The Bold Soul

Round 2

I've had several lovely, peaceful months without any French red tape whatsoever, after more than a year of constantly jumping through hoops. It's been wonderful not to worry about immigration issues for a while. Then, the other day, Georges reminded me that it's nearly time for me to start the process of renewing my Carte de Séjour, which is funny because it feels like I just got it -- which in a way, I did, receiving it in December even though I'd applied in August and the card was dated October. So tonight I dug out my folio of notes from the immigration classes I had to take in January and February. The powers that be had thoughtfully provided a sheet with a phone number printed in GREAT BIG TYPE, so that I could easily find the number to call to make the rendez-vous for my renewal. (Unlike last year when it was my first time around, I will not have to go without an appointment and wait in line for FOUR HOURS. Merci to the Préfecture for this!)

Then I noticed in smaller type on the same sheet, it said I could also go online to a web site to make the appointment. Ever eager to use the available technology (and thus avoid having to speak to the police on the phone in French), I decided to give it a try. After wandering around the site for some minutes on my own, and being unable to locate the right section for someone like me (i.e., spouse of a French citizen renewing a temporary card) I called in the reserves: Georges. He helped me find the right link to click (and believe me, they do not go out of their way to make it easy or obvious, but then why am I surprised? They stuck me in the "all other" category) and then walked through the little online form with me to make sure I entered everything correctly.

And lo! After entering the data from my existing Carte and a few additional items (Nationalité: Américaine), I was presented with a page listing the earliest available dates and times to choose for my appointment. They tell you to start the process three months in advance of the expiration date on your card and right now it's about 3 1/2 months before, so the earliest available appointments were the last few days of August and then going into early September. We decided to pick a day during the week AFTER the school rentrée so that there are not too many stressful things going on at once, and we picked a time (1pm) where Georges can easily be there from his job, since he MUST accompany me. I printed off the formal convocation plus a three page list of the documents I will need to bring with me (originals and copies) and it's pretty much what I had been lead to believe would be needed. (Of course, there is also the usual disclaimer stating they have the right to ask for ADDITIONAL documents if needed... that's the wild-card in all this, the bureaucratic ambush that so many foreigners encounter when trying to establish a life in France.)

So, we've made the appointment. Next week I will begin compiling a nice, new, and very FAT dossier of papers -- even more than they specified, especially when it comes to proving our "common married life" -- so that it's done and all ready to go before we take off for our August holidays. That way it will be one less thing to deal with at the end of the summer and sending the kids back to school.

This time around, I feel much calmer about it, much better prepared. Having gone through it once before, at least I'm a little bit familiar with how this will go, although I do have questions about what happens when I renew again next year (am I eligible for a 2 year, 3 year or 10 year card then? I have no idea). But I have no doubts about getting the card renewed -- we're married and they have no other basis on which to deny me -- and the worst thing that would probably happen is some delay in processing it because they want some other paper we don't have or because they just have a big administrative backlog, and if that happens and my existing card expires (end of October) I can probably get a temporary one, which is what they did last year for me.

I don't think the paperwork headache is over, though, nor will it ever be. Our next big challenge will be getting some qualified tax advice for me, as someone who does not work here in France but earns money in the U.S. via my business. There are all sorts of nasty complications and I'm pretty sure I'll end up filing tax returns in both countries and maybe even PAYING in both countries (I hope not) but one thing I do know: my days of using Turbo Tax to prepare my own taxes are finished. I plan to contact the embassy here to get a referral to a good tax accountant in Paris who knows the issues for Americans living here (the web site has a list somewhere).

I do think the worst is over, though, because the worst part of it all last year was the newness of it, the not knowing anything and having to figure it out on our own. Now that we have some real-world experience, it feels just a little bit easier this time.

Of course, I say that now. Talk to me again at end of October when I should have my renewed card, and we'll see if I'm still standing in the ring... or if the Préfecture has beaten me by a knock-out.

The hardest part of living abroad

Damn it. In 24 hours I will be on the RER-B headed toward the airport. I'm going to the States - again. My mother recently had double knee replacement surgery and will need someone to stay with her while she gets back on her feet, literally. My sister, who lives nearby, has been taking care of our mom through this process the past few weeks and I need to come home and give her some much-deserved time off. My mother sort of decided at the last minute that she wanted her "French" daughter to be around, too, and so she gifted me the airfare. I'm glad to be able to go there and be supportive of my mom, and I'm especially glad that my freelance working life allows me to just go when I need to go without having ask some boss for the time off.

But it comes at a price, this "free" trip. I also have to be apart from the person I love the most in the world in order to be with other people I love a whole lot.

This is the hardest part of living abroad. It's the part you don't really want to think about when you're making the decision to move across an ocean, the part where you will be far away from people you love. And that maybe, just maybe, you won't always be able to be there when they need you most. Of course I knew this was a factor given my own age when I came here (45) and my mother's advancing age. I knew that by leaving, I'd be in effect dumping all future direct elder care issues on my sister because it's not like I can hop in the car and drive over there on a moment's notice. And I have to live with the knowledge that some day, my mother will pass over, and I may or may not get the chance to be there at the end. These are things over which I have no control, and although it makes me sad to think of it, I have to remind myself that I'm doing the best I can.

For the moment, though, my mom is okay and came home yesterday from the rehab place (Sis is staying with her until I get there and she's done a great job of organizing all the after-care nursing and therapy) so on this trip, at least, I am not dealing with a worst-case scenario, for which I am very grateful. What I AM dealing with, however, is a bit of guilt over the mixed feelings I am having about the whole thing. While I'm glad I'm in a position to go there and help, I also hate leaving my wonderful husband for so long (11 days) and I will also miss the kids who are on the verge of being done with school and going off to their summer holidays; after tomorrow morning I won't even see the Little Guy until August! 

So for the next 11 days, my heart will be split in two directions. Half of it will be glad I'm with my mom because I know she really needs me, the other half will be aching to come home to Georges. Half of me will be happy I can be a good daughter, the other half would much rather go back to being a wife again. The bottom line is, I'm torn between my old life and my new life. In my new life, I'm happier. I'm well in my skin, as we say, and I'm able to be my true self. In my old life, I'm happy to see people I love (although I'm actually going to miss seeing my best friend this time as she'll be away on her family vacation) and to stay connected to my past, but every moment I'm there, I'm thinking about how I'd rather be HERE.

It is what it is, of course. This is part of the choice you make when you decide to move far away from your roots, even if all your reasons for moving are the "right" ones. I knew what I was getting into when I came here, and then when I fell in love with Georges I knew what it meant to my family life back home. There's no "solution" other than to accept it, do the best I can, and try to be happy in the moment on whichever side of the ocean I'm on.

But it still sucks. The wishbone never wins. I'm just saying.

In which I discover yet another way I am not really French

Gentlemen, you have my permission to skip this post if you'd rather not read about "girl stuff" -- like my first visit to the gynecologist in France.

First things first: I had to get there, and it wasn't anywhere near my neighborhood. I opted for the slower but infinitely more tranquille bus route with just one change. It took a full hour to get all the way to Levallois, but the bus stops right next to where I needed to go -- the British Hospital -- and I arrived 15 minutes early. Most of the staff there seem bilingual and it was kind of a relief to just walk in and easily ask for directions to where I was supposed to be. I had expected to have to fill out a lot of forms, like I do in America each time I go to any doctor and especially the first time going to a new doctor, but other than producing my Carte Vitale, I didn't have to do anything except check in and take a seat. A short wait later, I was called in by the doctor, a young-ish British woman who seemed pleasant enough. So far, so good, and I was even being called in slightly ahead of my scheduled appointment time.

I had been forewarned, of course, about how these office visits and exams are done here: sans paper or cloth gowns of any kind, French women routinely and without batting an eyelash strip down to their bare skin with the doctor in the room, then they hop up on the examining table as nonchalantly as can be. The fact that I was having said exam at the BRITISH hospital with a BRITISH doctor gave me one small ray of hope that my Anglophone kinswoman might take pity on me and toss me, if not a gown, then maybe an old sheet or at least a paper napkin to use in place of a fig leaf. Anything to maintain a scrap of my dignity.

Alas, it was not to be. We're in France and they do things French-style at the British hospital, although I was told that for a mere 250€ I could go up the street to the American hospital and have all the paper gowns I wanted. We even joked about how, as Anglos, we kind of envy the French woman's complete comfort with her own body. At least she offered me the option of keeping one half covered while she examined the other half; I was happy to put my sweater back on at least, as it was a bit chilly in the room. Clearly, I am not yet ready to be totally "French", at least not THIS way.

The bad news was that this doctor turned out NOT to be "conventionée" after all, meaning she's in private practice and doesn't work for the usual 22-30 euro office visit fee; instead I had to write a check for a whopping 90 euros (OUCH) and will hope our mutuelle covers a lot of it. Plus an extra 16,90 euros for some necessary lab work. Cha-ching.

The good news is, the exam itself wasn't as bad as I'd feared it might be. The usual routine gyno stuff was done of course, and we discussed my hereditary high blood pressure and some other rather significant issues with my reproductive health. We are temporarily holding off on a mammogram until some other test results come back, but I'm definitely due for one of those as well. I think she'll be a good doctor for this routine annual kind of stuff, even if I have to pay a bit more for her services for the moment (until I'm more comfortable dealing with French-speaking doctors at least).

Back in the waiting room, surrounded by more pregnant women than I have ever seen in once place (it's a specialty of this hospital), I looked across the room and spied an American friend who I hadn't seen in some months (Hi, E!) We couldn't chat long because it turns out she was called next for her own appointment, but that put a kind of funny yet slightly bizarre finish on the whole experience, because the last thing I expected from going to a doctor here in Paris was to run into someone I know in the waiting room. I mean, what's the social protocol for something like that? I was pleased to see her yet at the same time you're both in a DOCTOR'S OFFICE doing private things; it's not like an episode of Sex & the City where you've planned to meet up with the girls to talk about men and drink cosmopolitans, right? What should we talk about in a hospital waiting room: whether or not we wore matching underwear like the French women (supposedly) do, or how much we hate sticking our feet in the stirrups?

And so, I left. Mission accomplished for the day and really, I'm two for two this week in terms of finding and dealing with some doctors I can maybe continue to stick with for a while. This has been a major mental hurdle for me, for some reason -- finding my own health care providers here, I mean -- and although I have some other health issues still to sort out (eye doctor, dentist and probably a podiatrist to fix what's ailing my right heel lately) I feel like I made the two most important contacts this week.

Meanwhile... the bronchite is I think slowly starting to ease up although I have had two nights in succession where I had so much gurgling when I would breathe in and out that I began to wonder if it wasn't pneumonia instead of bronchitis. I have three more days left on my antibiotics so if it's still not better by Monday it's back to the drawing board again.

More than you probably ever wanted or needed to know about me, huh?

Sometimes, he just KNOWS

I have been spending most of my day today dealing with immigration/marriage paperwork. Yet again (I know, it seems endless, doesn't it?) I had three objectives today:

(1) to find out what I need to do in order to change my name on both my US Social Security Card and on my US Passport because I still haven't done either one, and also to renew my passport before my trip to the US in a month (passport expires in June);

(2) to take stock of all the reams and folios of documents I have collected over the past year and re-organize them a bit differently so I can quickly get my hands on things when I need them; and

(3) to make sure I have a system for creating a paper trail that will prove that Georges and I have a real marriage when the time comes for me to renew my Carte de Séjour this fall (even though I JUST got it in my hot little hand in December, it actually expires in October 2009 and I have to start the renewal process no later than 3 months in advance which is JULY. Which means I'll probably start in June just to make sure I get on the radar before all the bureaucrats take off for summer holidays). We have to save all kinds of documents for the "proof" part, such as statements on our joint bank account and EDF bill with both names on it, and anything and everything else you can think of to show that we maintain a common life as a married couple. Since we don't know exactly what they will ask for (other than the EDF bill), we're kind of saving everything we can think of that has my name or both our names and our mailing address on it; suffice to say that folder is growing by leaps and bounds each month.

In trying to figure out how to renew my passport and change my name on it and on Social Security, I had to make sense of what's on the US Embassy/Paris web site... and of course it's all changed since last time I checked a few months back. I have to renew the passport by mail and hope it comes back before I have to fly (they claim a 2-week turnaround) but it looks like I might need my passport as proof of identity to change the Social Security records, which I have to do in person because MY state doesn't put my married name on the marriage certificate! (Thank you, New Jersey. Duh.) Blah, blah, yada, yada, right? Oh yeah, and I have also been researching where to get the right tax advice now that I'm living here, and the only good news I got so far was finding out that I get an automatic 2 month filing extension each year because I live abroad now.

Suffice to say that as usual I was feeling a little frustrated that the Powers That Be don't make these things easier or provide one-stop-shopping for people like me. And that's when I took a moment to check my email.

And there, I found a very sweet, very spontaneous love letter from my husband.

Who somehow, some way, always seems to know just when I need that little extra lift in my spirits and who knows just what I most need to hear and when I need to hear it. I never doubt his love, not even for one moment... but it sure is extra-nice to be reminded of it. It was just something he wanted to send me to let me know he was thinking about me at that moment.

Can there be any doubt that this man is SO worth all the paperwork, all the hassles of living abroad, all the times when I melt down because of the language problems or the kids or whatever it might be on any given day?

Nope. I just know I am a very, very fortunate woman to be loved by my Georges.

"Obama is not the President of the World, you know!"

That's what the instructor at my Saturday all-day class on Living in France said to one of my classmates.

What happened was, on the morning coffee break, a woman named Marie approached me to ask me why I was in the class, because I was American. She was astonished that I was there (there was only one other American in the room) and she proceeded to say, "Well you have an American passport, so why should YOU have to be here?"

It took me a minute to realize what she meant. She thought that being an American gave me a free pass to go anywhere and stay as long as I wanted. In all seriousness, she believed this to be true, and when I explained that being American didn't give me any special privileges in France or anywhere else, that wherever I traveled I was expected to follow the same rules and laws as everyone else, and that in order to live in France -- even with a French husband (she has one, too) -- I had to go through the exact same process she did if I wanted to live here, she couldn't quite get her mind around it. (To be fair to Marie, she is African and they ARE typically subject to much tighter immigration controls than people from other countries including the U.S.)

And I couldn't quite get my own mind around the misconceptions that other countries sometimes have about Americans. Every time I think I've heard it all, I hear something new. But then again maybe Americans have some wrong ideas about other countries and cultures as well. In that class, I sat behind two Lebanese men and one Jordanian man, and behind me was an Iranian man, and I thought how interesting it was that my cultural pre-conditioning caused me to even notice where they were from in the first place because I was thinking if I were in the U.S. I would just never be in a room with four men from those countries, and how it wasn't all that long ago in my own lifetime that Americans were being held hostage in Lebanon. Of course a lot has changed since then; some things are much better and others are much worse, but people are still people and I enjoyed meeting these people, with whom I got to share a day where we were all there for the same purpose: because we have chosen to live in France. (Which is why I love being abroad... it helps me challenge my own ideas, provides me with experience I would never get to have otherwise, and broadens my mind.)

But I digress.

Back in the classroom some time later, the instructor was talking about how in France, everyone is equal under the law, that they have both the same rights AND the same responsibilities. I brought up the coffee break conversation between me and Marie because I thought it illustrated that point, that as immigrants we are all (more or less, anyway) expected to go through the same process -- even we Americans.

The teacher was as surprised as I was at first (although this would not be the first time this Marie surprised her with her odd questions and ideas... Marie proved to be quite a character and ended up being ejected from the room toward the end of the day for being disruptive) and after reinforcing the point that yes, even the Americans have to do the same thing as everyone else if they want to be residents or citizens of France, she then came out with the punch line -- in English:

"Obama is not the President of the WORLD, you know!"

[Insert raucous laughter from entire class here.]

I think the funniest part of that line for ME was knowing that Obama wasn't quite President yet, but how interested and excited people are about the prospects of him BEING the President of the United States, even when they're from other countries... but it also showed just how Bush is already "past tense" in a lot of people's minds because for once he didn't even come up in the conversation. Sarkozy did, though (with lots of rolling of eyes and grimaces).

At any rate, I am especially excited about this inauguration tomorrow and I am planning to watch it tomorrow afternoon at a very lovely Irish bar near the Tuileries (Carr's, if you happen to know it) where they will be broadcasting it on big-screen TV via CNN. Georges is going to try and get off work early to join me there... he's never seen a US Presidential inauguration and this one is historic, not to be missed.

Comment dit-on "spam" en français?

You know you're really integrating into life in France when you start getting spam and phishing emails... IN FRENCH!

"Phishing", as you may or may not know, is the term for those dangerous spam emails that are designed to appear as though they come from a legitimate source where you might already have connections, such as PayPal, eBay or even your own bank (the one I got today was supposedly from PayPal where I do happen to have an account). The senders of these emails are "fishing" for your personal information by hoping to trick you into panicking about your account being closed down and getting you to click on a link where you will supply them with your name, address, phone numbers, email address and most importantly your bank account, credit card or social security number. It's another form of identify fraud, it's very prevalent, and even experienced Internet users have been duped by these scam artists because some of the emails are very realistic looking (the one I got today was not so well done, and since I rarely get email in French I was suspicious right away, but even when they seem like the real think I always look more closely).

99.9% of the time these emails will be fakes and your bank or Amazon will not have tried to contact you at all. The way you can tell these emails are NOT from the source they claim to be, is to check the URL for any links they want you to click on (the URL is the part that looks like "http://blah-blah.com"). For instance, in the fake PayPal email urging me to click the link to "Veuillez rétablir l'accès à votre compte" (Reestablish access to your account) when I put my cursor over that link (but didn't CLICK it... NEVER CLICK ON A LINK IN ANY SUSPICIOUS EMAIL) what I saw was a URL without the PayPal.com domain name in it (the first clue that it's fake) and where the domain name ended in ".nu" which is usually assigned to domains registered in the South Pacific island nation of Niue, near Fiji. However, while pretty much anyone in the world can register a domain with that extention -- meaning you really don't know WHO is really emailing you and asking you to provide your personal information to theoretically "keep your account open" or "reactivate your account" -- I think it's safe to say PayPal is NOT sending out emails with links to something.nu if they want to communicate with their customers.

The thing to do with these emails is to simply delete them without clicking on any link contained within the email. Legitimate online merchants such as Amazon, eBay, PayPal and any catalog shopping "stores" online, as well as any banks that provide on-line services to their customers, are already well aware of these phishing scams targeting their customers and blemishing their good names, and as a result they will NEVER ask you to provide any updated account or personal information by clicking on a link. For example, when my bank needs to contact me via email, they send an email without ANY active links in it, and they instruct me to phone my local branch or to log onto the main web site and access my secure email (they provide a secure system using their web site so I can discuss my account with them via email with complete peace of mind).

So, to be safe, just delete those emails without clicking through to any links, and if you're worried, just contact the company through another means -- by phone or through their web site's "Contact Us" instructions -- to determine if there is really a problem with your account. Follow the same common sense rules that apply whenever someone calls you on the phone claiming to be affiliated with your bank, credit card company, etc. and asks you to give them your full account number or entire social security over the phone, which is another clear sign of attempted identity theft. Because if it WAS your bank calling -- wouldn't they already have that information at their finger tips? NEVER GIVE OUT THAT KIND OF INFORMATION TO SOMEONE WHO INITIATED THE CONTACT WITH YOU.

In the meantime, I'm getting a little giggle over having received my first phishing email in French, even while I have already deleted it from my in-box. There is no point in wondering "how did they get my email address?" -- because "they" have it now and I'm sure this won't be the last time I get one of these. After I get the 10th such spam message in French I'm sure I won't be giggling any more. Because now I have the chance to get TWICE the junk mail, in two languages.

Makes me think that maybe I don't want to learn Italian after all.

Titre'd at last!

Enfin! After starting the process in August, I finally got my new Titre de Sejour. I like what it says as the "motif" = "vie privée et familiale".

I have to say, despite my anxieties about how awful this morning was going to be (I didn't sleep well last night at all), it was actually amazingly well-organized and the people working there were all very professional and pleasant. They must go out of their way to select people with good personalities to work in this place that is supposed to "welcome" foreigners into the country officially. So kudos to them!

Here's how it all went down:

I arrived about 15 minutes before my scheduled 8:30 appointment to discover (no surprise) that the doors were still locked and there was a line of about 30 people already there. It was freezing cold but at least the skies were clear after yesterday's freak snow showers. I had the foresight to put an extra shawl in my tote bag so that helped keep me warmer while I waited.

A guy came out and redirected all of us that were there for the "visite médicale" to form a line on the OTHER side of the building's entrance (it's on a corner), and to have our letter of admission plus passport ready. A couple of minutes later they started letting us into the building -- WARM! Someone glanced at my letter and circled the date and time, but never looked at my passport, and directed me upstairs and to the left.

Another guy with a beard was there at the top of the stairs, smiling, as a greeter, pointing the way to the next check-in point. (There were several throughout the morning.) This time someone looked at my passport and temporary carte plus the same letter, asked me if I was a student (I said no, I'm married) wrote a number "12" on the letter, and directed me to the next table.

A lady there, smiling and pleasant, asked me a few questions in French. I realized she was partially assessing my ability to understand French although this was not the official language skills assessment part of the program. She asked me how long I'd been in the country and was it my first time living there, and I was able to respond fairly well en français. She directed me into a large room with rows of modern chairs, a few tables, and a wide-screen TV at the front. Ah... the welcome presentation room! They even had coffee, juice, water and cookies at the back... very hospitable.

The same greeter-with-beard came in, told us we were going to see a presentation about what was going to happen, and asked several people to raise hands if they didn't speak French and spoke either Chinese or Arabic, because they had those little translator things like you get in museum tours for those folks... very nice. So, we watched the presentation which talked about how we were going to be asked to sign an obligatory "contrat" between us and the state, good for the next year and during which we would be expected to do several additional steps. Not completing all those steps adequately could be grounds for the préfecture refusing to renew our C de S next year. You'd get a certificate at the completion of each step which you'd need to present for your card's renewal to prove you'd done what is required. The film spoke about the values of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité in France, among other things.

Then the bearded guy and another woman came back in. More briefings on what to expect the rest of the morning. We'd be called individually for a private interview. During the interview they'd be assessing our language skills and walking us through the rest of what we needed to do, both that day and going forward. That day, after this interview, we'd have the medical exam, and then right after that we'd get our C de S, good for one year.

I waited about 20 minutes until my name was called, about halfway through the rest of the group so not too bad a wait. I got a very nice woman who interviewed me, and she decided that my French was good enough that I got the DILF language certificate on the spot! (Shocked me, that's for sure.) This certificate is one of three I have to collect this year and present during my renewal next year, so it's important and a part of the integration process. Doesn't mean I don't have to keep studying and improving my French but it's one less thing I have to do -- taking their required language course and a formal exam to get the same certificate.

She also set me up with appointments for two additional full-day events. One, which I'll do in January in both French/English, is to cover all aspects of French daily life so I know what services are available and how things work. That should be useful. The second, at end of February and also in French/English, is more instructional about how the system of government works and things like that. I'll get certificates from both of those to add to my collection and prove I attended and met all the criteria of the "contrat" I signed during the interview.

The woman then gave me a four-page list of resources in my arrondissement including a number to call for information for immigrants who have questions about anything and everything, where to get legal services if I need them, etc. and so forth. She put it all in a nice blue white and red folio along with a big reminder to start the renewal process three months before my card expires. I told her I thought she was very well organized, and I meant it. She then walked me down the all to the room where I would wait to be called for the medical. Voila!

I hate medical stuff... let's just be up front with that right now. But I have to say, this could have been SO much worse and it was no where near as bad as I'd imagined. First, a woman called me into a room where my height and weight (ugh - don't ask) was noted. I had to read an eye chart across the room without my glasses (which are only for reading) and had no trouble reading the tiniest printed line. Then with glasses I had to read a few lines, in French, and in small print. Also no problem. Then, a finger-prick blood test, to test my sugar. Ew! But I got through it. I'm just glad I'm not a diabetic... which they do ask about, by the way (also loads of HIV/AIDS "wear a condom/get tested" warning posters all over the place).

Next, it was take a seat again, please, while I waited for my turn for the chest x-ray. This involved going into a little booth, locking the door, stripping down to the waist including no jewelry or bra (it was chilly in there!), and waiting until a technician came to get me (there were 3 such private cubicles all in row). The technicians were all female, by design I imagine, to make the women more comfortable and guys don't care about taking their shirts off anyway. The technician was also very pleasant and smiling, positioning me the way she wanted for the x-ray and saying "Gonflez!" just before she hit the switch ("Take a deep breath!") Over and done with, get dressed and have a seat again.

About 10-15 minutes later -- and considering how many people were in that room it really went rather quickly -- a gray-hair doctor in a Mr. Rogers cardigan and a pleasant demeanor called me in and he had my x-ray with him. Blood pressure check. Looked at my vaccination records which I had the presence of mind to bring with me on my last trip home, along with some other old medical records. He recommended I get another DPT booster as I might be overdue; I'll check with my old doctor back home to see if I had one at my last physical in 2006. He listened to my heart and lungs, asked me a few medical history questions and what I did for a living -- every French civil servant to whom I've said "freelance writer" and "I write books" has been utterly DELIGHTED with that answer. It's so nice to live in a culture that values the arts the way the French do.

And it was over. He gave me the x-ray to keep, shook my hand and wished me a good holiday. Another brief wait to get the medical clearance form (and a copy for my records) for the prefecture, a short walk down the hall to the prefecture's special office (thank GOD they didn't make me go back to Cité again!) and in 5 minutes I had my carte, and was heading for the metro.

A long morning and a longer story telling about it, but that's how it worked for me. Maybe in some other parts of France you still have to pee into a little cup, but the way they're doing it at this place in Paris, there was really no embarrassing unpleasantness other than having to walk half-naked into the x-ray room in front of two female x-ray techs, and it being a bit too chilly in the room for my comfort.

And now for a month or so I can relax until the next seminar, but really from this point on it's just going through the required steps and keeping copies of my records all together the way I've been doing, so I can find them easily when needed. I also found out I can now get my name changed on my passport and get it renewed, which I'd been putting off because I didn't want anything to screw up getting this residency card, and my current passport has the official visa and everything. So after the holidays I'll go and do that, and get my name changed for American social security at the same time.

Now I can go on my holiday with my official French id intact and total peace of mind. Merry Christmas to me, I guess, courtesy of the French government!

A Christmas miracle in November

I just booked tickets for me and Georges to go to New Jersey over the Christmas holidays. I had been watching the airfares for some weeks and they were slowwwwww-ly coming down from the cardiac-inducing fees they were gouging charging over the summer months. But as of last week it seemed they had leveled off and we were going to pay around $1275 for the two of us (compare that to having paid over $1350 PER PERSON in July!). Not bad all things considered, but I had hoped for something better because I heard on the news that the major carriers were dropping their fares for the holidays. Finally I figured this was probably as good as it was going to get, that perhaps these WERE the "lower holiday fares" I'd been hearing about, and last week I was going to go ahead and book the flights.

Then, for all kinds of reasons I won't go into, I was unable to book the flights until today. And Lo! A Miracle! The fares have dropped AGAIN, and by a lot, and we paid only $1,040 for the two tickets, taxes included. They'll even give us a pillow, a blanket and something to eat, maybe a parachute too, and as of this moment we can still take two checked bags each without an extra baggage fee because we're flying internationally (whew!) This breaks down to $520 per person... which is about $40 LESS than the ticket I bought last year around the same time.

I guess the powers that be at Continental decided to have mercy on my poor Bold Soul... or at least on my bank account. But I'm not going to question the Miracle. I will just be thankful for it.

God Bless Us Holiday Travelers... every one.

If you want something done quickly... don't move to France

Today, I had my next interview for my new carte de séjour, the one entitling me to live here as Georges' wife. I normally talk very little about my personal immigration saga because Google lives forever and I don't want others thinking they can use my experience as a frame of reference if they're also trying to move to France. Everyone's experience is unique so it's like comparing pommes and oranges, and an expert on the finer points of emigrating to la belle France, I'm not.

But today I thought I'd break my own rules and share how it went. In a word: Fine. I survived. No one was awful to me or made me cry in frustration. But I still don't have my carte de séjour. Yet. I'll get it in due course, but it seems things just move slowly and not all that efficiently here. Let's recap how this has gone so far, to further illustrate this point.

You may recall that one of the things I had to do after the wedding was going to the French consulate and first getting our marriage license recognized by France. Ten days (10 days!) later they gave me our livret de famille and a translated copy of the acte de mariage, which meant our marriage was officially on the books (and will be subsequently notated on Georges' official birth certificate record, which is the custom here). That same day, I had a noon appointment in another office of the consulate for my "spouse visa" application (that's not the official name of the visa, just what I call it). My paperwork was accepted and I was told to come back between 3 and 3:30 the same day to pick up my passport and visa. When I got there, it wasn't ready so I had to wait a few more minutes longer, hoping nothing had gone wrong. It hadn't, I walked out with the visa, and the first big hurdle toward residency was cleared. Two days later I got on the plane and returned to France on July 31st.

The visa I was given was only good for two months, which they did on purpose to impress upon me the need to act quickly and apply for the carte de séjour without delay after arriving on French soil. Within a week I had done so, and you may recall that this was the day when I had to stand in line for 4 1/2 hours without an appointment (because it is not possible to MAKE an appointment for your initial application; only for renewing a carte) only to have the actual meeting take all of 15 minutes. But, I walked out of that meeting with my temporary carte in hand, and an appointment booked at the préfecture... for October 27th, today. That was the earliest they could offer, over 2.5 months from first application.

In preparing for each of these meetings from beginning to end, I have had to prepare and photocopy mountains of documents. I have had to pay for copies of my own birth certificate and apostilles, which now hardly anyone seems to glance at.

So today, what is now holding up the works is the required doctor's exam. Which I only learned about today. Which they can't do until December 10th because I have to go to a specific place affiliated with the immigration process in France, not to my regular doctor in Paris, and these other doctors are booked up until December (everyone else in line with us got the same date and time, so it's going to be another long, long, long day that day). Because my first temporary carte expires on November 5th, they issued me a NEW temporary one today, good until end of January 2009, which is good because if there is a hitch on December 10th, it means I can still go home to NJ for the holidays and get back into France again without a problem.

However, we were told that assuming the medical exam is all normal, and there is no reason to think it won't be, I will finally get the carte de séjour that very day in that very office, over near Bastille. I won't have to go all the way back to the Préfecture at Cité, at least.

The carte will be good for one year. But one year from TODAY, not one year from December 10th. And I have to book my appointment to renew the card (which is renewable for one year) three months in advance of when it expires. Which means next July. Just about one year from when I started this application process in the first place. Which, if you're counting, means I will have had my one-year carte for only seven months before having to get the ball rolling on the renewal.

Sigh.

It will get better though, I know it will. This is simply new territory for me and for Georges and we're learning as we go. He had to come with me today, it was required because we have to show that we're REALLY married and sharing a common life (we provided evidence of a joint bank account and both our names on the electric bill), and he'll have to come with me for the annual renewal process. I've been told by people who have been through this that there is a possibility that someone from the préfecture might just drop in some day, unannounced, to see if we're living together as husband and wife, are we really sharing a life or not. I suspect they stop short of planting cameras in our bedroom to see if we're... well, you know... but you never can tell.

We did learn, also, that I get another one-year card next year, and then after THAT I can apply for a 10-year card. And it is my understanding, although I have to confirm this, that after five full years I would be eligible to apply for French citizenship if I want to, but this would not be required as I could just keep getting 10-year cards and stay here forever on that basis.

So we are mostly through the first giant hoops, and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Now after going through it once, the future renewals should be a bit easier, if not much quicker (I'm guessing they only require the medical exam the first time around but who knows?) But of course being me, and American, and all about efficiency, I keep seeing ways they could so easily improve and streamline things. For instance, if they knew I would have to go for a medical exam and that the waiting list is 6-8 weeks long to get an appointment, WHY OH WHY could they not have told me to get that exam when I had my FIRST meeting with them in August? I could have had the exam already done by now, and could have walked out today with my residency card in hand, saving a step. But no, that would be too logical, and in France what is sometimes considered sensible doesn't make sense to an outsider at all.

Because, you know, they might be able to eliminate even one fonctionnaire's job if they got TOO efficient, and France is very attached to job security.

Fortunately, I am really getting so much better at not even getting upset by all this stuff. I prepared well over the weekend and had a nice, organized and very chubby dossier with me, and I felt very calm all morning and through lunch. If anything, Georges was the one feeling a tiny bit stressed, but only because he had a meeting at his office at 3pm and he thought he might not get back there in time. Luckily we just got through with enough time for him to high-tail it to the meeting. But I felt well prepared and really as if we are through the worst of it and the rest is just swimming with the tide until I get the carte in my hand.

I think that one of the things I like about France, even in a busy city like Paris, is the slower pace of life in general. I have always loved that the French will take time out to sit in a café and just people-watch, even if they're alone. They will take a siesta on a hot summer's day, if they can. They will take time to enjoy a meal and to notice what they're eating. Time has a very different meaning here, altogether. Maybe it's part of their Latin heritage, I don't know, but it's certainly part of their culture.

The down side of how the French perception of time often improves the quality of life here, is that they sometimes take it too far in the other direction. They're TOO relaxed when they shouldn't be. Sarkozy isn't wrong when he says France needs to work harder (he's just not going about implementing that concept so well). People here often lack initiative. Entrepreneurship is still a foreign concept to a lot of people here. Cashiers at the supermarket move at a snail's pace, even in the so-called express lanes. People take 90 minute to 2-hour lunches, even if they have jobs where other people are likely to be waiting in a long line when they get back to their desks, and they saunter in completely unapologetic at making you wait. Forget doing your own shopping or errands on your lunch hour because it's every shop-keeper's lunch hour too, from 12:30 to as late as 3pm sometimes, and even your coiffeuse may be eating her lunch at that time so you can also forget sneaking in that haircut while you eat your sandwich.

This is just not a culture where things move quickly. And I'm learning to deal with it even if I'm not always so thrilled with it. Don't get me wrong, you can find examples of efficiency in France just as you can in any society; the SNCF trains, for instance, typically run on time, most of the time. Unless there's a rail strike, of course.

But don't even get me started on THAT.

Are they putting happy juice in the morning coffee?

This morning, Georges and I got up early to be at our local social security office when they opened at 8:30 -- we're finally getting around to having me added on his health care plan so I can stop paying big bucks for my occasional doctor's visit and for prescriptions (although in truth, most of my prescriptions still cost less in France than they did in the U.S. on a cash-and-carry basis).

For once, the process was a breeze. We were #4 so we had no wait to speak of. The woman that helped us was very nice. She made copies of my birth certificate and didn't even put up a fuss that I haven't had it translated. She even put a "rush" note on her paperwork so that we can get an attestation of coverage before our big carte de séjour appointment at the end of this month. The guy who helped us with a faulty printer in a self-service kiosk Georges was using to print out some documents, he, too, was in good spirits and entirely helpful. Even the big bruiser of a man who was there to keep order and make sure everyone got their "now serving" number, even he had a smile. Maybe it's something they're putting in the water over there?

On the way home, Georges had the idea that we should also stop at the local EDF office to get my name added onto the electric bill, because in France, utility bills are sacrosanct documents and typically your only recognized proof of where you live. I get bank statements delivered here in my name, but until now have not had any utility bills with my name on them; in the apartment I had been renting previously all the utilities were included in my rent, so I never had to deal with a single bill (sweet!) But can someone explain to me how it is possible, when the French make such a huge deal about these EDF bills as pieces of identification, that the guy at the EDF office (also a very helpful, cheerful sort -- guess it was just our day to get the good ones) never once asked to see any identification from either me or Georges? He just took Georges' word for it that he was who he said he was and that my name is Lisa and I'm his wife, and I should be added on the account. In 5 minutes it was done and he printed out an attestation for us in case we need it before the next billing cycle.

So for once, the course of bureaucracy in France ran smoothly. We were overdocumented and well prepared for anything, but it was unnecessary -- THIS time. You can just never tell.

I have the power now!

My election ballot just arrived!

I was beginning to get a bit worried. I registered to vote via an overseas ballot with my county in New Jersey well before the deadline (and did my married name change in the process) and several weeks ago received my updated voter's registration card. But here it was, the beginning of October, and no sign of my ballot, which I was supposed to receive at least 30 days before the election. Then I saw that Vivi already got (and voted with) hers, and therefore I made up my mind that if it didn't come in today's mail, I'd call the county clerk and ask what was happening and would I be receiving the official ballot, or would I have to go with the write-in ballot, the ballot of last resort.

As usual the government's doing things last-minute, but it's here in time, and that's what counts.

So, in my official packet was the following:

1. One "Federal Overseas Official Ballot" for the General Election November 4, 2008, for Warren County, NJ. I am to vote for a President, a Senator and a Representative. Because I am no longer living in the state itself, it appears they didn't include any local referendums or local elections, which is only fair I suppose.
2. One* official envelope which has a tear-off flap -- which I am pointedly instructed NOT to tear off! -- which I have to fill in by hand as a way of certifying that it was really me who filled out the enclosed ballot. The envelope is pre-addressed to the County Clerk's office and also contains a return address label with my name and address here in Paris. Um... so much for secret* balloting, but I guess there's no other way to do it when you're going through the post.
3. An instruction page*.

I always like seeing the Federal ballot every four years, mainly because it's interesting to see that in America, although we are mainly a two-party system, there ARE other parties and candidates out there. This time around, there are candidates for President from the Socialist Party, a party called "Vote Here", the Green Party (which has TWO female candidates -- HEY!), the "Socialism and Liberation" party, the "Socialist Workers" party (how those last two differ from the Socialist Party, I have no idea), the Constitution party, the Libertarians, and of course Ralph Nader managed to get himself on the ballot again as an Independent. For the Senate and House, we've got some other parties represented: "Boss for Senate", which is NOT Bruce Springsteen but some guy who's last name is Boss; "God We Trust" party; and "Poor People's Campaign" party. If you get enough signatures on a petition, you can run for office in this country, even if you don't have the millions upon millions of dollars it actually takes to run a winning campaign these days.

Georges is very interested in seeing the election documents, to see how the process works for us in the U.S. When he voted in the most recent local elections in Paris, I tagged along with him to see his democracy in action and it was really a lot like how it works when you vote in person in the U.S. -- you go to a designated voting area for your neighborhood, in this case it was a primary school, you show your identification, get a ballot, go into a booth with a curtain, vote, and that's pretty much it. There are more similarities in our two countries' voting process than there are differences. Isn't that nice to know?

Of course, this is my very first time voting as an ex-pat. I don't know if it's the being an ex-pat part and wanting to stay connected to my homeland (and the fact that I will still have to file and pay taxes in the US for the rest of my ex-pat life anyway), or is it that this particular election feels so much more important than those in the past (given what's going on back home), but for some reason I am taking my vote very much to heart this time around. IT MATTERS. A LOT. I haven't cared this much about an election since the first time I voted in the 80s. (Yeah, and I voted for Reagan, then, too. Ya wanna make something of it?)

And oh, I feel POWERFUL all of a sudden. I can't wait to put this baby in the mail and to know that no matter what the outcome, I did MY part to be the change.

Now, all I will have to do after this is wait it out. It's gonna be a LONG LONG LONG month.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Turns out this method of voting is more private than I first thought. Upon closer inspection and an explanation from my very smart husband, the "instruction sheet" proved to be a special UNMARKED envelope with a tear-off flap. Plus there is the mailing envelope which has my return address on it. He explained that you put the ballot (which has no identification on it) into the inner envelope with the tear-off flap, and seal it. You write your name and address and sign the flap. Then you put THAT entire thing into the mailing envelope, post it, and off it goes. When the clerk's office receives it, they have one person open the outer envelope and put it off to the side in case maybe they need to verify receipt with it. Then another person tears off the tear-off stub and they use THAT to also verify that I sent in my ballot, to mark it in the records that I did, in fact, vote. Because you only get one vote or it's illegal, of course. Lastly, someone else will open the unmarked inner envelope, take out my unmarked ballot and tally the vote. In theory, if done properly, the people who see my name on the envelope should never know what my actual vote is, unless of course someone is peeking when he/she shouldn't be. And this all happens in advance of November 4th so they can add these long-distance votes to the ones coming in via the state voting booths.

My favorite part of Georges explaining this to me was when he said that this is the way it's normally done in any good democracy. I'm not too thrilled about this $700 billion bailout being passed and rush-signed by Bush, so it was nice to have a positive reminder that I am a citizen of a democracy, however imperfect it seems to be at the present moment and however far away I may live now. My country still lets me vote. And my vote counts.

Not long enough

Georges is leaving for Paris in a few hours. He's packed and now we're basically just killing time... constantly looking at each other, smiling through sad eyes. I know I'm upset because it's lunchtime and I have zero appetite, and the only time I don't have an appetite is when I'm really upset about something.

It sucks that we can't all go home together, but that's the way it is. He has to go back to work, and I have to hang around waiting for the documents I need to get the spouse visa that will allow me to set up my permanent residency in France. We'll only be apart for 12 days, but we've only been married for 9 days. Not long enough for a "separation" already.

Better bring some Kleenex to the airport. For both of us.

This message is inspired by the sadistic bastards who are in charge of currency exchange rates

I will be the first one to admit I know absolutely nothing about how one currency is valued (or devalued) against another currency. I simply don't understand it so I don't wrack my brains trying. I just try to cope with the bad news that the dollar is sinking against pretty much every other currency out there, except for the Swiss Franc and even with that we're now just breaking even. Even the Canadian dollar is beating our asses.

But THIS? This is just plain P-A-I-N-F-U-L. Today I needed to transfer some bucks from my American bank over to my French bank, so as usual I checked the going exchange rate... and nearly had a stroke:

1 EUR = 1.58407 USD

This means that $1,000 of my money only buys me about 630€ of goods and services here in France. And doesn't that just royally suck.

God help us all, we poor (and getting poorer by the minute) ex-pat Americans. We may love living abroad and there are many good things about having this kind of life experience, but we sure are paying a high price for it right now.

So my message to whomever it is out there who is tinkering with my hard-earned money all for the sake of trying to get rich, at MY expense, by gambling (they call it "investing") on which country's currency is going to be worth more today than another, is this (and I apologize in advance for not be more elegant in my phrasing, but sometimes you just have to say it):

Dear Greedy, Inconsiderate, Selfish Creeps:
I hope some day someone comes along and tries to piss all over YOUR dream by fucking with YOUR money, you rat bastards, whoever and wherever you are. And when it happens to YOU, I will laugh maniacally and do a little happy dance around a pile of my bank statements, in your honor. And then I will burn a dollar bill, in effigy. Because at the rate these rates are going, it won't even be fit for burning before long.

But know this: no matter how you try to screw with the US dollar, you will not kill MY dream or force me to crawl back to suburban New Jersey with my tail between my legs, whining about how it's too expensive to live in Paris. I will just live my dream on a budget if I have to. And then I will write several best-sellers and be fabulously wealthy, and will be paid by my publisher in euros, in order to beat you at your own game. I will sit in a café along the Seine at sunset, watching the pink-amber afternoon sunlight work its magic over the old stone buildings, thinking how good my life is here in ways having nothing to do with money; and I will then happily drink a bottle of champagne with my amour as we toast a victory over this game you are playing with other people's lives. Because living boldly is the best revenge.
Sincerely yours,
The Bold-But-Totally-Pissed-Off Soul

Sometimes, you gotta

One of the things that helps, when you live far away from your roots, your friends, your family and your culture, is occasionally splurging on things that remind you of home. Even things you know are ridiculous. I had one such splurge today, at lunch.

I first became acquainted with the famous Kraft Mac and Cheese as a very little girl. I came home from my friend Claire's house one afternoon and raved about Mrs. Verguson's macaroni and cheese. My mother, a wonderful cook (who was a Martha Stewart-in-training long before Martha was old enough to dream of her own empire) went to all the trouble of making a macaroni and cheese casserole from scratch, with four cheeses and everything. And I wouldn't touch it. Somewhat deflated by my less-than-enthusiastic reaction to her culinary masterpiece, my mother asked Mrs. Verguson for her recipe for mac and cheese.

To which Mrs. Verguson nearly wet herself laughing, before explaining to my poor mother that her "recipe" was Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, with the powdered fake orangy "cheese sauce", that me and her own daughter loved so much. I've been eating it ever since, although to be honest the past three or four years I basically stopped eating it because just didn't appeal to me anymore. I figured I had finally "outgrown" it at the age of 44 or so.

Or... have I? Today, I do not blush to say: I ate ALL of it. The whole pot full. By myself. I did not even offer to share it with the children or Georges. And it was delicious, even considering it cost about 4 times what it would have cost me to bring a box from home (which I forgot to do on my last trip). It may not "gourmet" but it sure tasted a little bit like home.

Hey, don't judge me harshly until you've walked in my cheesy shoes.

One!

Forgive my 3rd post today... I was originally planning on posting this one on Monday the 12th, because I thought THAT was the date of my one year anniversary of being in Paris. However, a friend just reminded me that it was really one year ago TODAY that I arrived!!! (Wow... so many milestones in the past couple of days: 1 month with Georges, yesterday. 100,000 visitors just minutes ago. And now THIS! I am going to drink some serious champagne tonight at the Bloggers' Bar Night to celebrate!).

It hardly seems possible.

One year ago, I came here with the goal of "trying it on for size", this living abroad in Paris thing. It is something I have been wanting to do my entire life, and I blogged about wanting to do it for 18 months before ACTUALLY doing it... but for too many years I had pushed that dream aside. Finally, I had to ask myself: "Will I regret it more if I do NOT do it?" And the answer was an immediate YES.

So, I found a place to live for the first few weeks, filled out some paperwork, and got on a plane. The first 5-6 weeks, it was mainly like being on vacation with a little bit of work thrown in. I wandered the city for hours, camera in hand. I was alone the majority of the time, except for an occasional Meetup.com drinks party, a weekend in London as the guest of a client, and a few days in December when a friend from home was here on business. I was alone, and sometimes frustrated with things like figuring out public transportation, but I was happy because I was finally HERE. Yes, I pinched myself regularly.

Then, a month back in the States over the holidays, while I waited for my long-term furnished rental to become available. Oh, that was a LONG month. Back here again in mid-January having sold my car and shipped over more of my "stuff", and also bringing with me a bout of bronchitis that slowed me down for the first few weeks. Still in working tourist mode though, for a good month or so, because I was only here a few weeks when my best friend came over for 10 days. More sightseeing, another hop to London, tons of fun.

After that, another few friends came through town as we headed from winter (unseasonably mild) into spring. Around that time, I started to realize I'd better get more serious about working if I wanted to STAY here, so I finally started to settle into a regular routine of working and socializing the way I would do if I lived anywhere, with the emphasis being more on the work part. Except I was living and working in PARIS, which was still completely cool to think about.

Another visit back "home" around Easter... and telling the family that in all likelihood I wouldn't be home again until Christmas (that didn't go over so well). I really wanted more time to immerse myself here, plus the cost of all that flying back and forth would cut into funds I wanted to use to travel around Europe more in the summer months.

Business started picking up fast after that. In fact, I now typically seem to have more work than I know what to do with -- I know, what a "problem" to have, huh? My social life also picked up fast; I started making more real FRIENDS instead of just random acquaintances from Meetup parties. I spent my 46th birthday in Provence, another dream come true. There were Blogger picnics and 14 Juillet picnics to be enjoyed, and even a trip to Disneyland.

July found me planning a lovely two-week solo train trip through eight cities in five countries... until bad news from home made me wonder if I wouldn't have to cancel those plans and possibly attend a funeral. But my grandmother stabilized, and I decided to make the trip anyway with the support of family back home who thought it was the right thing for me to do... although I was constantly checking up on her as often as I could, hoping for the best but prepared for just about anything. Still, that trip was a definite highlight of my year... I finally feel I can call myself reasonably "well traveled", even though there are so many other places to see on my "list". Right after that, I was already mentally planning a 4-5 day driving tour through southern England for October or even November, as part of some book research I wanted to do; plus, let's face it, I was dying to see Oxford and Stratford-upon-Avon and some of the English countryside.

But life has a way of throwing you a curve now and then. My grandmother's situation worsened, requiring me to make an unexpected trip home to attend to some of her care-giving needs. The British driving tour would have to wait a little bit longer now. It was a long, tiring week, that NJ trip, but I accomplished everything I wanted for my grandmother plus a bit of fun and shopping for myself, and was extremely happy to come back to Paris. Seeing that Eiffel Tower lifts my spirits every time, even now. And for the first time, I started to feel like maybe Paris was really more of my "home".

I came back expecting to just go into my usual routine of working and spending time with the wonderful friends I'd made. Four days later, I "met" Georges online for the first time, and a few days after that, we met in person. All of a sudden... EVERYTHING changed.

I went from being someone who was still, even 11 months later, "trying Paris on for size", someone who loved it here but who still wasn't ready or willing to put down any real roots... to being someone who now knows that Paris, and France, is going to be my home for the rest of my life, because this is where Georges is. And THAT was definitely unexpected.

I never thought I'd end up with a Frenchman. Sure, OTHER people seemed to think I would, friends or acquaintances who had a romanticized ideal of Frenchmen, but who didn't realize I had some fairly negative experiences with them. So, falling for un vrai Français was the last thing on MY agenda. I thought, if anything, I might like to find another Anglo-expat who loved France as much as I do, and maybe THAT would be enough to cause me to want to stay for good... but at the same time I was already thinking of other options, other places I might like to visit or perhaps live. After all, I was "still single" and I definitely had the wanderlust as well as the means to be flexible in where I live and work, so why not explore the world a bit?

So the biggest surprise of all, of this entire year, was that at the end of it, I find myself in the deepest love I've ever experienced, and planning to build a future with someone in a way that was the furthest thing from my mind.

And yet... I couldn't be happier about having him in my life and the prospects of creating a life with him. I just accept that this is the way it is: HE is the man I want to be with, and he happens to have children, so he's a package deal. I embrace it, and I have no doubts about my ability to handle it, although it will take a lot of adjustments on everyone's part, over time, and I do not want to rush those adjustments. We've only been together a short time, and yes, there are so many unknowns ahead of us, things we have to learn and discover and decide and work out. Yet there is one thing that feels completely certain: France is now "home", because Georges is my home. He needs to be here, so this is where I will be, too. It's just that simple. Nothing more to discuss. And I'm thrilled... I mean, I already LOVE Paris. So this is not a hardship, the idea of building a life here, and with someone I love so much.

As I look back on this year, I am sometimes amazed even at myself, that I finally had the nerve to do this, and then even more amazed at how things turned out. There were things about this year that were sometimes hard, but overall it has been a dream come true and a mainly positive experience. I wouldn't change a single thing.

A friend asked me the other day if I thought I was different since coming to Paris. I had to think about that for a moment, because I felt the answer was both yes, and no. Yes, I am different in the sense that I think I see the world, and my place in it, very differently. I see myself as someone who can now handle anything, who is strong enough to choose a path in life when it is right for me, even if someone else is opposed to it. But in another sense, I do NOT feel that I am "different" because of Paris -- I feel instead that Paris has given me the gift of letting me FINALLY be the REAL me... the me I always felt like I could be, but who I was perhaps suppressing in the face of circumstances or by getting swept up in what other people needed or wanted.

This first year in Paris has not been about "finding" myself, so much as it has been about becoming reacquainted with myself again after many years of "hiding out". I am more myself here in Paris than I have ever been able to be, anywhere. Maybe this is why the right man and the right love has now come into my life... because I AM finally myself.

Now, as I move into Year Two... I am filled with eager anticipation, the kind of anticipation that comes when you have something wonderful to work towards -- and someone to share it with. Last year, my eagerness was all about the novelty of the experiences I was about to have, about discovering new places and maybe new parts of myself, but otherwise everything was vague, open-ended, very "I'll just figure it out as it happens".

This year, there is a direction. There are things I (and We) want to do, and this involves, for me, certain professional goals as well as the personal goals of creating a life with Georges and his kids. A year from now, I may not know exactly what everything will look like, but one thing is clear: I know who I'll be with, and I know where I'll be heading. It's a different kind of feeling, one I don't think I've ever quite experienced, having been living my life in the "make it up as I go along", be-free-at-all-costs mode.

I'll still be that way sometimes: flexible about things, loving spontaneity and variety, and still seeking to be "free". It's just that now, I'm redefining what that looks like. I can still be free in my soul, even while I'm choosing to merge my life with that of another person (or in this case, persons). It's a little scary, sometimes, but mostly... it feels fine and fantastic. It feels right.

It just shows that when you are brave enough to step out of your front door, you never know where you may end up. Oh, what a year it's been.

A first time for everything

Well, it had to happen eventually. You are going along, happy as a clam, smiling from ear to ear because someone special loves you... and then it happens.

Le Gastro. What we call a "stomach bug" in my neck of the woods. Oh, la. 

I've been in Paris for just over 11 months and haven't really had more than a headache since I've been here.  Until about 8:30 this morning when it came from nowhere.

Two hours later, the Pepto and Immodium (imported from the U.S. of A., thank you very much) still don't seem to be kicking in. I can't keep anything down for very long; even the Pepto is coming back up. Dry heaves. The skin around my eyes is starting to look bruised from the strain. I am starting to wonder if I have gotten a mile case of food poisoning, even though that seemed unlikely given that I didn't eat anything yesterday that would have been a cause. I wanted to drink some Coke to try and settle my stomach, but had none in the house, and couldn't seem to get out of the W.C. long enough to make it around the corner to the Ed store. Oy. There is nothing like a stomach bug to make you the most miserable person on earth for the duration, no matter how happy you were hours earlier.

I even considered calling the SOS Médecins, the doctor house-call service they offer here in France; I was getting concerned it might be more than a brief wave of illness. I called a friend who talked me through the process, in case I needed it, and gave me a few good suggestions of foods I could eat that might help, uh, cork things up a bit. I made a cup of tea. And waited.

An hour later, I felt well enough to put on some clothes, brush my hair, and go out to buy the Coke. It feels like a major accomplishment. I still feel queasy, but now it feels more borderline uncomfortable than "oh, please, someone shoot me now".

Aimee says I probably picked up a touch of the gastro on the metro or the bus, rather than food poisoning from the rice I ate for dinner last night (plain white rice, too) -- and I was out yesterday using public transportation, which carries not only human passengers but apparently some nasty germs, too. I knew this, of course, and I'm pretty good about not touching my face after traveling around town until I can wash my hands, but it just takes one tiny bug to wreak a whole lotta trouble.

So... no doctor to call this time around. I'll live. I just have to wait it out. Patientez, as they say.

No comment

More and more frequently, I have been receiving questions from readers, both via comments and email, asking me about various aspects of the legalities or financial considerations of moving to France. Some want to know which visa I applied for, or about getting the carte de sejour; others want to know how much money I needed to have or what my tax status is.

As much as I appreciate that people are naturally curious and that some readers may be in the research stages of orchestrating their own move to La France, I need to go on the record right now and say something about this.

While I truly wish I could be helpful and reply to these questions, I have made a decision NOT to answer any questions about my personal experience with French immigration or about any of the financial aspects of living in France other than to say: I'm here, and it's all fine, and that's all I need or want to say about it. I may discuss general challenges with the French system from time to time, as I see fit, but what I'm not prepared to do is advise anyone else by telling them the particulars of what I did and how I did it.

Relocating to a foreign country is complicated, and France certainly is no different. I totally understand how frustrating it can be to figure out all the official hoo-ha and to plan your course of action if you have designs on moving to France; believe me, I've spent weeks of my life trying to sort it out for myself. And I know how appealing it can be when you think you have found a friendly resource who might just help you find what that one critical tidbit you're looking for.

However, I must graciously yet firmly decline to be that resource when it comes to sharing the intimate details of my dealings French immigration and the financial considerations of living here (except to say, it ain't cheap and you need to plan for that!) If you want a restaurant recommendation or advice on which Metro to take to get to your favorite tourist haunt, I'm your girl -- ask away. But I am not seeking to become the definitive expert on the legal details of moving here.

Keep in mind that what rules and laws apply to ME may not be the same as what would apply to someone else. Every situation is unique. So while sharing the anecdotal benefit of my experiences might be interesting, it really wouldn't be helpful to anyone else, and might, in fact, be misconstrued as giving advice I am definitely NOT qualified to offer. That could get me in trouble and at the very least, would be highly unethical of me to act like I have expertise that I don't have. The French government has information posted on various websites (confusing though they may be) and that's the official authority. Find the French embassy or consulate near you for more information (see below). There are also professional relocation companies that offer immigration, legal and financial advice to people considering living in France. If you're trying to figure this out on your own and you're really stuck, you might need to consult those experts to avoid getting the wrong information. (And no, I can't recommend any particular company or organization.)

So, as much as I appreciate the interest in the hows and whats and whens of getting over here, in the future, I will politely direct all such personal inquiries to this post. Not because I'm trying to be difficult or secretive (although I do think I'm entitled to some privacy), but because I don't want to inadvertently tell you something that may be irrelevant or flat out wrong in your situation. I don't want to add to your frustrations!

Becoming an ex-pat is challenging enough; you don't want to take advice from some random blogger about how to do it! So, I will wish you luck in your efforts to come and live here, because it's completely fabulous; and I'll give you the following to help you get your questions answered -- by someone with better answers than I could ever hope to provide.

Bonne chance et bon courage!

French Embassy in the U.S.

Entering France (French Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

French Embassy in Canada

Visa Website of the French Consulate in London

Australian Government Travel Advice for France

Living and Working in France, from French.About.com

Sound Affects

Back in New Jersey, each year in the days prior to the Fourth of July, and the days immediately following, we could always count on hearing the sound of firecrackers and small rockets being set off, as somewhere in the neighborhood, people were getting their celebrations off to an early start. (Illegally, I might add, because New Jersey does not permit the sale of fireworks or even those great little sparklers to the general public. Therefore, if you want 'em, you usually have to drive to someplace like North Carolina to get 'em. The South is cool that way.) The sound of all that annoying "POP", "BANG", "BOOM" would always get more frequent and obnoxious as we got closer to the Big Day, and I used to hate the extra noise.

For the past two hours, I've been hearing the same sounds going off all over the 15ème (and in fact, I suspect there is actually some kind of official fireworks display taking place somewhere not far from here, as the random and smaller bursts close by have been replaced by a steady stream of resonating and organized explosions), because tomorrow it's the French "independence day", and just like back home, someone somewhere can't wait to light up the night with noise. I'm thinking they'll probably be doing this all night long, by the sound of it.

And instead of being annoyed by the racket and the prospects of having my sleep interrupted, I am surprised and amused that the noise actually feels a little comforting -- the very familiarity of it -- and I find myself thinking of that song lyric: "Feels like home to me..."

Funny, the things that affect you and take you back to your roots in a heartbeat (or a rocket POP) when you're living in a foreign country.

Happy Birthday, America!

Today is America's Independence Day, and although I'm here in Paris today, eating French food and doing French things, I am no less mindful that today's a big day back in the good ol' U.S. of A. I'll be sorry to miss the festivities (the Macy's fireworks display in Manhattan can't be beat, even if you're only seeing it on TV), but I will make myself a hot dog for lunch and tonight I'm planning to go to Harry's Bar (can't get much more American than that here in Paris) to toast my country. I'll even break from my usual uniform of Parisian Black and put on the one Red and White shirt I've got, with a pair of Blue jeans. I might have even brought a little American flag pin with me in my jewelry case for an added dose of patriotism.

For those history buffs among you, here's a little timeline of America's road to Freedom, courtesy of The White House website. And wherever you are, whatever you're doing today, dear fellow Americans, I wish you a grand and glorious 4th, filled with barbecues, beer, hot dogs, fireworks and maybe even The Boston Pops. Remember our soldiers who are serving our country and send a prayer their way that they return safely and soon.

Even those of us Yanks who live abroad, whether by choice, chance or force, love our America.

Independence Timeline

1765-1773
The British Parliament bypasses colonial assemblies and imposes several internal and external taxes on the outraged colonists.

Dec. 16, 1773
The colonial response to taxation without representation culminates in the Boston Tea Party. The Sons of Liberty dump 342 chests of tea into Boston harbor.

Sept. 5, 1774
Delegates begin meeting for the First Continental Congress and agree to send grievances to King George III.

April 19, 1775
Armed conflict between the colonists and British redcoats begins in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts.

May 10, 1775
A Second Continental Congress begins meeting in Philadelphia.

June 11, 1776
The Continental Congress appoints a five-man committee, including Thomas Jefferson, to draft a declaration of independence.

June 28, 1776
The committee presents the declaration for debate and revision.

July 4, 1776
The Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence without dissent.

Plus facile

Dealing with the little challenges of daily French life is getting a bit easier lately. At least, that's what I'm telling myself, although it could be I'm merely delusional.

Today I had two important, yet mundane, errands to run. First, to the bank to transfer some funds from my American bank to my French account, in order to write a check to pay the location (rent). Each month when I do this, I try to go at a different time of day, experimenting with when they might actually have more than one teller on duty, but so far it seems the answer is: NEVER. Or almost never. I'm not quite sure what the system is that these people follow or what kind of "customer service" training they've had (like, none?) but it's not unusual to be waiting in a long line of 7-8 people with two tellers, and one of them will just get up and walk away, never to return. And the remaining teller will not hurry herself one iota. Of course in fairness to the French banking system, I had the same problem at my bank in New Jersey, too.

But I'm getting the hang of being patientez... and on days like today, when I enter the overheated bank and see that there are already 5 people in line and one teller on duty, I don't even bat an eyelash. I queue up, take out my little folding fan to cool myself off a little bit, and try to improve my vocabulaire by reading all the signs posted around the room.

Twenty minutes later, I exit the bank, and head across the street (I live in a very convenient neighborhood -- LOV-ING THAT!) to La Poste for errand number deux, where I have two tasks to take care of: one easy, and one I am frankly dreading. The easy one: sending some documents back to a client in Switzerland (which necessitated an extra errand to Office Depot on the way to the bank, as I realized I had no extra-large envelopes on hand, and where I also picked up some totally cool erasable ink pens that I heard about from Kyliemac). I go in, and the line here is blessedly short (note to self: 3:30-3:45 pm is a great time to hit the post office). When it's my turn to go to the guichet, I am easily able to tell the man that I want to send the envelope to the address in Switzerland, I am able to understand him when he asks if I want to send it overnight express or 2-3 day express, and I am able to reply that I want to send it via the cheapest means possible. Voila! 4 euros, please. Transaction complete.

But then there's the other postal task, the one where I have no clue what to expect. On Friday the 15th of June I paid 48 euros to overnight a letter back home, and it was important or I never would have paid that kind of money to ensure it would get there. The nice postal employee set me up with a service called "Chronopost" which he said was like "FedEx" (which sounds the same in both languages). It was supposed to arrive in 2 mailing days which would have been Monday or Tuesday at the latest, giving them an extra day in case of customs backlog.

By Wednesday of the next week, the letter had not arrived. I got online to the Chronopost site, used their tracking tool, and discovered the letter had indeed arrived in New York the very next day (16th) and had cleared customs the same day. After that, NO mention of where it was. I tracked down a customer service number with some difficulty, and called the number which was on Long Island. I won't go into details of how over the next THREE days I had to call back several times to follow up with these people who are some of the worst customer service reps ever, only to find out that Chronopost handed off the letter to DHL for delivery, and DHL apparently LOST it, or so Chronopost claims, but who knows. Bottom line: no letter, and since it was a document they were not going to make further attempts to locate it. I was told I had to go back to the place I shipped it from to put in a claim to get my money back.

Oh holy crap. Never mind that I should have been furious at my 48-euro express delivery being tagged as a permanent MIA... I have to go back to La Poste! [Cue music: Dum da-DUM-dum.] And ask for my money back. [Dum da-DUM-dum DUUUUMMMM!] Talk about striking fear into a girl's heart.

I had put off doing this for all of last week but could avoid it no longer. So I brought my pocket Larousse with me, just in case, and after posting my envelope bound for Geneva, I moved on to the petite problème with my Chronopost shipment, expecting a bit of a battle or at the very least, an attitude problem from the postal guy. And miracle of miracles, I got probably the one postal employee in that location who spoke English. Between my French and his English, I told him the package had been lost by the carrier in the U.S., that I had phoned the U.S. offices for help, they tracked it but said it was permanently lost and that they had said I should come in to the post office to put in a claim for a refund. Of course I did not say all that in French, but somehow I made myself understood with the help of the other guy being able to speak and understand some English as well as my French. He got on the computer, and printed a copy of the same incomplete tracking information I had seen online at home, and instructed me to speak to his supervisor who was the one who could authorize a refund.

The supervisor wasn't as friendly but he also had a fairly good command of English. I explained the details, having to repeat myself a few times to make sure he understood the situation. He wasn't as friendly, but he took my paperwork and went in the back for a while. When he returned about 4-5 minutes later, he'd made a copy of my original receipt, told me to write on the bottom of it that I wanted my money back (I said, "Can I write that in English?" and he said yes), and put my name and mailing address on it. He gave me back my original receipt and said I should expect a check. I asked when, in several weeks and he said it should come in one week. And that was it.

So... whether or not the check comes in a week or not, each time I tackle one of these little chores with any level of success, I feel like I have done something major. On a daily basis I really have so few of these things to deal with, but each time I do, I feel like I've cleared another hurdle in understanding how to maneuver here.

And really? The people I'm having to deal with may not always be super friendly but rarely are they what I'd call rude. And sometimes, they're even quite friendly and nice; they'll laugh with me at my mistakes in French, we observe the niceties of "hello, thank you, have a good day, goodbye" that are common courtesies here in France; and sometimes I even get a smile out of them. What more can I ask?

As the mundane parts of Parisian life get easier, my confidence in being here gets greater. The metro and bus is a breeze now. I never feel awkward ordering in a restaurant or asking directions, even if my French isn't perfect. I'm no longer anxious going to the bank (although when I get that refund check from La Poste, I'll have a new banking challenge to cope with: depositing a check). And now, even going to the post office doesn't seem so formidable.

And maybe some day, I will be able to have an entire conversation with a group of French people, in French, and know I've done it just about perfectly.

Paris: Just One Beautiful Distraction after Another

Procrastination has been a recurring theme in my life as a writer, and never more so since I moved to Paris last November. The problem with trying to be a working writer in a city like Paris is that there are just too many wonderful things to do with one's time when one is supposed to be working. On the one hand, I do need to work so that I can afford to live here (and I also enjoy the work I do), but who could expect me to stay home and write when my adopted city is constantly calling me to come out and play?

When I relocated here, I spent the first few months working very little and playing tourist a lot. It didn't help my wavering work ethic that I had a string of friends from home coming to visit Paris during those early months, which gave me even more reasons to go out and experience the city. As a newcomer myself, I was still getting the lay of the land and discovering the city, and it was fun to be able to do that with my good friends since I knew virtually no one in the city and I'm living here on my own. Exploring the different arrondissements, finding out which restaurants I liked, going to museums, taking hundreds thousands of photos... having the luxury to spend weeks doing that instead of just days was my dream come to life.

As the months have passed, I've now settled into a routine where I feel more like a "local" than a tourist. There is less of that feeling of (completely self-imposed) pressure for me to rush around "seeing things" with camera in hand, and I can relax and enjoy the small pleasures of the city as well as occasionally blending in with the tourists at a major attraction (even the Parisians go to the Louvre on occasion). Along the way, I've finally managed to do two things that are critically important to actually building a new life for myself in Paris: (1) I've made some delightful new friends and have started dating, and (2) I now spend a lot more of my time working. The problem is, accomplishing the former makes it that much harder to stick to the latter.

Take this past weekend, for instance. I had an important project deadline to meet for one of my clients, and I really needed to spend a portion of my weekend time working. But I had tickets to a production of "Measure for Measure" (Shakespeare - my favorite!) held in an outdoor theatre in the middle of the Bois de Boulogne, where I was joining a group of about 55 other ex-pats from a Meetup.com group. The choice between work or a play... what to do? Well, I'm not a workaholic (anymore), so of course I went to the play and told myself I could catch up on the work later.

I was really glad I went... the weather was clear, sunny, and a bit too hot for my tastes (but a few of us managed to score seats in the shady edge of the lawn). The open-air theatre was charmingly unexpected: no fabricated stage or amphitheater, it was completely natural and was set with simple red drapes hanging from the trees on the "stage" (a raised stone and gravel terrace backed by a stone arch and stone steps leading into the tiered shrubbery), a few tables, chairs, and a carpet for props. It felt exactly like the garden of an Italian villa! It was such a delight to experience Shakespeare in such a lovely setting. And having access to cultural events like this is one of the reasons I love living in Paris so much.

Afterward, I dutifully skipped the after-event dinner invites from my friends, and headed home to get back to work. The challenge then was that it was roughly a 25-minute walk from the theatre through the incredibly beautiful and HUGE park (my first time there; I loved seeing all the people out rowing on the lake) to the nearest Métro station, and by the time I got all the way home I was happily exhausted and mellow from the day. After all that, who could bear to work on a Saturday night?

So, instead of working as I had intended, I ended up on-line and then on the phone with a (charming, attractive and also younger) French guy, someone I had just met through the wonders of Match.com. We've got a date to meet for drinks later this week. (Oh yes I DID!)

See what I mean? Too many distractions!

My regular blog readers already know this about me, that I've often blogged about the myriad of ways I (like most writers) can dream up to avoid doing ANY sort of productive writing whatsoever, even before I set foot on French soil. Paris is just giving me a lot more interesting (and fun) reasons to procrastinate! At this rate, between the warmer weather and the outdoor cafés, the concerts, the Meetup get-togethers, blogger picnics in the park or along the Seine, and all these nice-looking men out there to be met and conquered... how is a girl supposed to get any work done around here?

So now that I've killed enough spent adequate time working on this post, I see that it's now time for dinner. After which -- I promise -- I will do some work.

Really, I will.

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Author's Note: In case you were wondering (and thinking you were crazy), I did post another variation on this article several days ago as a new contributor to The Paris Blog. However there were some editorial bugs to be worked out with that article, so I took it down for a few days in order to rework it. Sorry for any confusion. But if you haven't checked out The Paris Blog, it's something all you francophones will love and a great way to discover other blogs about Paris. Enjoy!

Ugly American? NOT!

I debated for a while about responding to NotAnUglyAmerican's and Gautami's comments to the Toilet Post. It's sometimes hard to know where to draw the line with one's critics, especially when silly IS as silly DOES (as Forrest, Forrest Gump might have said). Clearly, these people have a chip on their shoulders about Americans, that much is obvious. While I really don't care that they think I'm silly schoolgirl or even an egocentric American, what finally swayed me to put a reply together was that I thought this was a good time to tackle a sometimes sticky subject for Americans living abroad -- coping with anti-American biases when you're traveling.

For starters, I think these two commentors (and there might be more to come, you never know) rather over-reacted and were really off the mark in how they perceived my reaction to the toilet. Part of traveling to new places is seeing things you've never seen before, and sometimes you're going to have an unfavorable opinion or reaction to some of those things. How is MY reaction to this toilet any different or any worse than, say, a foreign tourist coming to New York for the first time and complaining about the noise, chaos and pollution -- or kvetching because the food in America isn't like the food THEY are used to "back home"? No place on earth is perfect and sometimes when you travel there are going to be things you find very odd or uncomfortable. It doesn't make you a bad person for feeling that way.

I find it interesting (and when I say "interesting", I really mean hypocritical) that whenever an American has an unflattering opinion of another culture, it makes us "ugly Americans" -- but it's supposed to be perfectly OK for non-Americans to constantly bash Americans for the smallest thing -- like saying "Ew" about a toilet I thought was really odd in contrast to what I'm used to. Since we're on the potty subject, I also continue to think it's odd that in many French homes, the toilet is in a separate "water closet" where there is NO SINK NEARBY and where you have to go into another room, sometimes located inconveniently across the house, to wash your hands. I find THAT rather unhygienic. But I've got that setup in my own apartment and I've adjusted. The point is: I find these things ODD and may not LIKE them, but it doesn't mean I don't ACCEPT them. Everything is an adjustment when it's new to you. If I see a turkish toilet for the first time and think: "Wow, I've never seen THAT before, that's really weird!", that's just me reacting to what's new to me. Now, on the other hand, if I'm still bitching and moaning about it 3 months later and saying "Why can't the effing plumbing in France be like it is in AMERICA?", THAT is being ugly and intolerant.

Since moving here, I've been asked by people back home if I've encountered any anti-American sentiment, and up until now I've honestly been able to say "Short of no one in Paris, including the Americans I've met in Paris, liking George Bush, no, I haven't." The people I've met here, both the French and expats from more countries than I can count, have all been lovely and excited to exchange ideas and experiences about America and about their own countries, or other places we've all travelled. Like the time the local fruitseller asked where I was from and when I told him "New Jersey", his face lit up like a Christmas tree and he said: "I LOVE New Jersey... I lived in 'oboken (Hoboken) for two years and loved it. Oh, I MISS 'oboken so much!" We chatted for 10 minutes about all the things he loved about America. I've never yet told someone "Je suis Americaine" and had them wince or make a face, let alone say or do anything in the slightest bit rude to me because I'm an American. I've never been made to feel unwelcome here because of my nationality.

My favorite part of travelling is meeting people from all over the world and being able to compare what we think we know or don't know about each other's countries, which often includes admitting the flaws in your own country or having a chance to correct a misperception someone has about your country.

Like the misperception that all American tourists are automatically the "ugly Americans". Or that it makes me U.S.-egocentric and intolerant of other cultures because I spotted a TOILET [I still can't believe a toilet would generate such controversy!] that was completely different than anything I'd ever seen before and because, yes, I found it to be a little gross. It's not my fault, you know, that I was born in America where these toilets don't exist. You're born where you're born. Do I feel lucky to be born into circumstances that provided me with excellent plumbing that allows me to sit comfortably when nature calls? You bet I do! It's not "belittling" other cultures to say that I don't think I'd care to use one of those turkish toilets, but hey, in a pinch I wouldn't exactly quibble about it and I'd be grateful to have it.

But I think it's safe to say that it is certainly belittling TO America that some individuals will find any excuse to widen the gap between America and the rest of the world. These are people who seem to take real pleasure in "taking America down a peg" whenever they get an opportunity. Even if it's about a toilet.

These are people who are bigoted and biased against America and Americans; they are people who are guilty of being as egocentric, pompous, self-important and intolerant about America as they accuse Americans of being about everyone else. They really don't want the world to become a more peaceful, unified place where diversity is not only tolerated, but accepted and embraced; their agenda is create a feeling of separateness, of "us versus them", so that they can feel superior. Americans are often accused of being isolationist but it seems that others in the world WANT to isolate us... then cut us off at the knees any way possible. And not just with words, either. But those people don't know the REAL America. They've got a really twisted view of what they think America is, probably as a result of being spoon-fed propoganda and lies. And they've probably not spent a whole lot of time with a variety of different Americans, either, and therefore have never bothered to challenge their own negative assumptions about who we are, we Americans.

Yes, I know about the "ugly Americans" that one of you is clear to point out you are Not, and unfortunately they do exist. They're the ones who travel outside the US and complain non-stop about how nothing is as good as it is back home. The food is strange; people aren't bending over backwards to be nice to them; and for crying out loud, Mildred, why won't people speak ENGLISH already? I cringe whenever I overhear these whiny tourists, and I, too, wonder: "If you wanted it to be just like home, then maybe you should have stayed home and just had a barbecue". I'm not going to make excuses for THOSE Americans, because they simply don't "get it", what travel is REALLY all about, and they probably never WILL get it. Let's just write 'em off because they're not worth thinking about (and because while other countries love to complain about the ugly Americans, those same countries also love to take our U.S. dollars in tourist trade and when Americans don't travel abroad, you're all trying to get us to come back and spend money. See what I mean? Hypocrites!)

Travel is supposed to break down cultural barriers. It's about challenging yourself and your perceptions of the world. It doesn't mean we're always going to see eye-to-eye or like everything we see or experience when we travel. But travel shows us that sometimes, other countries have something really wonderful to teach us, like the way France has already started to teach me it's OK to slow down a bit, and sit in a café for an hour instead of rushing somewhere else. (Or realizing that yes, a turkish toilet probably DOES have an advantage in terms of hygiene. But I still hope I never have to use one.)

How great it is that I can sit down to a meal with a group of new friends from France, Finland, England, Italy, Australia, China and Japan and talk about international politics and cultural differences without our differing opinions or experiences creating a rift in our friendship. I'm learning from them, and they're learning from me. It's a beautiful thing.

Not one of them seems to think I'm an "ugly American" because I thought this toilet was a real hoot. They'd rather not use one, either, given a choice. And they thought it was funny, my reaction to it. So how come they're not called "ugly"?

So, that's it for my rant tonight. Frankly I don't care if narrow-minded people are accusing me of being narrow-minded; they're just projecting their own issues onto ME. It's fine if they've got an opinion and think I'm silly, or worse. But I did think these comments provided an opportunity to address this thing about how Americans are perceived and how there is a real double-standard with what some of the world thinks Americans should be, do, and say. And how they also seem to think we should be apologizing for being American and for our way of life. THAT is what I really take issue with, this view that Americans should be ashamed for being who we are as human beings and for being proud of our legacy in the world. We're not perfect, and our country isn't perfect. But it's still pretty freaking great, and a lot of other people seem to think so too or they wouldn't be sneaking over our borders in the dead of night and on water-logged rowboats. And when some other country is up against a tyrant or an attack or a natural disaster, who do they call? America.

Lest we forget.

Most Americans work like dogs to get whatever they've got, and some of them don't have a lot. They are not "rich Americans" with nothing better to do but shop all day; they are just trying to survive. They get up every morning, feed and dress their children, send them off to school, then rush to a job they quite often hate working for sub-standard wages for 8-10 hours, then rush home to take care of their kids again, fall into bed at night bone-tired, and get up the next day to do it all over again. Just like in the rest of the world, Americans are trying to create a better life for themselves and their children than their parents had, and their grandparents before them. Why do so many people in the world resent us for that? America is not what you see in the movies.

I love living in France. It, too, is imperfect, but so far I'm loving it. I hope I am able to stay here as long as I want. I also hope to visit many more places around the world because the more I travel, the more I learn about the world, and about myself. But I'm damned fine proud to be an American, and if a few snide bigots expect me to apologize for BEING American, you're wasting your time. Best move on if you don't want to read about an American's perspective -- good, bad, or indifferent -- on her travel experiences.

Or better yet, go find a turkish toilet and put your anti-American biases where they belong.

If you're within the sound of my voice, Part Deux

More laughs from podcast-ville with Katia and Kyliemac, in Episode 24: The one where they get even more bold... and stuff. (If you missed Part Un, it's here.)

Thanks again, K & K, for a really fun experience and making me feel very special, and I hope we get to do it again sometime!

I have no shame

Today was a really great day. It started off with me meeting Aimee for lunch, and we got Latin American food over near Saint Michel. We had a great time dishing about the recent date and our respective past dating experiences; her pregnancy, which is nearing the finish line -- she looks amazing, by the way; Frog with a Blog (and I'd love to meet you too, FwaB - name the date!); and sundry and assorted other items of interest to two girls hanging out in Paris on a Tuesday afternoon.

After lunch we headed up to the Marais to check out leather wallets at a particular boutique Aimee had been eyeing. I ended up walking away with a cute little silver leather change purse, perfect for those pesky euros and centimes that bulk up my wallet.

Next, Aimee decided to accompany me down to Convention where there is a Pass Navigo office; I've been wanting to sign up for one of these to make getting around Paris more convenient but wasn't sure how to do it. We got there only to discover we can only apply by mail or online, not in person as we'd thought. So, we came out with the applications and Aimee later helped me fill mine out.

We then took the #62 bus to my stop, since Aimee wanted to be the first of my Paris friends to see my apartment, and it was on her way home on the 62 anyway. Unfortunately it was a real mess -- I hadn't been expecting company -- but she didn't seem to mind. When we got to the building and I picked up my mail, turns out La Poste had left a note: my other 5 boxes had arrived!

This is where the "I have no shame" part comes in. Aimee offered to help me get the boxes from the post office and bring them back to the apartment... and I let her. I let an 8-month pregnant woman help me lug five heavy boxes three city blocks. OK, so I did give her a wheely cart, and would only let her tote the two lightest boxes, and she said they were perfectly light enough. I'm only hoping she didn't go into labor on the bus home*. And I did loan her my DVD of "In Her Shoes" and gave her a glass of water before she left. I'm not totally insensitive.

So not only did all of my boxes turn up safe and sound with nothing broken or damaged (other than the boxes themselves -- didn't they start out with corners on them once?), but I also got a call from a new client letting me know he is Fed-Exing my nice big check, the contract, and a package of notes and material for the book proposal I am about to write for him (ghostwriting the actual book will follow). This is a really exciting project for me, and I wish I could say more about it right now but confidentiality precludes me from doing so. Suffice to say, this book will most definitely be published and I wouldn't be one bit surprised if the author ends up getting a movie deal out of it and appearances on Oprah and Larry King Live. It's THAT good a true life story.

My lack of shame notwithstanding, it's been a damn fine day today.

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*She didn't. WHEW!

Primping in Paris

I have a few "need to know" personal care items that I'm not sure where to locate in Paris and thought: here's where a network of Parisian ex-pat bloggers will REALLY come in handy (not that your moral support isn't greatly appreciated). So write in, either here in the comments or email me privately at lthwriter AT gmail DOT com, and share your favorites or your information on the following:

• Mouthwash. Do they not sell mouthwash, like Listerine or Listermint, in France? Or is it something you can only get by speaking to the pharmacist? I have looked in several of the best supermarkets and see all kinds of toothbrushes, toothpastes, and floss, and the only thing that came close to being a regular mouthwash was the Colgate Plax. But nothing else. I'm beginning to wonder if mouthwash is a banned substance in France.
• Haircut and Color. I am very close to needing a haircut and possibly some professional haircolor or highlights, although I normally do that myself to save money. I see that the places local to me have haircuts advertised for about 37 euro but the clientele seems to be little old ladies. I want a really GREAT cut, something very Parisian. I don't want to spend my life savings but do want to know I'm being styled by someone with some talent and flair, and someone who won't treat me like a piece of American dirt under his or her expert feet. If you have a recommendation or two, let me know. I am tempted to try Marianne Gray in the 6th as they look like they have a rather nice salon and spa (also do facials, etc.) but would prefer a referral to someone who gave you the best haircut you've ever had.
• Pedicures. Do nail salons do them like in the U.S. or do you have to go to a podiatrist? i just want someone to buff 'em up and make 'em pretty but don't need a doctor to do that. Or do I? Where is your favorite place to go?
• Day Spa. For facials, massages, and general pampering... where are your favorites? And who do I ask for if there's a specific expert I should try?

Thanks in advance for helping me look my best in Paris!