rootless

This page has several travel stories, mostly without pictures.  New stories are added to the top of the page as they are written.

 

Down-Time

No matter how much you love what you are doing, you still have to take a break from it once in a while.  They call it down-time.  I discovered down-time on my 37th birthday and as I age, I better understand its importance and seem to require more and more of it.  So even though I am living my dream of spending a long time in Europe and especially Paris, I still need the down-time.  But, you ask, is European down-time different than American down-time?

The short answer is; yes, a little.  The long answer is; it all depends.  It depends on who you are and what you consider “rest”.  Unless I am dead-tired exhausted, I still need a little outside stimulation during downtime.  I don’t consider it particularly restful to be completely deprived of sensory stimulation, so I can combine my down-time with other perhaps necessary but mundane tasks.  In Paris, doing the laundry became a wonderful down-time for me.

Down-Time # 1:  The Laundry
Once a week we did the ‘big’ laundry session, not unlike our routine in the U.S.  But in Paris we would sort the dirty clothing and pack it into large tote type bags and haul it about two blocks to “our” laundromat.  We considered it “our” laundromat or Lav Club as the sign said, because we actually had several choices.  There were at least 3 laundromats within easy walking distance from our apartment and we had scouted them out, but for a variety of very subjective reasons, we chose Lav Club.  So every Tuesday, the day the Louvre is closed, we would walk single file down the very narrow sidewalk of Rue Foundry to the Club carrying the dirties, the soap, softener and about 5 pounds of change in euros.  Laundry in Paris is expensive (what isn’t expensive in Paris) and we would normally do about 16 euros worth; on a good day $20.  We would stuff the clothing into these front load machines and while I was putting the detergent and softener into the washers, Ron would be plugging the money box, first telling it what number the washer was, so the coins, when deposited, would activate that specific washer.

Then we would settle down to our “down-time”.  About half the time, there would be other people in the Club and frequently they would speak English and we would have very nice conversations with people eager to practice their English and talk with these strangers who had actually chosen to live in Paris.  The other half of the time, I would do puzzles in my well traveled Find-the-Hidden-Word book; another of my few English language indulgences.  Ron would bounce his hand ball, an exercise he uses to maintain and sharpen his hand-eye coordination and reaction time.  Sometimes we would tire of our individual activities and join the other in their diversion. 

The laundry would wash away and we would watch the little dial slowly turn to indicate the progress of the cycles.  The door was solidly locked closed until the indicator had spun the full 360 degrees and pointed straight up to FIN, but the indicator would always stop at the 11 o’clock position and just sit there even though the wash had very obviously rinsed, spun at a wild, ferocious speed and thoroughly drained.  No matter how hard you would try, without breaking the door, it would absolutely not open.  So we would both just stare at it.  Then all of a sudden, like it knew it had completely subordinated us, it would rapidly turn forward to FIN making a superior whirring noise with a final triumphant click.  Then we knew we could humbly step forward bowing to open the door and remove our expensively clean clothes.

The dryers were another more light-hearted group of machines.  Only machine numbers 11,12,  and 16 were any good.  The rest of them were woefully inadequate and they knew it and so did most of the Club’s patrons.  So if you didn’t time it right, you might either have to wait for 11, 12, or 16 or suffer through a luke-warm session with 14, which almost wasn’t worth it.  The great thing about these dryers was they were huge and they only cost 1 euro for 10 minutes.  If you loaded them wisely, you could get everything dry for 3 euros and it really felt like you were getting a great and quick deal.  So when the cycle was done and you quickly pulled your warm, dry clothes to smooth the wrinkles and fold them into the totes, there was a certain sort of zen-type satisfaction you felt knowing you had enough clean clothes to get you through another week of monuments and museums in the most beautiful city in the world.

Down-Time # 2:  Petting Dogs
Just walking around in the neighborhood was entertaining and enlightening once you got your dog poop avoidance skills honed.  I ended up with the scan 20-30 feet in front of you, then move forward stepping only into the safe regions.  This allowed you to look around at the buildings and people and not just walk having to your eyes on the sidewalk all the time, which, in Paris can be a very depressing thing to do.  These strolls close to our apartment were a wonderful down-time activity and we frequently met up with the darling little dogs that made the 20-foot-scan-and-tippy-toe routine necessary.   And even though having to walk in such a way can get a bit wearing, we still are terrifically in love with dogs; pretty much all dogs.   We really cannot have a dog while we are traveling so much, so we impose ourselves on the dogs of others. 

Walking along we will see adorable little FiFi headed our way; sniffing here and sniffing there, very busy smelling who has and has not been on this street today.   All of a sudden FiFi finds a foreigner’s hand under her sensitive little nose inviting her to smell these exotic and enticing scents.  “But, yes of course, it is the silly Americans who wish to caress my fluffy body.  I look to my mother for permission and she gives an allowing nod.  The silly American is nice but talks to me in the worst French I have ever heard.  I can take this ravage of my language no longer and besides, the smells of the street await.  I have many scents to go before I rest.  Au revoir, silly American.  I will see you tomorrow.”

And so it goes, a little pet here and a little pet there.  A quick encounter with the lucky owner of such a precious pup and off everyone would go to make the poop and to do your best not to step in it.

Down-Time # 3:  Wheel of Fortune
I have a confession.  I could not tolerate the game show Wheel of Fortune in the United States and more than once bruised a shin diving for the remote control to change the channel as the words, “Wheeeeel  of   Foooorrrtuuune….” were shouted in unison by the studio audience.  I was even proud of the fact that I had never seen the show.  It made me feel like an intellectual who would never lower oneself to such banality.  This is not the confession part.

The French version of the popular T.V. game show is called La Roue de Fortune.  (Here comes the confession.)  I LOVE IT!!  It is hosted by a very gregarious Frenchman named Christophe and along with his exquisitely adorable Jack Russell dog, whom we called “the boy” since even though they had said his name, we could not understand it, and an Americanized Swedish bombshell named Victoria turning the letters and flipping Christophe an occasion piece of merde.  This was nothing like the American version (I suspect, having never actually seen the American show) and they were doing things only the French would do.

Christophe would welcome the 3 contestants by asking them questions about their personal lives.  If anyone had a talent, Christophe would insist they perform.  He would also coach the players on how to spin the wheel to their best advantage especially the female players with low-cut tops and ample endowment.  Not infrequently would he direct an innocent woman to lean way over to grab a far spoke only to announce it was time for a commercial break and the poor woman would need to hold that position until they returned from the commercials, which the French call “Pubs”.    And sure enough, when we had seen all the pubs, there would be that beleaguered woman straining to maintain her hold on that distant spoke; mammaries dangling providing who knows what kind of view for the studio audience seated behind her.  Very funny Christophe.

But then they would spin and get to select a letter to try to solve the puzzle and we would hear how the French say all the letters of the alphabet.  It is different in French you know.  It is more like:  aaaa, bay, cay, day, euuaaw, effa, jay, etc.  This was extremely helpful while we were in language school.  And Christophe would rattle on in rapid French to the contestants challenging us to try to pick out at least a word or two of what was said.

Then there were the parries between him and Victoria who towered over Christophe, who is on the Napoleonic-stature side of things, with her Swedish genetics and 4 inch spike high heels.   There appeared to be a bit of camera- time competition going on between Christophe and Victoria and as the letters would turn and she sveltely sauntered to stage left only to bend her knees slightly and blow kisses to the cameraman below her at that end of the stage; Christophe would stop the show and chastise both Victoria and the cameraman for flirting.  This sort of thing happened for several shows and then Victoria started to make, what we imagined to be since we really didn’t understand what was being said, wisecracks back to Christophe.  Who, appeared to be quite taken back (hence our assumption they were wisecracks).  Victoria seemed to just be barely in command of the French language and would frequently suffered chiding from Christophe due to her mispronunciation of some tricky word.  This would pull at our hearstrings.

Perhaps we could relate to what poor Victoria endured at the mouth of the native Christophe who seemed to exercise his superior language skills in a malevolent manner over the beautiful and very blonde Victoria.  Who, after all, was just trying to make a living as a single woman, away from home in a foreign land and at the mercy of the unforgiving and haughty French.

But after a very short time, the tension between Christophe and Victoria seemed to subside and harmony reigned as contestants displayed their break-dancing and opera talents along with their double-D cup bosoms and pulled the wheel around to win thousands of euros, fabulous prizes and trips to exotic lands.

It was all very exciting at 7:10pm every week night and we learned not only how to say the French alphabet, but many, many important words and popular French colloquial practices. 

 But - shhh - don’t tell anyone; please.

Bureaucracy? -   @#~>~X&%*  - Pardon My French 

We picked up our Residency Cards a couple of days ago.  It was such an emotional moment for me, I had to sit down and collect myself before moving onto the plans for the rest of the day.  This laminated card that was just a little too big for my wallet was the result of more bureaucracy than I had encountered cumulatively in the thirty years of being a bureaucrat myself.   And while I am absolutely sure my experience cannot hold a candle to many, many more, not just traumatic, but desperate and life-changing ordeals untold thousands have gone through in an attempt to gain a safer life; actually obtaining my goal was such an overwhelming relief it was like waking up from a bad dream that had lasted for over a year.

I want to believe rules and laws exist for some reason.  Maybe it is a bad reason, or you do not really agree with it, but never the less there is a reason.  So when we started putting this trip together, we did a little research on what we would need to do to legally stay in the European Union for a year or two.  You know, make some effort to obey the rules.

After hunting the Internet, as we had expected, we only uncovered some disconnected and vague information implying we should get a visa.  The visa should be for the country in which you would be spending the most time which for us was France.  The France web site was somewhat disconnected and vague as well, but it led one to believe a visa was to be obtained from a French consulate near you.  There was a list of consulates that seemed to make sense and the nearest one to us was in San Francisco, California.  Going to the San Francisco web site (that is right, each consulate has their own web site and they are all different) led us to a list of requirements for obtaining a visa IF you fit one of a few rather well defined profiles: 

1. Working in France
2. Student
3. Au pair
4. retiree

Of all the life phases one can move through in which you might find yourself staying in France for an extended period; this is the list the French think most often applies.  I understand all of these phases, except number 3.  I seemed to have completely missed the Au Pair phase.  While I am a big fan of the old Fran Drescher sitcom, The Nanny (even to the point of having memorized all the words to the extremely snappy theme song), I just never ran into a circumstance where I would expect an entire nation to establish a category for granting residency rights for Nannies.  Now, something like Nuclear Physicist, while that would still be a bit puzzling, seems a more worthy category for consideration.  Perhaps even Professional Bowler; but Au Pair?  Sorry, I don’t get it, but no one said I needed to understand.

This was the tone our entire experience was to take.  And while not exactly the same, it was not unlike the five stages of grief: 1) Confusion
2) Unanswered Puzzlement 3) Disbelief 4) Anger 5) Acceptance.  And like grief, the process took almost as long.

It was November and we were to leave on our trip in June.  Knowing that it may take two to three months to process our visa applications, I decided to get started and not have to worry about it while we were moving out of the house and getting rid of 50 years of accumulated stuff (see Old Philosophy).  So I read through the list of requirements and I must admit at least 80% of it made sense and was even possible to accomplish.  There were a couple of fairly obvious things that did not seem to be very efficient, but “bureaucracy” is a French word after all, so it seemed easier to just do as they say and not worry about it.

However, I had some fairly fundamental questions about the entire process and how it was to work with our plans.  So, I clicked “contact us” and sent off an email.  A day or two went by with no reply, so I thought I had better put in a little translation time (thank you Babel Fish) and sent the questions again in French.  Several more days went by with no reply.   Perhaps the email goblins had ate my message, so I sent it again.  No reply.  A week later I decided I could probably simplify the questions I had asked and maybe even get a more concise translation, so I reworked the entire message and sent that set of almost prize winning questions off, very sure a French bureaucrat would be duly impressed and therefore compelled to answer straight away.

Two weeks later, I decided to take my chances on the telephone.  After all there was a phone number of the web site, so apparently they were prepared to take questions over the phone.  With my trusty French/English dictionary in hand, I called at exactly 1:10 pm.  This time was very carefully selected.  It was not the first thing in the morning when a French person might be groggy, maybe even grumpy.  It was not a time in mid morning when many other customers had them running at neck-break speed and one more call could put them over the edge.   It was not just as they were gathering their things to go home after a grueling day of waiting on bunches of cloying Americans begging entry into their sublime country.  No, I called when they had had their lunch and were back at their desks refreshed and ready to help some poor person who hadn’t had the advantage of being born French, but perhaps could afford to spend just a morsel of their miserable lives basking in the glory that is France.

My call went to voice mail, “We are sorry, no one is able to answer your call right now, but if you would like to leave a message, please press 2.”  I pressed 2.  Another message came on, “The mail box you have reached is full”….. click buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.   I must have dialed wrong.  I dial again, very carefully.   “We are sorry, no one is able to answer your call….blah blah blah blah…. please press 2.”  I press 2, again.   “The mail box you have reached is full” CLICK.      Merde! 

Now what do I do?  The holidays are coming and everyone knows bureaucrats don’t get much done during the holidays.  If I can’t get my questions answered, and Christmas gets here I may not be able to go to France! - legally, at least.  No one I know has a answer to my dilemma.   All I can think to do is to put the required documentation together as best I can, making wild American assumptions about what I do not understand and hope that the benevolent French functionaries in San Francisco will give me an “E” for effort and grant the coveted visas.

I make my plans for assembling all the documents.  I cannot actually assemble the documents as most of them are proof of financial viability.  I will have to wait to make the 4 copies of the latest statements I receive and their translations into French (all documents must be translated into French…. how to you say Interest Accrued to Date, in French?).  I can, however, work up the translations and just update the numbers when I get the new statements and we can also look for this mystery insurance that is a requirement.  

Apparently world-wide coverage on your health insurance is insufficient.  You must also be able to prove you can get yourself shipped home if you have some debilitating health issue.  Fortunately there are two of us and one would hope that should something so serious happen to one of us, the other could deal with it.  But the French government would feel better if you had insurance that said it would handle all of this no matter what shape, (maybe even dead or barely alive), you were in.  Or at least we think that is what they wanted.

I am not so sophisticated as to know about all the insurance types there are in the world, but don’t you know, there IS a policy you can buy that will arrange and pay for someone to come in, load you up and get your sorry, soon to be corpse the hell out of France should you need it.  Having started on a long slow burnout of figuring out all the other stuff we needed, I was not capable of dredging up insurance of this nature.  So Ron hit the internet and found the “Save My Trip” people, who very efficiently and rather reasonably, price-wise, wrote us a policy that we could only hope would satisfy our French friends.

Knowing we might be able to assemble something vaguely meeting their requirements, we very strategically made an on-line appointment with the consulate functionaries in San Francisco to submit our applications.  We would drive down the end of February, keeping our fingers crossed the road conditions cooperated.  This would give them a full three months to process our applications and get our visas to us before we left on our road trip across the U.S. in June.  Perfect, no?

NO!  We show up to the consulate on time.  The door is locked.  A small crowd of other visa seekers starts to assemble.  5 minutes into our appointment time the door is still locked.  The windows into the office are frosted almost to opaque, but we can see some shadowy movement inside so we believe the door should be opened soon.  10 minutes into our appointment, the door is still locked.  The visa seekers are beginning to get restless.

I get assertive and knock.  A uniformed guard unlocks the door (apparently waiting for the secret knock before he opens up) and we finally enter into a small anteroom with a metal detector between us and the powerful consulate employees.  The guard having returned to his post next to the detector informs us we are on “French soil now” as we pass through the metal-adverse arch.  We proceed toward the bulletproof glass protecting two very small women offering our stack of application papers all sorted, stapled and in pretty plastic folders.  They ask, “Is zis a new applikaysee-on?”.  I nod, Oui.  We are asked to wait while the other, apparently returning, visa seekers are helped.  Since we are on French soil, we decided to be good guests and smilingly comply with the request and “take a seat ova zair”. 

The two women make fairly quick work of the others and we are called forward ony an hour after our appointment time.  NOTE:  The French may not hold the same respect for appointment times as Americans do; or perhaps they are like doctors - oui?

Again we approach the bulletproof glass with the two impeccable notebooks.  They see we are a couple and indicate we can both be processed together.  I hand over my notebook.  It is refused.  My small French woman asked me for each item on the requirements list one at a time.  I hand her the first item, the 2-page application itself.  She very carefully reads it.  “When iz it zat you propose to travel?”, she asks.  I tell her we will be leaving in June, but as we are driving across the U.S. to site-see and visit family, we would not be in France until September.

ALARM!  SHOCK!!  AGAHST!!!  “Oh no, no, no.  Zis is too soon.  We cannot do zis now.  You must come back layta.”  I point out we live in Portland, Oregon and a trip to return is not without a certain amount of bother and expense.  She confers with her small colleague.  I am wondering what is zee problem. 

After what seems to be the French explanation of the problem (which I still don’t know what it is) by my small woman, the other small woman displays an almost equal amount of shock and disdain as we had just seen.  The word NO is bantered about as if speaking it were integral to breathing and one would suffocate without repeating it multiple times per minute.   After the initial barrage, it seems our small woman had decided to be our advocate and begins to counter the NO’s deftly. 

While puzzling and because of the situation, somewhat distressing, the whole scene is kind of entertaining.  I hear French words now and again that I understand.  I still have no idea why any of this is happening, but again, bureaucracy is a French word; there is no reason for me to understand.  At last, after a very rapid and rather loud crescendo,  our small French woman, for whom I am beginning to have warm feelings after witnessing her battle on our behalf (I think), turns to us to explain.

You must present a visa in France no more than 90 days after it has been issued.  If we have the visas in June (which we must pick up in person, they will not mail them) and do not go to France until September, our visas will have expired.

I repeat the issue about leaving the west coast in June.  I am informed that “zat is not our problem”.  My feelings are starting to cool.  I suggest that perhaps the applications can be made at another consulate in the U.S. and I could pick them up later in the summer to accommodate the surprise 90 day expiration date.  “No, no, no.  Applikaysee-ons must be made in zee regee-on in which one resides.  It is all explained on zee web site.”  I am totally cold by now and refute this last statement as I had read that web site, cover to cover many times and I start throwing back a few NOs of my own.  I detailed the multiple efforts to gained clarity on the information on the web and how I had received NO response whatsoever!  This drew a very guilty exchange of glances between the two small women, and Aha, I knew I had them!  (Little did they know they were dealing with a 30 year veteran of bureaucracy herself!)

If only I had known…. if only someone had answered my questions…. perhaps their superior could authorize…..

Now we shared zee problem.  Out came the very gracious French I had encountered in the past.  My small woman suggests that she accept our applications now and then, just before we depart for France, one of us fly back to San Francisco (it would not be necessary for both of us to come; she was willing to bend the rules to the point of allowing one to act for us both, thus saving us money) and pick-up the visas.  I am not in love with this plan.  I am informed zat it is zee only way and I should be grateful for zee offa.  This is bureaucrat code for, “take it or leave it, but it ain’t gonna get any better”.  I capitulate and we begin to transfer paper.

Everything was in good order, except she didn’t need all the copies I had made or the pretty plastic folders.  After this, she took: • copies of the passports, • our fingerprints and • $292.  Voila - application submitted, visas to be picked up by a lone flying rootless person sometime in August.  I think.  For as I walked out the door leaving French soil, I realized the only tangible proof I  had to ensure any of this would happen, was the receipt of the credit card for $292.   That thin piece of paper suddenly became extremely dear.

This was only the first encounter of approximately seven more over the summer, some too painful to relate in any detail, but suffice it to say included:  An honorary consulate who never stopped talking, 2 trips to Boston where we never saw the functionary and worked solely through a very nice young woman who could do nothing but carry messages and paper back and forth (very “ignore the man behind the curtain-ish”), a perfectly lovely and helpful Consular Adjunct named Patrice, several incomprehensible french messages on our cell phones and many MANY translations of updated financial statements.  All this was just the United States side of the process. 

The saga continues on French soil that is actually in France.   We were warned by the lovely young woman in Boston that the man behind the curtain had said we must report to the Prefecture in the region in which we reside no more than 60 days after arriving in France (never did find out what had happened to the original 90 days).  This led us to various police stations, functionaries both nice and competent as well as gum-popping nincompoops, a medical exam, forking over another $690 and two more sets of update and translated financial statements (which are tough to come by when your mail is following about 6 weeks behind you).

The perhaps tragic side of this story is we kept running into Americans in France who were horrified by this tale and who never had considered doing anything of the sort.  Of course they had been here for more than 90 days.  Had anything bad happened because they hadn’t jumped through endless French hoops - no. 

Now I am not advising that anyone should not do the jumping, but in the end this process led to long sleepless nights of self doubt, a rather sizable outlay of money and an unknown number of tree deaths due to modern papermaking technology.  Was it worth it?  We have seen and done so many wonderful things.  We have had the pleasure of meeting interesting, intelligent and genuinely nice people.  We have made memories that only Alzheimer’s (and maybe not even that) can take away from us.  And we are only in the opening stages of our time in Europe.  So, indeed, was it worth it?

You tell me when I insist upon showing you my residency card, “Temporaire” !

 

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