Feeling rather emotional, I wrote the following on the back of my printed flight confirmation as my flight left Paris:
Whenever I leave a place, I wish for rain so I won't be sentimental for what I've left behind. So I wanted it to rain on my last day in Paris. Instead, it was refreshingly balmy, and Samantha and I wore sweatshirts to the airport. We parked and stood behind the car together in silence, nervously shifting our feet, each of us lacking the heavy words to say goodbye.
She hugged me - which was extremely un-French - then quickly hugged me again before we both turned away and hurried in our opposite directions, afraid of making a scene.
I sulked through checkin, security, and passport control, then sulked through a few shops to keep my mind distracted. A cashier told me that I was beautiful and I blushed and remembered that compliments like these don't come easily in America.
On the shuttle bus to the plane I heard a Frenchman say "Pittsburgh"; with his strong accent he reminded me of Alban, and the way he would grin after saying the name of our new home.
As the plane ascended, the cloudless sky and the pilot conspired to give me one last glance of the past four years. First the Eiffel Tower, standing proudly on the banks of the Seine. Then La Defense, from which I could orient my view to identify the neighborhood of our first apartment in Levallois.
We banked and followed the Seine, winding through the suburbs to meet the Oise River in Conflans, close to our second apartment.
Then the urban sprawl of Cergy, and soon I was gazing over the calm winter green and brown tones of the French countryside which so often reminded me of Impressionist paintings on my drive to work. I imagined the rows of cyprus trees lining the road, the bright yellow fields of rape seed in the spring, the cherry trees the gypsies raid in the summer, the smell of the boulangerie in the last village before Meru, the horses I looked for every morning at the cottage with the pink roses.
It occurred to me that all of these things are a part of me now, but I am no longer a part of them. My colleagues won't have to struggle to speak English anymore. Samantha, Pierre, Alban, Hector, Francois, Luc, they'll all wake up tomorrow and carry on with their lives. Within a few weeks I'll be little more than a distant memory, and their minds will turn away from sentiment and onto ski holidays and summers to plan.
It will be longer, but someday I'll look back to them and this place and ask myself if it wasn't all a dream. Maybe not a dream, but a parallel universe, one that is so easy to forget when I am immersed in America and American culture.
The last four years....Did that just happen?
Things I Left With
Pot of Lauduree honey (present for Terry)
Salt and Pepper grinders from Peugeot (colors inspired from lunch restaurant with Francois)
Peugeot 206 keychain (the French car I always wanted but never had)
Musee de Nacre bracelet from my bosses
The last ten episodes of Lost (files from Pierre)
OSS 117 DVD - extremely politically incorrect and hilarious French comedy...with subtitles
Two tins of Frisk mints (our favorites)
Qu'est on Mange? - a fat old French cookbook from Luc's mom
Can of pureed chestnuts - also from Luc's mom, in order to make the chocolate cake recipe she gave me
4.07.2011
3.07.2011
France: The Préavis and the Long Goodbye
Christmas was great. Too short, slightly stressful, but great. We spent a few days with my parents, a few days with David's parents, bought a Jeep, and left for Pittsburgh on December 29 with the new car filled with luggage, Christmas gifts, and some basic supplies from both mothers. Plus one mewing cat.
By the way, Oliver was a prince during the holiday. He had big houses to run around, and loads of people to give him attention whenever he wanted it. Maybe he was just happy to be out of his carrier, and not on a plane. Or maybe he had been getting tired of France, too.
Anyway, we rolled into Pittsburgh by early evening. The sky was cloudless, and we were treated to a evening sun-soaked first view of our new home. First the skyscrapers of downtown, then the mountains, rivers, and many bridges.
We picked up the keys to our apartment, then commenced settling. Our rented furniture was already in place, so was there little more to do than unpack our luggage and boxes of supplies, make the bed, and start counting the days until the shipment arrived from France.
Over the next few days we were orientating and supplying the apartment with basics. For New Years Eve we slept.
Then, before I knew it, I was standing in an unknown airport, preparing to leave my new city for a more familiar airport in a city I still called home. But this time without David. Without Oliver, without an apartment to return to. I was a tourist.
Thanks to weather the flight was delayed more than six hours, so I arrived in Paris especially grumpy. But I was immediately cheered by seeing our good friends Pierre and Samantha, who greeted me at the airport curb with smiles and kisses before whisking me off to Samantha's parents' home for Sunday dinner.
It was Galette de Rois day in France, which meant that dessert was one of my favorites - a flaky pastry lined with almond paste. Pierre found the little ceramic favor in his piece - despite Samantha's insistence that her papa won every year - and we crowned him king.
Somewhere during the cheese course, Pierre and Samantha's father embarked on a discussion about the qualities of different cooking oils. As I sat there listening, groggy with jet leg, I stared into the middle distance, realizing that men don't have conversations like this in America. I was going to miss it.
After dinner we continued on to Pierre and Samantha's new house in Herblay. Herblay is a charming little town next to our old home of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, which means that the four of us would have been neighbors if David and I hadn't spoiled everything by leaving the country.
Pierre and Sam had just moved in a few weeks earlier, but had earnestly prepared the guest room to be cozy and welcoming for me. They left me to settle in while they ran around taking care of new house issues - hanging curtains, fixing loose door knobs. Eventually I just settled into the couch, trying to stay out of the way, blinking through the sleepiness.
The next day Pierre and I drove to the office together and I stepped back into the only normal pattern I still had my life: work. Despite the annoyance at having to come back to France to finish my notice, I was thrilled to have this little bit of regularity back. I answered phone calls, I bantered with my colleagues, I took far too many coffee breaks with anyone who wanted "one last". People asked me why I was smiling so much, and it wasn't entirely because I was leaving soon - it was also because I had the time to disengage my emotions from the job, and to fully appreciate the things I truly liked about working there before I left. And most of those things were my colleagues - the patient, warm, funny ones I had grown to know well over the past four years.
Aside from my favorite French coworkers, I was particularly attached to the foreigners like me, whom I would meet for coffee or lunch over shared stories about working in the land of the French. Like the gregarious Romanian engineer who startled the French with this enthusiasm. The Chinese development engineer, shaking his head and laughing happily at whatever I was ranting about that day. The Spanish quality leader, so smooth and charming and pretending to be offended when I accused him of being typically Latin. The Polish tool engineer, with his easy smile through which I recognized a sadness that I knew well - one of being far from home and unsure about the future.
I spent time with all of them, between earnest bouts of tying up loose ends at my desk, and every night rode back to Herblay with Pierre to share stories of the day with Samantha.
Living in Herblay quickly eased from formal politeness to fraternal cohabitation, and I soon felt a college-roommate fondness for my hosts. I loved bursting into the door to yell "you hoo!" to Sam after work, cooking dinners together in their kitchen, and unravelling the day in the armchairs in the living room with a hot cup of tea firmly in my grasp.
When the weekend arrived we took off in different directions - Pierre and Sam went household shopping, and I took the train into Paris for my last moments with the city.
On Saturday I met Wally on the Bir-Hakeim bridge for a photo session. Wally has taken a series of beautiful photos of girls in Paris, and I asked to be a part of the project before I left. He let me choose the location and I opted for this unique bridge, which I had first seen with Alban and visited since with David. The weather was lousy, but we got a few photos off before calling it a night and going out for sushi. We shared a sort of melancholic meal as I remembered that Wally is our oldest and best French friend, and that brunch with him was one of those great things about Paris we will look back upon and know that we had taken for granted.
Sunday I returned to the city for lunch with my longtime colleague François. François was one of the leading supporters of bringing me to France, even if he claims to have forgotten.
We met at a typically charming restaurant café on the canal Saint Martin not far from François' home. The weather was mild, and after an excellent lunch (a vegetable soup I am still dreaming of) we lingered at our window table in the sunlight, talking about the training plan for my replacement, who was scheduled to arrive in the office the next day.
The second week at work wasn't as nice as the first, partly because I was running out of time, and partly due to the appearance of said replacement. He was fine, really, but now I was responsible for transferring knowledge, and I had kind of already mentally checked out. Plus, I was annoyed that my many bosses hadn't managed to get a replacement until four days before I left, which I found rather insulting. Seven years wrapped up in four days!
Monday night my roommates graciously let me invite a colleague and his girlfriend for dinner. Pierre knows Alex as well, so we were off to a good start. Samantha and Pierre put together an excellent raclette, and despite some early stresses (Alex's girlfriend may or may not be sick, the house is still in the throes of moving in, what are we going to do with all this cheese...), Alex and his breezy nature soon calmed everyone down. It's that Latin smoothness of his.
By Tuesday I'd decided that despite the fun that I was having, I wanted to give Samantha and Pierre a break from me. I accepted a gracious invitation from my friend and colleague Luc to stay in his parents' home for two nights. With both sons grown, they had plenty of space.
I had my doubts about staying with complete strangers - especially those who don't speak any level of English - but Eveline and Michel were nothing of the typically formal French parents I'd met before.
The evening did start off on an intimidating note, however, when we pulled up to the house in a village outside of Chantilly. I had often driven past houses like these and asked myself, "Who lives in these massive old houses?" Well now I knew - people like Luc's parents.
We had barely stepped into the intricately painted foyer before I was making noises of delight. As I walked into the main hallway, the click of my heels echoed off the murals on the walls. Luc walked ahead of me, and I turned to him in astonishment. "Your HOUSE has an ECHO." He just smiled, and ducked into one of many doors to find his mother.
Eveline and Michel were charming and warm, and welcomed me with smiles and kisses. I was given a tour of the house and shown to my room on the second floor, one of six doors that I immediately lost track of as soon as it was closed again. The bedroom had old wood floors, a massive wardrobe and a vanity, an antique desk, a balcony, and two doors leading nowhere that Luc told me I shouldn't even bother with.
I tossed my bag onto the bed and made my way back downstairs, where Luc was making small talk before taking off for tennis practice. I watched his parents fuss over him as all parents do before reassuring him that I would be fine there, he didn't have to worry.
In the end, my French got me through the evening. Michel and Eveline were very patient and managed to guess their way through my stream of poor grammar and improvised vocabulary. Considering the only thing we had in common was their son, we spent a lot of time talking about Luc. I felt a lot like a girl visiting her boyfriend's parents for a weekend during college. I made a mental note to encourage Luc to bring his real girlfriend around to see his parents once in a while.
The next morning Luc picked me up for work, well rested and gushing in English about his parents. He just smiled.
That night Luc joined us for dinner, another delicious raclette. I certainly had my share of raclette that week, but I am not complaining in the least. The taste of the oozy cheese with its crispy crust topping a warm potato and a thin slice of dried ham is as vivid a memory in my mind as the sight of the Eiffel Tower from the A15 highway.
During the meal Luc's parents peppered us with parental type questions and poured wine while I answered as politely as my poor French would allow and Luc silently honed in on his dinner. In fact, it was a lot like eating with my real inlaws. Without the language hurdles, of course.
After dinner we had a cookie training session. A lot of people ask me for the chocolate cookie recipe I use (Nestle Tollhouse), and I always feel bad having to tell them that I'm happy to share the recipe, but it requires ingredients only found in the States (baking soda and brown sugar). For good friends I'll bring ingredients from the States with me, and in the case of Luc I offered to help him make a batch in exchange for the room and board.
So we took to the kitchen, winging our way through a recipe converted to metric and using a broken food scale. The evening ended with a kitchen full of cookies and everyone exhausted. I packed up a few boxes to take to work the next day, and left the rest with Luc and his parents.
My last day at work finally arrived. Luc drove me to the office and I spent the day between last minute loose ends, reminding my replacement of little details, and last coffees with friends. For lunch I went to the local pizza place with Luc - our end of the week tradition - and ordered the usual salad from the usual waiter, who wouldn't care less if he had known that this was to be our last exchange.
In the afternoon my boss came by and presented me with a small gift from my collection of bosses - a bracelet made with bits of shell from the local museum. The town used to be known for its decorative products made from shell, and it was the perfect present to remind me of my days in Méru.
The day ended late, as last days always do, and I left my computer with IT on my way out the door. Luc walked with me to the parking lot, and I felt a remote longing for business as usual - a casual wave goodbye to my friend, the long drive home on country roads, and a quiet evening with David in the apartment before returning to the office the next day.
I did get the wave goodbye, but the country roads took me away from Méru for the last time toward Herblay, to a borrowed room in an empty house. Pierre and Samantha were in Paris for the evening, and I had my own dinner plans to get to.
After dropping off my bags, I trotted down to the Herblay station and took the train into Paris. There I met Hector, Alban, and Ainhoa for one last dinner together at my favorite duck restaurant. It wasn't quite the same without David there, but I appreciated my last moments with some of our dearest friends. It was a turning point evening as well, as Ainhoa and Alban announced their engagement and Hector announced that he was up for a big promotion that would take him back to Spain. We called David and passed the phone around, everyone happily sharing the news.
The next day was a Friday, so I decided to take advantage of the weekday opportunity to visit the winter sales. I spent most of the day on the Champs Élysées, pausing only to have a sushi lunch with Samantha on her break. Samantha's office is within a stone's throw of the Arc de Triomphe, so lucky!
That night Pierre was out to a concert, so Samantha and I had a girls' night in with a bottle of wine from Alsace that a friend had given me for a going away present. We hadn't told Pierre of our evening plans, but from the throngs of a Chemical Brothers concert Samantha received a text message that read "Don't drink too much, girls!"
Saturday was my last day in France. I felt a lot of pressure to enjoy my last day in a beautiful place after nearly four years, especially when there is no guarantee that I'll ever be back. Perhaps I should have gone to the top of the Eiffel Tower, or ridden a bateau mouche, or climbed up to Montmartre to take in one last view of the city. But I didn't want to get wrapped up in the drama of goodbye, so I decided to live life as usual.
I took the train into the city, where the sun was shining unusually bright for January. I walked over to the big department stores near Saint Lazare and bought a birthday present for David, my absolutely last purchase because my luggage was already stuffed. I took a long subway ride over to the east side of the city on line two, which has a delightful length above ground, giving me a sunny sliding tour of the eighteenth arrondissement before slipping underground again for my stop.
I met Francois again for a coffee in a small cafe where we were the only customers and all the waiters knew him. I felt like he was looking at me like I was about to die. This long goodbye was painful.
I returned to Herblay in time to change my clothes and chat with Samantha for a while before my evening plans arrived. Luc picked me up from the house and we spent the rest of the day together in a nearby shopping area. And this is how I spent my last evening in France - searching for the perfect curtains for Luc's apartment. After a few hours we stopped at an Italian restaurant for pizza. Then he dropped me off in Herblay again, with the sort of quick forever goodbye that good friends have to exchange before getting emotional.
It wasn't a dramatic or romantic last day in France, but I spent it with some of my favorite friends, enjoying last laughs and simple time together before everything was changed forever.
I wish I could reflect on our time in France and come up with a sweeping conclusion about how important this period was in our lives. However, I think it might be one of those seeing the forest for the trees situations that prevents me from really looking at the big picture when I'm still standing so close to it. What I can say now is that France gave me some of the most interesting, dearest friends I'll ever have.
Three years and 361 days.
Anyway, we rolled into Pittsburgh by early evening. The sky was cloudless, and we were treated to a evening sun-soaked first view of our new home. First the skyscrapers of downtown, then the mountains, rivers, and many bridges.
We picked up the keys to our apartment, then commenced settling. Our rented furniture was already in place, so was there little more to do than unpack our luggage and boxes of supplies, make the bed, and start counting the days until the shipment arrived from France.
Over the next few days we were orientating and supplying the apartment with basics. For New Years Eve we slept.
Then, before I knew it, I was standing in an unknown airport, preparing to leave my new city for a more familiar airport in a city I still called home. But this time without David. Without Oliver, without an apartment to return to. I was a tourist.
 |
| Pierre and Samantha |
It was Galette de Rois day in France, which meant that dessert was one of my favorites - a flaky pastry lined with almond paste. Pierre found the little ceramic favor in his piece - despite Samantha's insistence that her papa won every year - and we crowned him king.
Somewhere during the cheese course, Pierre and Samantha's father embarked on a discussion about the qualities of different cooking oils. As I sat there listening, groggy with jet leg, I stared into the middle distance, realizing that men don't have conversations like this in America. I was going to miss it.
After dinner we continued on to Pierre and Samantha's new house in Herblay. Herblay is a charming little town next to our old home of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, which means that the four of us would have been neighbors if David and I hadn't spoiled everything by leaving the country.
Pierre and Sam had just moved in a few weeks earlier, but had earnestly prepared the guest room to be cozy and welcoming for me. They left me to settle in while they ran around taking care of new house issues - hanging curtains, fixing loose door knobs. Eventually I just settled into the couch, trying to stay out of the way, blinking through the sleepiness.
The next day Pierre and I drove to the office together and I stepped back into the only normal pattern I still had my life: work. Despite the annoyance at having to come back to France to finish my notice, I was thrilled to have this little bit of regularity back. I answered phone calls, I bantered with my colleagues, I took far too many coffee breaks with anyone who wanted "one last". People asked me why I was smiling so much, and it wasn't entirely because I was leaving soon - it was also because I had the time to disengage my emotions from the job, and to fully appreciate the things I truly liked about working there before I left. And most of those things were my colleagues - the patient, warm, funny ones I had grown to know well over the past four years.
Aside from my favorite French coworkers, I was particularly attached to the foreigners like me, whom I would meet for coffee or lunch over shared stories about working in the land of the French. Like the gregarious Romanian engineer who startled the French with this enthusiasm. The Chinese development engineer, shaking his head and laughing happily at whatever I was ranting about that day. The Spanish quality leader, so smooth and charming and pretending to be offended when I accused him of being typically Latin. The Polish tool engineer, with his easy smile through which I recognized a sadness that I knew well - one of being far from home and unsure about the future.
 |
| Guest Room - Chez Demortain, Herblay |
I spent time with all of them, between earnest bouts of tying up loose ends at my desk, and every night rode back to Herblay with Pierre to share stories of the day with Samantha.
Living in Herblay quickly eased from formal politeness to fraternal cohabitation, and I soon felt a college-roommate fondness for my hosts. I loved bursting into the door to yell "you hoo!" to Sam after work, cooking dinners together in their kitchen, and unravelling the day in the armchairs in the living room with a hot cup of tea firmly in my grasp.
When the weekend arrived we took off in different directions - Pierre and Sam went household shopping, and I took the train into Paris for my last moments with the city.
On Saturday I met Wally on the Bir-Hakeim bridge for a photo session. Wally has taken a series of beautiful photos of girls in Paris, and I asked to be a part of the project before I left. He let me choose the location and I opted for this unique bridge, which I had first seen with Alban and visited since with David. The weather was lousy, but we got a few photos off before calling it a night and going out for sushi. We shared a sort of melancholic meal as I remembered that Wally is our oldest and best French friend, and that brunch with him was one of those great things about Paris we will look back upon and know that we had taken for granted.
Sunday I returned to the city for lunch with my longtime colleague François. François was one of the leading supporters of bringing me to France, even if he claims to have forgotten.
 |
| Francois and Escargot |
The second week at work wasn't as nice as the first, partly because I was running out of time, and partly due to the appearance of said replacement. He was fine, really, but now I was responsible for transferring knowledge, and I had kind of already mentally checked out. Plus, I was annoyed that my many bosses hadn't managed to get a replacement until four days before I left, which I found rather insulting. Seven years wrapped up in four days!
 |
| Alex and his girlfriend |
By Tuesday I'd decided that despite the fun that I was having, I wanted to give Samantha and Pierre a break from me. I accepted a gracious invitation from my friend and colleague Luc to stay in his parents' home for two nights. With both sons grown, they had plenty of space.
I had my doubts about staying with complete strangers - especially those who don't speak any level of English - but Eveline and Michel were nothing of the typically formal French parents I'd met before.
The evening did start off on an intimidating note, however, when we pulled up to the house in a village outside of Chantilly. I had often driven past houses like these and asked myself, "Who lives in these massive old houses?" Well now I knew - people like Luc's parents.
 |
| With Eveline, in the main hall |
Eveline and Michel were charming and warm, and welcomed me with smiles and kisses. I was given a tour of the house and shown to my room on the second floor, one of six doors that I immediately lost track of as soon as it was closed again. The bedroom had old wood floors, a massive wardrobe and a vanity, an antique desk, a balcony, and two doors leading nowhere that Luc told me I shouldn't even bother with.
I tossed my bag onto the bed and made my way back downstairs, where Luc was making small talk before taking off for tennis practice. I watched his parents fuss over him as all parents do before reassuring him that I would be fine there, he didn't have to worry.
In the end, my French got me through the evening. Michel and Eveline were very patient and managed to guess their way through my stream of poor grammar and improvised vocabulary. Considering the only thing we had in common was their son, we spent a lot of time talking about Luc. I felt a lot like a girl visiting her boyfriend's parents for a weekend during college. I made a mental note to encourage Luc to bring his real girlfriend around to see his parents once in a while.
 |
| Eveline and Michel over raclette |
That night Luc joined us for dinner, another delicious raclette. I certainly had my share of raclette that week, but I am not complaining in the least. The taste of the oozy cheese with its crispy crust topping a warm potato and a thin slice of dried ham is as vivid a memory in my mind as the sight of the Eiffel Tower from the A15 highway.
During the meal Luc's parents peppered us with parental type questions and poured wine while I answered as politely as my poor French would allow and Luc silently honed in on his dinner. In fact, it was a lot like eating with my real inlaws. Without the language hurdles, of course.
 |
| Luc mixing cookies |
So we took to the kitchen, winging our way through a recipe converted to metric and using a broken food scale. The evening ended with a kitchen full of cookies and everyone exhausted. I packed up a few boxes to take to work the next day, and left the rest with Luc and his parents.
My last day at work finally arrived. Luc drove me to the office and I spent the day between last minute loose ends, reminding my replacement of little details, and last coffees with friends. For lunch I went to the local pizza place with Luc - our end of the week tradition - and ordered the usual salad from the usual waiter, who wouldn't care less if he had known that this was to be our last exchange.
In the afternoon my boss came by and presented me with a small gift from my collection of bosses - a bracelet made with bits of shell from the local museum. The town used to be known for its decorative products made from shell, and it was the perfect present to remind me of my days in Méru.
The day ended late, as last days always do, and I left my computer with IT on my way out the door. Luc walked with me to the parking lot, and I felt a remote longing for business as usual - a casual wave goodbye to my friend, the long drive home on country roads, and a quiet evening with David in the apartment before returning to the office the next day.
I did get the wave goodbye, but the country roads took me away from Méru for the last time toward Herblay, to a borrowed room in an empty house. Pierre and Samantha were in Paris for the evening, and I had my own dinner plans to get to.
 |
| Hector, Ainhoa, and Alban |
The next day was a Friday, so I decided to take advantage of the weekday opportunity to visit the winter sales. I spent most of the day on the Champs Élysées, pausing only to have a sushi lunch with Samantha on her break. Samantha's office is within a stone's throw of the Arc de Triomphe, so lucky!
That night Pierre was out to a concert, so Samantha and I had a girls' night in with a bottle of wine from Alsace that a friend had given me for a going away present. We hadn't told Pierre of our evening plans, but from the throngs of a Chemical Brothers concert Samantha received a text message that read "Don't drink too much, girls!"
Saturday was my last day in France. I felt a lot of pressure to enjoy my last day in a beautiful place after nearly four years, especially when there is no guarantee that I'll ever be back. Perhaps I should have gone to the top of the Eiffel Tower, or ridden a bateau mouche, or climbed up to Montmartre to take in one last view of the city. But I didn't want to get wrapped up in the drama of goodbye, so I decided to live life as usual.
I took the train into the city, where the sun was shining unusually bright for January. I walked over to the big department stores near Saint Lazare and bought a birthday present for David, my absolutely last purchase because my luggage was already stuffed. I took a long subway ride over to the east side of the city on line two, which has a delightful length above ground, giving me a sunny sliding tour of the eighteenth arrondissement before slipping underground again for my stop.
I met Francois again for a coffee in a small cafe where we were the only customers and all the waiters knew him. I felt like he was looking at me like I was about to die. This long goodbye was painful.
I returned to Herblay in time to change my clothes and chat with Samantha for a while before my evening plans arrived. Luc picked me up from the house and we spent the rest of the day together in a nearby shopping area. And this is how I spent my last evening in France - searching for the perfect curtains for Luc's apartment. After a few hours we stopped at an Italian restaurant for pizza. Then he dropped me off in Herblay again, with the sort of quick forever goodbye that good friends have to exchange before getting emotional.
It wasn't a dramatic or romantic last day in France, but I spent it with some of my favorite friends, enjoying last laughs and simple time together before everything was changed forever.
I wish I could reflect on our time in France and come up with a sweeping conclusion about how important this period was in our lives. However, I think it might be one of those seeing the forest for the trees situations that prevents me from really looking at the big picture when I'm still standing so close to it. What I can say now is that France gave me some of the most interesting, dearest friends I'll ever have.
Three years and 361 days.
12.24.2010
Adieu
Our last day in France flew by so quickly, I can barely grasp the memory of yesterday.
If I remember right, I woke up later than intended.
In other words, it started off like every other day.
With our blankets on a truck en route to the Atlantic Ocean, we were sleeping under an old futon cover we'd bought for our old apartment and intended to leave behind. In addition, I'd convinced David to turn up the heat in the room, which made it downright balmy.
Once showered and dressed, David dove into apartment cleaning while I ran downstairs to buy us some breakfast.
The guy on the right is Wade. Wade spent ten years of his youth on Oklahoma, and decided to open an American cafe in France.
Right beneath our apartment.
Twelve days before we left the country.
How about that for timing?
Add that to the take-out sushi joint that opened next door just a few months ago and you have my own personal dream apartment real estate, if only they'd moved in two years ago.
Anyway, Wade's cafe serves muffins, donuts, and bagels. Toasted! With cream cheese! Needless to say, I took every advantage to pop by for breakfast during our short acquaintance. In hindsight we probably should have been appreciating out last croissants and pain chocolats before leaving them behind forever, but wow, it had been so long since I'd had a toasted bagel.
So yesterday morning I brought back to the empty apartment three bagels, two mini donuts, and a pair of take-out coffees. Take out coffee is one of those things that the French just don't do, and I have to admire them for their stubborn stronghold on habit.
After breakfast we went back to cleaning and packing. When mid-afternoon rolled around we changed our clothes and hopped on a train for Paris. We spent the rest of the daylight hours tending chores in our beloved old stomping grounds of Levallois-Perret. Banking, returning the cable box, buying a bit if cheese to take home, and generally being nostalgic.
As the dinner hour approached we popped by a favorite flower shop and picked up a trendy bouquet before taking the metro a few stops into Paris proper.
We had our last French dinner with our good friends Nicolas and Maude, who treated us in style to foie gras (from the same shop that le President buys his foie gras, oh la la), scallops, and salmon. And of course, a perfectly matched wine.
More than great food, they shared their relentless good natures, smiles, and contagious laughter. Then they surprised us with a lift home, sparing us one last rise on the sketchy suburban train to Conflans.
I can't think about Nico and Maude any longer now, lest I start crying.
Back in the apartment we finalized our cleaning and were in bed by the reasonable - given the circumstances - hour of 12:30 am.
Of course, neither of us slept for more than a few hours at best.
At 6 we were up again. Showered, packed the toiletries. Folded and packed the sheets. Crammed in as much stuff as possible that the movers missed (and uttered many a curse at them while doing so).
At 7:30 the apartment owner came by to finalize the apartment. As in all French transactions, it required a great deal of paperwork. We were lucky that he had already sold the apartment and didn't give the place much more than a cursory glance to make sure nothing serious was awry.
At 8:20 Hector pulled up to our building and I started bringing luggage down to him. By this point Oliver was feeling the sedative David had given him earlier and I was crying with guilt again.
On the way to the airport we tried to make casual conversation while I stroked the cat and muttered soothing noises to him. We were all nervous, but trying to make the most of our last moments with Hector. I know that I'll be back in January for another two weeks, but how does one say goodbye to one of their favorite people?
The airport was mad chaos, as one should expect for the week before Christmas, but we were still alarmed. We got in the end of a seemingly endless queue and proceeded to shuffle along with one eye on the watch, another on the cat.
At one point an American Airlines staff member walked by and saw our cat carrier.
"Ooooh. I'm sorry, but it's too cold in Chicago for us to accept your cat."
This simply was not an option. The cat must fly. Before I had a chance to argue David told her "Oh, he's used to it. This cat normally lives in Chicago". When she looked doubtful, he said the magic word: "We have an attestation (statement) from the vet."
Last week I had called American Airlines to double check the requirements necessary to bring a cat into the US. I was told that animals wouldn't be accepted if the temperature at either location was below something like 45 degrees F. Unless we had a signed statement from a certified vet.
So on Monday David hoofed the cat down to the vet, who gave him a good once over before hand writing a flowery letter stating that the cat would abstain temperatures down to 10 C. 10 C = 50 F. Pretty useless.
When he got back from the vet, Dave and I sat looking at the letter on the table.
"You have a black pen like the one he used for the letter?"
"Yes."
"How much is negative 10 in Farenheit?"
Math.
"Fourteenish."
"Do it."
And then our cat was certified to abstain temperatures down to -10C. What a trooper he is.
So this was the magic sheet of paper we waved to two American Airlines employees, one supervisor, and one checkin agent to get our cat on board. Never mind that the "warm blooded animal" checklist they made us fill in insisted that under no circumstances would they accept an animal if the temperature was below 45 F - attestation or not.
Finally, the gauntlet was passed and the checkin agent took the cat. The carrier was labeled and we set it aside next to the counter for pickup. Dave and I hurried onto security, then to the gate where boarding started not long after.
Eight and a half hours of fidgeting, half-dozing, and lousy movies later, we breezed through passport control and commenced hovering over the baggage carousel. I asked an airport employee where I could find my cat please, and he pointed to a corner. We found two big dogs there, but no cats.
The luggage arrived, we recovered all of our bags and still no cat. We camped out near the corner and bit our fingers with worry - what if someone had changed their minds and enforced the cold pet rule? In my head I started composing a little song called "American Kills Cats", fashioned after the viral YouTube video "United Breaks Guitars".
And then, from seemingly nowhere, the little carrier arrived. Delivered by elves, maybe. I ran over and crouched down to make sure that Oliver was alive. He was hunkered in the bottom of his carrier, eyes no longer clouded over from the drugs, looking downright sour. Very much alive.
With a big sigh of relief we wheeled the luggage trolley toward customs. They sent us to the Center for Disease Control for the cat to be inspected. One more hurdle.
A brisk woman stepped out of the CDC office, took a glance at the carrier and asked "Cat or dog?" She reviewed our customs form, stapled a little slip of paper to it, and sent us on our way without even looking inside the carrier.
Back at customs I turned my worries to the cheese and foie gras I had stashed in our luggage. Under the advise of customs agent in France, I'd decided not to declare it this time. If we were stopped for a random screening, I was toast.
I handed our customs form to the customs officer and held my breath.
"Have you already seen the CDC?" she asked, glancing at the carrier. "Oh good. Have a nice Christmas."
And we were home free. Home. And free.
My dad met us in the waiting area, then pulled the car around to load up our stuff. We took the last leg of our journey - a three hour drive - to Kalamazoo, where the fire was warm and my mom had dinner waiting.
It's great to be home.
If I remember right, I woke up later than intended.
In other words, it started off like every other day.
With our blankets on a truck en route to the Atlantic Ocean, we were sleeping under an old futon cover we'd bought for our old apartment and intended to leave behind. In addition, I'd convinced David to turn up the heat in the room, which made it downright balmy.
Once showered and dressed, David dove into apartment cleaning while I ran downstairs to buy us some breakfast.
The guy on the right is Wade. Wade spent ten years of his youth on Oklahoma, and decided to open an American cafe in France.
Right beneath our apartment.
Twelve days before we left the country.
How about that for timing?
Add that to the take-out sushi joint that opened next door just a few months ago and you have my own personal dream apartment real estate, if only they'd moved in two years ago.
Anyway, Wade's cafe serves muffins, donuts, and bagels. Toasted! With cream cheese! Needless to say, I took every advantage to pop by for breakfast during our short acquaintance. In hindsight we probably should have been appreciating out last croissants and pain chocolats before leaving them behind forever, but wow, it had been so long since I'd had a toasted bagel.
So yesterday morning I brought back to the empty apartment three bagels, two mini donuts, and a pair of take-out coffees. Take out coffee is one of those things that the French just don't do, and I have to admire them for their stubborn stronghold on habit.
After breakfast we went back to cleaning and packing. When mid-afternoon rolled around we changed our clothes and hopped on a train for Paris. We spent the rest of the daylight hours tending chores in our beloved old stomping grounds of Levallois-Perret. Banking, returning the cable box, buying a bit if cheese to take home, and generally being nostalgic.As the dinner hour approached we popped by a favorite flower shop and picked up a trendy bouquet before taking the metro a few stops into Paris proper.
We had our last French dinner with our good friends Nicolas and Maude, who treated us in style to foie gras (from the same shop that le President buys his foie gras, oh la la), scallops, and salmon. And of course, a perfectly matched wine.
More than great food, they shared their relentless good natures, smiles, and contagious laughter. Then they surprised us with a lift home, sparing us one last rise on the sketchy suburban train to Conflans.
I can't think about Nico and Maude any longer now, lest I start crying.
Back in the apartment we finalized our cleaning and were in bed by the reasonable - given the circumstances - hour of 12:30 am.
Of course, neither of us slept for more than a few hours at best.
At 6 we were up again. Showered, packed the toiletries. Folded and packed the sheets. Crammed in as much stuff as possible that the movers missed (and uttered many a curse at them while doing so).
At 7:30 the apartment owner came by to finalize the apartment. As in all French transactions, it required a great deal of paperwork. We were lucky that he had already sold the apartment and didn't give the place much more than a cursory glance to make sure nothing serious was awry.
At 8:20 Hector pulled up to our building and I started bringing luggage down to him. By this point Oliver was feeling the sedative David had given him earlier and I was crying with guilt again.
On the way to the airport we tried to make casual conversation while I stroked the cat and muttered soothing noises to him. We were all nervous, but trying to make the most of our last moments with Hector. I know that I'll be back in January for another two weeks, but how does one say goodbye to one of their favorite people?
The airport was mad chaos, as one should expect for the week before Christmas, but we were still alarmed. We got in the end of a seemingly endless queue and proceeded to shuffle along with one eye on the watch, another on the cat.
At one point an American Airlines staff member walked by and saw our cat carrier.
"Ooooh. I'm sorry, but it's too cold in Chicago for us to accept your cat."
This simply was not an option. The cat must fly. Before I had a chance to argue David told her "Oh, he's used to it. This cat normally lives in Chicago". When she looked doubtful, he said the magic word: "We have an attestation (statement) from the vet."
Last week I had called American Airlines to double check the requirements necessary to bring a cat into the US. I was told that animals wouldn't be accepted if the temperature at either location was below something like 45 degrees F. Unless we had a signed statement from a certified vet.
So on Monday David hoofed the cat down to the vet, who gave him a good once over before hand writing a flowery letter stating that the cat would abstain temperatures down to 10 C. 10 C = 50 F. Pretty useless.
When he got back from the vet, Dave and I sat looking at the letter on the table.
"You have a black pen like the one he used for the letter?"
"Yes."
"How much is negative 10 in Farenheit?"
Math.
"Fourteenish."
"Do it."
And then our cat was certified to abstain temperatures down to -10C. What a trooper he is.
So this was the magic sheet of paper we waved to two American Airlines employees, one supervisor, and one checkin agent to get our cat on board. Never mind that the "warm blooded animal" checklist they made us fill in insisted that under no circumstances would they accept an animal if the temperature was below 45 F - attestation or not.
Finally, the gauntlet was passed and the checkin agent took the cat. The carrier was labeled and we set it aside next to the counter for pickup. Dave and I hurried onto security, then to the gate where boarding started not long after.
Eight and a half hours of fidgeting, half-dozing, and lousy movies later, we breezed through passport control and commenced hovering over the baggage carousel. I asked an airport employee where I could find my cat please, and he pointed to a corner. We found two big dogs there, but no cats.
The luggage arrived, we recovered all of our bags and still no cat. We camped out near the corner and bit our fingers with worry - what if someone had changed their minds and enforced the cold pet rule? In my head I started composing a little song called "American Kills Cats", fashioned after the viral YouTube video "United Breaks Guitars".
And then, from seemingly nowhere, the little carrier arrived. Delivered by elves, maybe. I ran over and crouched down to make sure that Oliver was alive. He was hunkered in the bottom of his carrier, eyes no longer clouded over from the drugs, looking downright sour. Very much alive.
With a big sigh of relief we wheeled the luggage trolley toward customs. They sent us to the Center for Disease Control for the cat to be inspected. One more hurdle.
A brisk woman stepped out of the CDC office, took a glance at the carrier and asked "Cat or dog?" She reviewed our customs form, stapled a little slip of paper to it, and sent us on our way without even looking inside the carrier.
Back at customs I turned my worries to the cheese and foie gras I had stashed in our luggage. Under the advise of customs agent in France, I'd decided not to declare it this time. If we were stopped for a random screening, I was toast.
I handed our customs form to the customs officer and held my breath.
"Have you already seen the CDC?" she asked, glancing at the carrier. "Oh good. Have a nice Christmas."
And we were home free. Home. And free.
My dad met us in the waiting area, then pulled the car around to load up our stuff. We took the last leg of our journey - a three hour drive - to Kalamazoo, where the fire was warm and my mom had dinner waiting.
It's great to be home.
12.23.2010
Moving
Moving Tip: Don't move in winter.
No matter if you live in a normally mild climate, bear in mind that Murphy's Law and Mother Nature are more likely to conspire to wreak havoc on a moving day in December than one in June.
Never have we seen snow in France like we have these past few weeks.
Particularly the last three days, which have been like living in a perpetual snow globe. It's nothing of the Michigan winters we're used to (or used to be used to), but here in France we're not equipped for six inches of snow. We don't have convoys of salt trucks and plows that come through at four in the morning to clean everything off, we don't sell bags of road salt at the grocery stores, and we don't have all season tires.
Luckily we don't have to worry about commuting to work this week, but we did have to cancel one "last" dinner with friends and arrived a few hours late to another.
We woke up today to another swirling snowstorm. Our movers were scheduled to arrive between 3 and 4 in the afternoon, and at 11 I gave them a call.
"Oh, I dunno..." they told me. "this snow is a mess. We'll call you later."
So we carried on with our day. My colleague Alejandro came over to buy our little C2, and David went through the paperwork with him. Alex looked at me warily across the table while I clutched a coffee cup and watched the snow fall.
"Are you ok?" he asked. "You look really stressed."
Apparently my attempts at coming off as breezy and relaxed were in vain. Was it really so obvious? Maybe Alex is just used to seeing me with makeup?
At 3:30 I called the movers again. I didn't mind if they delayed to the next morning - I just wanted an answer.
"We're busy" they answered. "We'll call you back soon."
At 5:30 I was emailing my mom and stressing out about ever seeing these movers - would we have to delay our flight? Would one of us have to stay behind? Could we charge the moving company with the cost of changing our tickets? - when the phone rang. It was the movers, and they were coming around in half an hour.
Before I even hung up the phone David had kicked into Tasmanian devil mode. He started unplugging the computer, wrapping up wires, and questioning everything that belonged to me in the room.
"What is this thing? Do you want to keep it? Can I throw it out?"
I turned to the refrigerator and started tossing jars into a nearby trash can. Gourmet mustard, capers, tapenade, out out out.
When the movers arrived they parked their truck on the sidewalk across the street and came in to look around. They were only two, one of them Portuguese who spoke just about everything but French.
Then they started bringing in packing material and I noticed the text on the boxes was in German. David confirmed that he had hired a German company for the move. Portuguese movers German boxes. and What a waste of all the clever French moving vocabulary I had accumulated in the past four years!
Over the last week David and I have had time to fill the fifteen boxes that the moving company sent in advance. We had a well organized, well labeled fort of boxes in the spare bedroom, ready to go. The movers pretty much told us to get out of the way and did the rest of the apartment in about two hours. The apartment was filled with the sounds of screeching tape guns and thudding cardboard boxes.
We locked Oliver into the bathroom and holed ourselves up in the bedroom, nervously chatting to pass the time. Once in a while we wandered around watching them work. I noticed that they labelled everything in English, whereas the boxes I had labelled were a mix of French and English. Surely anyone who saw our shipment to the US would have no idea where we'd come from.
Finally at 9:30 they were loading the last of our boxes into the back of their truck. David signed off on the paperwork while I ran down to the pizza restaurant below our apartment. I waved goodbye to them from the front window.
The pizza shop gave us plates and silverware and we ate in the nearly empty apartment while the cat stretched his legs in the new open space.
Just one more day.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
No matter if you live in a normally mild climate, bear in mind that Murphy's Law and Mother Nature are more likely to conspire to wreak havoc on a moving day in December than one in June.
Never have we seen snow in France like we have these past few weeks.
Particularly the last three days, which have been like living in a perpetual snow globe. It's nothing of the Michigan winters we're used to (or used to be used to), but here in France we're not equipped for six inches of snow. We don't have convoys of salt trucks and plows that come through at four in the morning to clean everything off, we don't sell bags of road salt at the grocery stores, and we don't have all season tires.
Luckily we don't have to worry about commuting to work this week, but we did have to cancel one "last" dinner with friends and arrived a few hours late to another.
We woke up today to another swirling snowstorm. Our movers were scheduled to arrive between 3 and 4 in the afternoon, and at 11 I gave them a call.
"Oh, I dunno..." they told me. "this snow is a mess. We'll call you later."
So we carried on with our day. My colleague Alejandro came over to buy our little C2, and David went through the paperwork with him. Alex looked at me warily across the table while I clutched a coffee cup and watched the snow fall.
"Are you ok?" he asked. "You look really stressed."
Apparently my attempts at coming off as breezy and relaxed were in vain. Was it really so obvious? Maybe Alex is just used to seeing me with makeup?
At 3:30 I called the movers again. I didn't mind if they delayed to the next morning - I just wanted an answer.
"We're busy" they answered. "We'll call you back soon."
At 5:30 I was emailing my mom and stressing out about ever seeing these movers - would we have to delay our flight? Would one of us have to stay behind? Could we charge the moving company with the cost of changing our tickets? - when the phone rang. It was the movers, and they were coming around in half an hour.
Before I even hung up the phone David had kicked into Tasmanian devil mode. He started unplugging the computer, wrapping up wires, and questioning everything that belonged to me in the room.
"What is this thing? Do you want to keep it? Can I throw it out?"
I turned to the refrigerator and started tossing jars into a nearby trash can. Gourmet mustard, capers, tapenade, out out out.
When the movers arrived they parked their truck on the sidewalk across the street and came in to look around. They were only two, one of them Portuguese who spoke just about everything but French.
Then they started bringing in packing material and I noticed the text on the boxes was in German. David confirmed that he had hired a German company for the move. Portuguese movers German boxes. and What a waste of all the clever French moving vocabulary I had accumulated in the past four years!
Over the last week David and I have had time to fill the fifteen boxes that the moving company sent in advance. We had a well organized, well labeled fort of boxes in the spare bedroom, ready to go. The movers pretty much told us to get out of the way and did the rest of the apartment in about two hours. The apartment was filled with the sounds of screeching tape guns and thudding cardboard boxes.
We locked Oliver into the bathroom and holed ourselves up in the bedroom, nervously chatting to pass the time. Once in a while we wandered around watching them work. I noticed that they labelled everything in English, whereas the boxes I had labelled were a mix of French and English. Surely anyone who saw our shipment to the US would have no idea where we'd come from.
Finally at 9:30 they were loading the last of our boxes into the back of their truck. David signed off on the paperwork while I ran down to the pizza restaurant below our apartment. I waved goodbye to them from the front window.
The pizza shop gave us plates and silverware and we ate in the nearly empty apartment while the cat stretched his legs in the new open space.
Just one more day.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
12.20.2010
Salad Dressing
Pascal sits down in front of me in the cafeteria and sets a small saucer between us. He's been to the condiment table, but hasn't brought back pickles and olives - just little puddles.
He sees me looking curiously at it and explains: "salad dressing"
Ah, that's what it is. A splash of olive oil, a drizzle of vinegar, and a dollop of mustard. Pascal chats and glances waywardly out the window as he mixes it all together with a fork. A few seconds later, emulsion magic happens and he's tipping a perfectly creamy dressing onto his salad.
And this remains one of the most the most vexing mysteries of France - how every Frenchman has genetically programmed in his DNA the ability to whip up perfect salad dressing. It obviously can't be learned, because after four years here my attempts still look like puddles.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
He sees me looking curiously at it and explains: "salad dressing"
Ah, that's what it is. A splash of olive oil, a drizzle of vinegar, and a dollop of mustard. Pascal chats and glances waywardly out the window as he mixes it all together with a fork. A few seconds later, emulsion magic happens and he's tipping a perfectly creamy dressing onto his salad.
And this remains one of the most the most vexing mysteries of France - how every Frenchman has genetically programmed in his DNA the ability to whip up perfect salad dressing. It obviously can't be learned, because after four years here my attempts still look like puddles.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
12.18.2010
You're Going Where??
Various responses from our French friends when we tell them that we're moving to Pittsburgh:
"Pennsylvania. Huh. Are you going to be a Quaker?" -Julien
"Hey! That's where the marmot (groundhog) lives!" -Wally
"Excellent. There are cheap flights between Pittsburgh and Paris" -Alban
"They have an Andy Warhol museum, right?" -Isabelle (props to Isabelle, I didn't even know about the Andy Worhol museum until a few months ago)
Most of the others know that the city is (was) rather industrial. They want to know what there is to do in Pittsburgh. Of course, to most French, if it's not New York or the Grand Canyon, it's not worth visiting.
"Pennsylvania. Huh. Are you going to be a Quaker?" -Julien
"Hey! That's where the marmot (groundhog) lives!" -Wally
"Excellent. There are cheap flights between Pittsburgh and Paris" -Alban
"They have an Andy Warhol museum, right?" -Isabelle (props to Isabelle, I didn't even know about the Andy Worhol museum until a few months ago)
Most of the others know that the city is (was) rather industrial. They want to know what there is to do in Pittsburgh. Of course, to most French, if it's not New York or the Grand Canyon, it's not worth visiting.
How to Quit a French Job
David and I have this favorite movie called Haiku Tunnel. It's kind of like an Indie Office Space. In one scene, the primary character quits his job with a brief, six word letter to his boss:
Of course, Haiku Tunnel is an American film. Anyone employed in France would never have the luxury of such an easy exit.
You know how in the States, we're required to give two weeks' notice before leaving a job? In France, it's three months. Months! This can be negotiated, of course, depending on how quickly one's employer can find a replacement. For example, when David gave his notice in mid-October, he requested to be released on the 10th of December and his employer begrudgingly agreed.
I, however, was not so lucky. Or else I'm just a bad negotiator. I'm required to finish the whole three months, which means that I have to come back to France after the holidays to work two more weeks. I don't know what irritates me more - having to leave David behind while he starts his new job and our new life in Pittsburgh, or paying for another flight and making lodging arrangements in France for two weeks. I guess it could always be worse - I could have to stay longer.
Aside from haggling over the last day of work, one must follow formal procedures to quite a French job. We each had to write official letters to our respective human resources departments (thank you, Google!), and have them posted by certified mail.
Then, after our letters had been received, our employers sent back formal letters to inform us that they have received our resignations. These were also sent with certified mail, which meant that the letters couldn't be dropped in our post box but had to be delivered with a signature of receipt. And because we're at work when the postman drops by, we got in our box a little slip of paper that said "Come pick up your letters!" and I had to leave work early one day, rush to the post, queue for half an hour, and sign for them.
We've since learned that quitting anything in France requires a formal letter. None quite so serious as a resignation letter, but a proper Monsieur, Madame form nonetheless. David has written letters to quit our apartment insurance, bank, cable, even the stupid gym.
Earlier this week I walked to the town hall and asked permission to park a moving truck in front of our building. Even though I was standing in front of the woman who needed only to open a file and press "PRINT", she requested a letter. I grabbed a nearby piece of paper and a pen, scrawled a formal letter - block return address, Monsier, Madame, "sincerely", the whole nine yards - in bad French, too - and she accepted it with a smile.
And this is how to get what you want in France: no matter how illogical, just do the paperwork.
Dear Bob,
I quit.
Sincerely, Josh
Of course, Haiku Tunnel is an American film. Anyone employed in France would never have the luxury of such an easy exit.
You know how in the States, we're required to give two weeks' notice before leaving a job? In France, it's three months. Months! This can be negotiated, of course, depending on how quickly one's employer can find a replacement. For example, when David gave his notice in mid-October, he requested to be released on the 10th of December and his employer begrudgingly agreed.
I, however, was not so lucky. Or else I'm just a bad negotiator. I'm required to finish the whole three months, which means that I have to come back to France after the holidays to work two more weeks. I don't know what irritates me more - having to leave David behind while he starts his new job and our new life in Pittsburgh, or paying for another flight and making lodging arrangements in France for two weeks. I guess it could always be worse - I could have to stay longer.
Aside from haggling over the last day of work, one must follow formal procedures to quite a French job. We each had to write official letters to our respective human resources departments (thank you, Google!), and have them posted by certified mail.
Then, after our letters had been received, our employers sent back formal letters to inform us that they have received our resignations. These were also sent with certified mail, which meant that the letters couldn't be dropped in our post box but had to be delivered with a signature of receipt. And because we're at work when the postman drops by, we got in our box a little slip of paper that said "Come pick up your letters!" and I had to leave work early one day, rush to the post, queue for half an hour, and sign for them.
We've since learned that quitting anything in France requires a formal letter. None quite so serious as a resignation letter, but a proper Monsieur, Madame form nonetheless. David has written letters to quit our apartment insurance, bank, cable, even the stupid gym.
Earlier this week I walked to the town hall and asked permission to park a moving truck in front of our building. Even though I was standing in front of the woman who needed only to open a file and press "PRINT", she requested a letter. I grabbed a nearby piece of paper and a pen, scrawled a formal letter - block return address, Monsier, Madame, "sincerely", the whole nine yards - in bad French, too - and she accepted it with a smile.
And this is how to get what you want in France: no matter how illogical, just do the paperwork.
12.05.2010
Paris à Pittsburgh!
The contract has been signed, our nearest and dearest have been informed, and it's time I told the blog: we're moving home!
David and I always knew that we wouldn't stay in France for life, and this past summer we finally decided in earnest to commit to returning to the States. David commenced job hunting.
As agreed, we are moving to our new home to pursue David's next job. He has accepted a position with a train company in Pittsburg, PA.
Considering neither of us has ever set foot in Pittsburgh, we're both excited and nervous. All we know about the city has been gleaned from Google. Preliminary research results look pretty good! Plus, if you put a dot on the map in the geographic center of my parents, David's parents, David's sister and the condo in Florida, you'd pretty much wind up with Pittsburgh. We are happy clams.
Although right now we're slightly stressed clams as well. We're scheduled to leave at the end of the year, which means there are a lot of things to get done in the meantime. Not to mention the calamity at work.
But we're happy. Really happy. It's time for the retour.
David and I always knew that we wouldn't stay in France for life, and this past summer we finally decided in earnest to commit to returning to the States. David commenced job hunting.
As agreed, we are moving to our new home to pursue David's next job. He has accepted a position with a train company in Pittsburg, PA.
Considering neither of us has ever set foot in Pittsburgh, we're both excited and nervous. All we know about the city has been gleaned from Google. Preliminary research results look pretty good! Plus, if you put a dot on the map in the geographic center of my parents, David's parents, David's sister and the condo in Florida, you'd pretty much wind up with Pittsburgh. We are happy clams.
Although right now we're slightly stressed clams as well. We're scheduled to leave at the end of the year, which means there are a lot of things to get done in the meantime. Not to mention the calamity at work.
But we're happy. Really happy. It's time for the retour.
The French Night Doctor
The other night David woke up at 2 am with back pain.
When morning came he toughed it out and went to work, but left early.
When I came home from work I found him on the couch, feeling fully miserable.
"I think I might need to see a doctor" he said unhappily.
When David concedes to see a doctor, you know it has to be bad.
What was even more surprising came an hour later.
"I might need to go to the hospital."
Just short of panic, I remembered that when my friend Julien had an immobilizing back pain, he had called the night doctor. If you've ever seen the Michael Moore film "Sicko", there is an entire section about French medical care, featuring the doctors who make house calls at night.
So I got on the computer and looked up the town website to find the number for the emergency doctors. I called a receptionist, who briskly took down our address, door codes, and David's symptoms and age before informing me that the doctor would come by within an hour and a half.
Forty-five minutes later - about 9:30 or so - I opened the apartment door to a ruffled, middle-aged man not much taller than me. His hair was standing in every direction, and one of his gray eyes wandered off to the side. Forgive me for judging a book by its cover, but if I'd seen him walking down the street I would have taken him for one of the town drunks.
He addressed me warmly, though, and made his way to the couch where the patient had risen to his feet to shake his hand. He immediately dragged David to better light and lifted up his shirt. Not sure what to do with myself, I sat in an armchair and watched.
Only a moment later, the doctor poked his head around David's side.
"Hey, what's this?" David had four red marks on his back.
David smiled sheepishly. "I went go-karting last weekend."
The doctor rolled his one good eye and said, "Well there's your problem."
He poked and prodded him a few more times for good measure before declaring that David had a separated rib.
"Nothing serious, but hurts a lot!"
He wrote a prescription for painkillers, handed David a few morphine to get him through the night, and recommended a local osteopath if the problem persisted.
Then he sat at our kitchen table to settle the payment. After a swipe of David's French medical card, we were charged 68€ for the service. Considering we'd been talking about a night in the emergency room, we were more than happy with the price.
The doctor even carried a credit card machine. He processed my card, packed up his bag, then sat back and asked us where we were from.
It must have been a slow night, because we spent the next half hour chatting amicably. American politics, movies, computers, even Ikea. I was starting to think I should offer him a drink.
Finally he took his leave, and with a friendly wave let himself out.
"And that," David declared, "is the best thing about France."
When morning came he toughed it out and went to work, but left early.
When I came home from work I found him on the couch, feeling fully miserable.
"I think I might need to see a doctor" he said unhappily.
When David concedes to see a doctor, you know it has to be bad.
What was even more surprising came an hour later.
"I might need to go to the hospital."
Just short of panic, I remembered that when my friend Julien had an immobilizing back pain, he had called the night doctor. If you've ever seen the Michael Moore film "Sicko", there is an entire section about French medical care, featuring the doctors who make house calls at night.
So I got on the computer and looked up the town website to find the number for the emergency doctors. I called a receptionist, who briskly took down our address, door codes, and David's symptoms and age before informing me that the doctor would come by within an hour and a half.
Forty-five minutes later - about 9:30 or so - I opened the apartment door to a ruffled, middle-aged man not much taller than me. His hair was standing in every direction, and one of his gray eyes wandered off to the side. Forgive me for judging a book by its cover, but if I'd seen him walking down the street I would have taken him for one of the town drunks.
He addressed me warmly, though, and made his way to the couch where the patient had risen to his feet to shake his hand. He immediately dragged David to better light and lifted up his shirt. Not sure what to do with myself, I sat in an armchair and watched.
Only a moment later, the doctor poked his head around David's side.
"Hey, what's this?" David had four red marks on his back.
David smiled sheepishly. "I went go-karting last weekend."
The doctor rolled his one good eye and said, "Well there's your problem."
He poked and prodded him a few more times for good measure before declaring that David had a separated rib.
"Nothing serious, but hurts a lot!"
He wrote a prescription for painkillers, handed David a few morphine to get him through the night, and recommended a local osteopath if the problem persisted.
Then he sat at our kitchen table to settle the payment. After a swipe of David's French medical card, we were charged 68€ for the service. Considering we'd been talking about a night in the emergency room, we were more than happy with the price.
The doctor even carried a credit card machine. He processed my card, packed up his bag, then sat back and asked us where we were from.
It must have been a slow night, because we spent the next half hour chatting amicably. American politics, movies, computers, even Ikea. I was starting to think I should offer him a drink.
Finally he took his leave, and with a friendly wave let himself out.
"And that," David declared, "is the best thing about France."
12.03.2010
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