much of France left to see and experience. Having a baby made us put some trips and activities on hold, but we're back in the game now. So yesterday we took a trip with two of our good friends to the tiny village of Giverny.


Giverny was the home of Claude Monet, the renowned late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century Impressionist painter. The village of Giverny is in the southeast of the Normandy region of France, and Monet moved to a house there in 1883 at the age of forty-three. By this time, he was already well into developing his new Impressionist style, a disparaging term coined by an art critic in 1874 after an exhibition of his and other similar artists' work. Monet was attempting to artistically document the French landscape using a method of painting that conveyed his impressions and perceptions of the scenery, rather than striving for realism. Much of his progress in exploring this new style occurred at his home in Giverny.


Monet designed and created elaborate gardens on the land surrounding his house. As he sold more paintings and his wealth increased, he was also able to add a water lily pond, the one that would figure so prominently in his later works. His house and the gardens and pond are open to the public, so we spent the afternoon exploring where he created his masterpieces and enjoying the idyllic landscape. Unbeknownst to us when we planned our trip, mid-April is an ideal time to visit as the gardens are dazzlingly in bloom. The vibrant gardens showcased blossoming trees, leafy plants, vines snaking across trellises, and row after row of fragrant flowers, with particularly magnificent tulips of all shapes, sizes, and colors. The water lily pond as well was encircled by bamboo trees, flowering bushes, and a wide variety of other plants, though there were no actual water lilies at this time of year. It exuded peace and tranquility. It was not difficult to imagine Monet being constantly inspired to paint his surroundings.


After visiting the house and gardens, we strolled down the main street of Giverny, taking photos of the picturesque old homes, many of which peek out through a dense layer of bright purple wisteria. There are a couple of cafés and galleries, as well as the Museum of Impressionism, where we had lunch but didn't have time to otherwise visit. At the other end of the village is the twelfth-century church and the cemetery where Monet and some of his family members are buried. And that's about the extent of the town of Giverny. It's tiny and beautiful and even with plenty of tourists it still feels like a charming and refreshing getaway from the rush of Paris.


For any parents of young children among our readers who might consider a trip to Giverny, it should be noted that it works fairly well to bring a stroller/push chair/poussette, though it can't be taken into Monet's house as there are many stairs, and there are also stairs leading to the water lily pond, so it's good to have help carrying it up and down. We alternated the stroller with our baby carrier, and Maëlys seemed to appreciate the variety of views. Also, there are nice baby changing facilities and toilets for children next to the parking lot.


At the end of our meanderings around the village, we took a fifteen-minute shuttle bus back to the neighboring town of Vernon, where we caught the train back to Paris' Gare St. Lazare. The baby enjoyed watching the countryside fly past on the 45-minute trip and was nearly asleep by the time we got home that evening. For a small village in the middle of nowhere, we found it surprisingly easy to get to Giverny via public transportation. It's not a super cheap trip, as a return train ticket from Paris is about 25 per person and the shuttle costs 5 each way. Plus entrance to Monet's gardens and house is 9.50 per person. Still, a visit at the height of springtime is well worth the money and effort; it provides a marvellous escape from city life and allows you to feel the same tranquility and beauty that inspired the paintings of Monet.










Sunday, April 9, 2017

Becoming legal: acquiring residency in France

Here's the scene: your alarm goes off at 6 am and you get up quietly so as to not disturb your six-month-old baby sleeping in the crib next to your bed. Shortly before 7, you walk through the dawn light to a nearby bus stop. It's not yet time for the crush of commuters on their way to work, so you easily find a seat near the window on the bus. Gazing out, you watch as the late 19th-century tenement buildings with splashes of graffitti slowly give way to shorter and newer apartment buildings. Eventually they turn into single family homes, still smooshed up next to each other but with unwelcoming iron fences barring your view of their presumed front yards. Your bus passes over the massively congested freeway that brings thousands of workers into Paris every day and you notice with a tinge of revulsion and sadness the impressive amount of trash choking the bushes next to the onramp. Further on, you glance backward in surprise as you pass the first drive-through fast food restaurant that you have seen in a year and a half. “McDrive” it says. Ah, America, exporting all its finest innovations. Nearly to your destination and now very obviously in the banlieues, you can feel the architecture growing in ugliness, in the '60s and '70s design innovations that should never have left the drawing board. The pleasant part of your trip is almost at its end.

Two buses and an hour after your journey began, you step off the bus at a large bus depot and cross the street. You walk up the now-familiar ramp leading to the Esplanade Jean Moulin and grudgingly find your place at the back of the line of early morning risers, who, like you, have immigration business to attend to at the Bobigny Préfecture. This particular administrative complex not only deals with immigration issues, but is also the place to go for driver's licenses, passports, national identity cards, vehicle registration, and other similarly headache-inducing interactions with the French government. Unbeknownst to you upon your first trip here many months ago, Bobigny's Préfecture is actually notorious in France for its mistreatment of employees as well as those who require its services. So you're not exactly eager to be there again. 

You glance at your watch: 7:55 am. The line already stretches the entire length of two buildings and comprises approximately 400 people, shivering in the late-February morning breeze. A month earlier, you had received an automated text message telling you to show up on this date for your immigration appointment from 8:30-10:30 am. Translation for the uninitiated: the doors open at 8:30 to the 500+ people who have also been told they have an 8:30 “appointment”. Get there as early as you can if you don't want to wait all day. Your mission: collect your long-awaited French carte de séjour, your residence permit.
Part of the Bobigny Préfecture complex
As you shift your weight back and forth and listen to the plethora of languages being spoken in the queue around you, you recall your last visit to this grim place. It was August, still early in the morning but pleasantly warm and sunny. You were even further back in the line, as you had been unaware that your Préfecture-given rendez-vous time meant nothing. Your husband and your best friend were there to support you, as was your two-week old baby girl. She had fallen asleep on the Uber ride over and was still snoozing in your gleaming newish poussette that you had bought from another expat mom. Your husband and your friend were talking, but you found it difficult to contribute to the conversation. You were distracted by the little creature who now monopolized all of your attention, as well as the nervous tension in your stomach and the persistent post-birth ache in your nether regions. You tightly clutched the green folder under your arm that contained all of you and your husband's justifications for living and working in France. In the eyes of the French civil servants, your life boiled down to passports, birth and marriage certificates (with French translations, bien sûr), work contracts and pay stubs, electricity bills, rent receipts, and government forms. Without them, you were nothing.

Now, as you did back then, you mentally rehearse French sentences for your appointment while waiting for the line to move. You've lived here for a year and a half and your French has vastly improved since you arrived, but you still find that when confronted with humorless government employees, your well-practiced phrases and careful pronunciation can get swallowed up by the fear of not understanding. Even basic yet unexpected encounters, like giving directions to a person on a street corner, can still make your French come out like a toddler with a tenuous grasp of grammar. So when your right to work and live depend on your ability to accurately convey your situation in a foreign language, you practice ahead of time.

It's now 8:45 and the doors must have finally opened since you see people shuffling forward. It shouldn't be too much longer, you think hopefully. You are now even more uncomfortably aware of the large man standing next to your right shoulder. Like a good queue-goer, upon arriving you went to the back of the line and stood directly behind a tall Asian man with headphones. This overbearing thirty-something man in a leather jacket, however, seemed to think that the line employed the buddy system. He has been standing beside you, in the space usually reserved for your husband, for the better part of an hour, and it was making you both annoyed and uncomfortable. Glancing around, you notice that you are the lone woman in a sea of men, which for some reason is not an uncommon occurrence in the Paris region. It didn't seem like this man was trying to get ahead of you in line, and he wasn't interacting with you in any way, so you couldn't quite understand why you were so bothered by his presence. But as the line moved painfully slowly down the stairs and within sight of the two entrances to the building, he edged forward, becoming someone else's shadow. He was now several people ahead of you and you could feel your indignation rising. In that moment, you felt the tiniest bit of empathy with the crazy man who had screamed at you inside the Préfecture eight months before.

This is actually near the front of the line.
You had been near the end of your pregnancy and your belly was obvious. It wasn't so huge that people felt sorry for you, but it was big enough to prevent any fat or pregnant? questions. Your husband was with you and you had entered through Porte 1 to request an appointment to submit your carte de séjour documents. After explaining to the receptionist your goal, he silently got up from his desk and led you to the front of a fifty-person-long line. You hadn't asked for any special treatment, but you knew from previous experience that in France, pregnant women have the right to skip queues and be given a seat on buses and other such perks, so you were feeling a little elated at not having to wait forever. You thanked the receptionist profusely and waited at the counter while another person finished talking to the employee behind the glass.

Your elation immediately turned to horror, however, when a thin young man came up behind you and started yelling at you in what you assumed was French. You could only understand one swear word, but there was a unending stream of invectives being hurled at you and your husband, presumably for skipping the line. You timidly tried to explain in French that you were pregnant and that the monsieur instructed you to wait here, but quickly gave up when it became obvious he wasn't interested in listening. You looked imploringly at the twenty or so people standing in the line a short distance away. No one would meet your eyes. You're on your own, white lady, their eyes said. You turned away from the man and tried hard to ignore his continued yelling in your face.Your husband, even worse than you at speaking French in difficult situations, tried a different approach. He faced the man and stared him down. He gave the slightest shake of his head, full of warning to back off, and continued to stare, unblinkingly. After several long minutes, the man seemed to eventually get creeped out by this tactic and stopped talking. But the moment the employee became available, he pushed you out of the way and recommenced his diatribe toward the man behind the counter. Over and over, the employee calmly repeated your right as a pregnant woman, “Elle est enceinte. Elle a le droit,” over the swearing of the young man until he finally skulked away. You exhaled and felt your round stomach unclench a little.

But the man wasn't finished. As you carried on showing your documents to the employee, you felt the surprising force of something colliding with your backpack. You turned around abruptly and saw him walking past, glaring at you. Shocked, but not wanting to give him any satisfaction, you resumed your conversation with the employee. A few moments later, you stiffened defensively. Wham! He struck your backpack again. This time you didn't move. You barely breathed. Your hands were shaking and you fought hard to keep your voice steady as you answered the employee's questions in your halting French. You were not going to cry at the Préfecture. After what felt like hours, the employee handed you back your documents with a numbered slip of paper. You thought he said something about the salle d'attente, though the rest of the sentence was a blur, so you both walked purposefully to the area of chairs and sat down in the last row at the back of the waiting room. You hoped to God that he wouldn't follow you.

Just thinking about that episode again makes your heart pound and your hands sweat. Many months have passed since it happened, and you are now a fierce mama bear, rather than a hormonal and easily-upset pregnant woman. But it was the most frightening experience you've had in France. It's hard to forget. Upon reflection though, you realize that the increasing annoyance you feel at the leather jacket man who is cutting in line is perhaps not all that dissimilar to the anger felt by the skinny man who yelled at you. Perhaps he had his reasons. His behavior was inexcusable and completely atrocious, but waiting at the Préfecture is serious business. You can stand for six or seven hours before even talking with someone. As you've well learned by now, being an immigrant in France is not for the faint of heart.

So you take a deep breath and try to let go of your frustration. You have nearly made it to the door where you will state your purpose to the gatekeeper and be given a number, and you see the large man waiting to the side of the line. He nods at you and slides back into the queue behind you, and you realize that your annoyance was unnecessary after all. Huh.

Finally you make it inside. The walls are adorned with random shapes in varying colors and pictures of birds that look like they were drawn by middle schoolers. The room is already well packed and it's only 9:30. It's stuffy. Your ticket instructs you to wait in the green area this time and you spot a seat next to a young Asian family with a little boy. He smiles at you and you return the smile. The fact that there are even a few seats available gives you some hope. Last time, with your two-week-old baby, your husband and friend spent much of the four hours you were there either standing or sitting on a broken chair with no seat. Now you sit down and glance up at the screens. They're on number 17. You look at your ticket and see 93. Your heart sinks a little.

For the next five hours, you shuffle through a series of activities, trying to stave off boredom and the numb feeling in your legs. People-watching is always fun, though as most of the crowd is as stationary as you, it starts to lose its appeal after a while. You look up at the TV screens and read the French captions on the news. When the news begins looping for a third time, you berate yourself for neglecting to bring a book. All you have to do is pick up your card. How long could it take? you foolishly thought this morning. When number 33 flashes on the screen, you pull out your headphones and watch an hour-long Netflix episode you had downloaded to your phone. Towards the end of the show, you start to feel a prickly aching in your chest. Ignoring it, you play games of freecell on your phone and try to stop looking up every time the next-number sound is played.

By now it's 2 o'clock, and you're distinctly uncomfortable. It has been eight hours since you last breastfed your baby, and your boobs have turned into bricks, completely engorged with unconsumed milk. You wolfed down your PB&J sandwich four hours ago, and the surprise Snickers that you dug out of your purse an hour ago has merely made you more hungry. It never even occurred to you that you would be here this long. Sure, your last trip to the Préfecture took even longer, but this time all you have to do is pick. up. your. damn. card. They could just mail the thing to you! But no, instead you get to travel for two hours on a bus, waste an entire day in a hot and smelly room, and make your husband miss work to look after the baby. To top it off, your breasts are about to explode with milk and you didn't think to bring any breast pads! All for a card that gives you the right to live in France, something you've successfully done without the card for 18 months now.

The chime of three notes breaks into your exasperated fuming. Number 92. You gingerly stand and try to subtly massage your left leg and hip before gathering your totebag and making your way to the side of the room. Out of the five counters where Préfecture employees should be working, only one is occupied with a bored looking young man. Finally, finally, it's your turn.

You note the time. Bonjour, you say. You hand over your passport and your ticket. He asks for your old récepissé de carte de séjour and you pass him your 6-months-expired temporary permit. He looks at your file on the computer, checks with his colleague that you don't have any fees to pay, then finds an envelope with your name on it. You sign something. He signs something. He gives you your shiny pink card. Merci, bonne journée, au revoir, you say. And you leave.

Three minutes and twelve seconds.

After eighteen months, eight trips to three different Préfectures, a total of more than thirty hours of waiting in line, six-and-a-half of them spent today, you finally received your carte de séjour in three minutes and twelve seconds. It's a pretty card, but somehow it doesn't seem worth it. Nonetheless, you feel a glimmer of achievement at having survived the whole process, at being thrown into the deep end of French immigration and having learned how to swim. You're pleasantly surprised to learn that the card allows you to live in France for four years. Even your British husband doesn't have that security, what with Brexit and everything. Of course, you'll only be living in France for six more months before moving back to the US, so the card is basically just a trophy, but at least it has given you some good stories. Tucking the card safely away, you decide to celebrate by getting some of America's finest French fries at the McDonald's across the street, then you hop on a bus and eagerly head home.












Monday, April 3, 2017

Château de malmaison

Two weeks ago, March 20th, was Naw-Ruz, the Baha'i New Year. I took the day off work and we decided to go on a short day trip to welcome in the new year. The weather was pleasant -- bright but cloudy, dry and reasonably warm. It was a welcome change from winter.
The château de malmaison.
We settled on visiting the Château de Malmaison, the former residence of Empress Josephine, Napoleon's first wife. This is in the suburb Rueil-Malmaison, a short train or bus ride west of Paris.

If you know some French, you probably realized that "Malmaison" sounds like "bad house": mal means bad or wrong (like in the English words maladjusted and malnutrition), and maison means house. Sometimes when you see curious expressions like this in place names, it's actually a coincidence, and the name originates with some other words, perhaps words which are now archaic or forgotten, or even from a different language. For example, the names of the English towns of Puddletown and Catbrain are actually derived from Middle English phrases meaning "farmstead on the marsh" and "soil mixed with clay and stones", respectively.

In the case of Malmaison, however, it really does have the meaning we think. In 846, a mansion in this area was burned to the ground by Viking invaders. The area was then dubbed malmaison, meaning "mansion of back luck". Looks like the name stuck!

On the way to the chateau, we bumped into the parc de l'amitié, the park of friendship, a local park with some Japanese gardens, a rose garden, and some other features. Given the name and the Japanese theme, I thought that perhaps it was a garden of international friendship -- perhaps the results of the town being twinned with somewhere in Japan, or something like that. But I was unable to find any evidence of that. As far as I can tell, the city planners just wanted to build a cool park. That's okay with me!

The Japanese garden featured a pond and a scenic bridge. And blossoms, lots of blossoms.
In the grounds of the chateau itself is an art collection of Daniel Iffla, a 19th-Century French financier and philanthropist who named himself Osiris (yes, the same name as the Egyptian god). It was a modest collection of various objets d'art from various cultures around the world -- China, Persia, Greece, Rome. It was also really dark inside (presumably to protect the art), and quiet. It doubled as a good place to quickly change and feed Maëlys, too.
Osiris himself!
It was lunchtime when we arrived, and the chateau closes for lunch! The gardens were still open, however, so that afforded us some time to enjoy our own lunch (we'd packed a little picnic) and look around. The gardens are home to a large rose garden, not in bloom at the time of our visit, and several statues and little streams dot the area. Attempts have been made to have the garden resemble how it was at the time of Empress Josephine, although in her day the gardens extended much further in all directions. Josephine grew up in Martinique, in the Caribbean, and so apparently having a well-tended, diverse garden was a particular source of joy for her. There used to be a greenhouse where she grew pineapples!

One of the garden paths, with the chateau in the distance.

As you can see in the picture at the beginning of this post, it is a nice building, but not particularly grand. That is, it is an excellent example of a stately home, but if you had asked me to guess who lived inside, I would not have imagined "empress". The reason for that is because Josephine purchased the mansion way back when Napoleon was just a general, busy invading Egypt. When Napoleon returned, apparently he was upset at her for purchasing such a run-down mansion that would require so much work to renovate! He didn't have much time to be angry, however, as he was busy planning a coup d'état to overthrow the unpopular government and install himself as emperor. They divorced in 1810 following acrimonious disputes about affairs and Josephine's infertility, although she remained Empress.

Anyway, the inside of the chateau was decked out as it was at the time of Josephine. There were lots of grand paintings, intricate timepieces, and fancy chairs. Absent was any kitchen or obvious servant's quarters, but apparently they were in other buildings in the grounds which have since been destroyed.

One of the receiving rooms inside the chateau.
There was a lot of Napoleon-themed pieces around, including the original version of the famous painting Napoleon Crosses the Alps, which depicts (in grand heroic style) Napoleon heading from France into Italy in 1800. Not pictured: his army!

Napoleon Crosses the Alps!
After we'd seen around the chateau, we hopped back on a bus and then a train and made our way home. It was a lovely trip outside of Paris for the day, and we're going to try to do more day trips like this as our move to Hawai'i gets closer and closer! As I looking back on the pictures from the chateau, it all looks a little drab and grey in comparison to the weather we've had here in the last week or so. It appears that we did a good job of welcoming in the spring!

Thursday, March 9, 2017

Winter travels part 4: Hawai'i

If you're counting, yes, this is my fifth trip this winter, the third trip that involves crossing the Atlantic. I've seen a lot of films on aeroplanes now. This wasn't a trip I had anticipated making, but I got a call inviting me out to Hawai'i for a job interview! (All travel costs covered, of course.) This wasn't totally out of the blue -- I'd applied for the job, and I'd had a preliminary Skype interview, but there are usually so many applicants that the odds of being invited for an in-person interview are very low. So, it was time to pack my bags!

As you may know, my contract here in Paris ends at the end of August, so I've been looking for new opportunities. As I explained in my post "What is a postdoc?", my goal is to get a permanent position in teaching and research. That'd be a "lecturer" in the UK, an "assistant professor" in the US, and a "maître de conferences" in France. The Hawai'i job is an assistant professor job, so it's a big deal if I can do it right.

It's nearly 7,500 miles from Paris to Hawai'i (that's nearly 12,000km), and that's plotting a straight line. There are no direct flights from Europe, so you have to fly via some major hub in the US (or in Asia, which is slightly longer but doesn't make that much difference). All told, it was about 24 hours from takeoff in Paris to landing in Honolulu. The time difference from Hawai'i to Paris is 11 hours.
The Sans Souci State Recreational Park. Yep, sans souci is French for "no worry".
Given all of that, I decided to arrive in Honolulu on Monday evening, which gave me a couple of days to adjust my internal clock before my visit formally began on Thursday. Academic job interview visits in the US are fairly intense. In this case, it involved meeting one-on-one with each faculty member in the department (for 30 minutes to an hour), presenting a research talk to the whole department (faculty and postgraduate students, plus any other interested parties), teaching a (real!) class as a demonstration of my pedagogical methods, being formally interviewed by the entire faculty of the department, meeting with the dean of the college, meeting (and being interviewed by) the postgraduate students, and then also going to dinners with various faculty members in the evening. It's a real marathon, designed to test your skill and aptitude as a researcher and educator, and also your collegiality and ability to get on well with others. Those extra days were crucial for me in de-fogging my jetlagged brain, and also in allowing me time to explore the island and investigate what it'd be like to live there. This last part was especially important as it's not a temporary position, so any relocation to Hawai'i has the potential to be permanent.

Of course, you don't want to know the details of the interview process -- you want to know what was Hawai'i like?
A view of Honolulu. The hilly crater in the distance is Diamond Head. Buildings on the left are part of the university campus.
Well, it was quite lovely, especially in contrast to Paris in February (rainy, cold, dreary). It was apparently a little colder than usual when I visited, but I didn't notice. Since records began in 1877, Honolulu has never been colder than 11C (52F) or warmer than 35C (95F). It's usually between 23C and 27C year round (73F to 81F), so it's extremely pleasant.
A lovely tree at Kailua beach. Hawai'i has lots of lovely trees.
Some miscellaneous observations:
  • Everyone wears flip flops.
  • No-one is in a hurry.
  • Apparently there are centipedes and flying cockroaches. (I didn't see any myself.) They lurk.
  • I had been in Hawai'i for three days before I heard a car sounding its horn. (You might get three minutes in Paris if you're lucky.)
  • A quick scan through some radio stations while driving revealed chamber music, reggae, Japanese punk rock, Korean slow jams, and surf rock.
  • This will sound strange, but the closest point of reference I have is New Zealand. Hawai'i is like New Zealand, but tropical and American rather than temperate and British.
There are several dramatic cliffs with secluded beaches below.
The island of O'ahu, where Honolulu is located, is about the size of the isle of Skye in Scotland, and is home to about 950,000 people. (Skye has 9,000 people.) This means that it can be pretty crowded, especially in the city; but it also means that you can find most goods and products that you need, like any major city. You will pay a lot of money for them, though. Most cost of living indices put Honolulu at about the same level as San Francisco or London, just behind New York. It's not cheap to live in paradise.

Part of this is because most goods must be shipped in on planes or container ships. At more than 3,000km from the closest continent, Hawai'i is by some measures the most isolated archipelago in the world. Unlike the isle of Skye, there is no convenient bridge connecting you to the mainland.
A panorama of the Mānoa valley, the neighbourhood where the university is located.
Even with the extra time I built in, it was a whirlwind trip. I was able to tour around Honolulu and some nearby places, but there's only so much you can do and see, especially when you're fighting an 11-hour jetlag! The 11 hour time difference also made it difficult to stay in touch with Talia. We'd talk in the mornings and evenings while we were both awake, me sharing stories of banana trees and mangos and her sharing stories of baby poops and interrupted sleeping. Before I knew it I was on a plane back to Europe and home in sunny Paris.

PS, I got the job! I start in August.