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.

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!

The Land of the Kiwi

Sometimes I feel very cosmopolitan. There's of course the whole being-married-to-a-Scottish-guy thing and the living-in-Paris thing which add to that feeling. Right now I'm living this crazy fantastical life in which I don't have to earn money and can experience on a daily basis the most popular tourist destination in the world. On Tuesday morning at my yoga class, after sharing my reason for moving to France, I was high-fived by a professional singer from Los Angeles who is in Paris shooting a music video. Is this even real?

Indeed, to make me seem even more sophisticated and well-traveled, Rory and I will be on an airplane to New Zealand four hours from now. Apparently it's not enough to live in vacation-land; we still have to take vacations too. But we're not just going for a holiday. Rory was invited by a colleague at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch to finish working on a linguistics project they had started together at Ohio State. So we'll be spending three weeks on the south island, Rory working for two of those weeks, and the rest of the time will be spent touring the countryside and being engulfed in the natural beauty of the other Land Down Under.

After nearly three months in Paris, I'm really looking forward to being surrounded by hills and sheep and very few people. And hearing English when I walk out the door will be nice too, even if it is a funny-sounding English. I've heard that New Zealand is like the Scotland of the southern hemisphere (sheep and funny accents), so it should be a lovely change of pace from the busy streets of Paris.

We'll take photos and share our travel stories soon, but in the meantime, here are some pretty pictures I took of Paris.

I stumbled upon a magical little neighborhood on a hill.

A carved pumpkin! How rare!

A very friendly neighborhood feline

Roses at Square Severine

Beautiful foliage at Square Severine

Kids playing at Le Square Edouard Vaillant

This is a memorial for the Jewish children from this neighborhood who were deported by the Nazis.

Vroooom!