Tourism

Today I saw American tourists in Conflans. I know I'm being a snob, but I find absolutely nothing interesting about Conflans Sainte Honorine worth touring. It's a nice enough town, but it's too small to have museums or worthwhile boutiques (half of the town center is empty storefronts), and too big to be charming.

The Americans were apparently on a river cruise up the Seine and making stops along the way. This particular group of eight or so had hiked up from the river to experience a slice of French life - the market.

They stood clustered in a group at an intersection of the covered market hall listening to a guide explain to them how French people come here every week to buy fresh food. They stood in awe and watched as the cheery poissioniere hollered over the din, advertising a sale on sole as he furiously scraped scales off a little red fish.

I felt like an undercover agent, face to face with my own people. I kept my eyes lowered, lest they recognize me as one of their own and reveal my secret identity.

As the group pulled away I spotted a middle aged man snapping photos of the very same kind of fish I'd five minutes earlier asked the very same poissioniere to behead and filet for me.

"Where are visiting from?" I asked politely. Just to reassure myself for story retelling purposes that they were indeed Americans and not Canadians.

"Santa Monica, California" he answered quickly. He literally shrunk back from me a step, as if they'd been strictly instructed to not communicate with the natives.

Before I got a chance to say something nice about California, he scurried out the door behind his group. Maybe he'd relay to them the anecdote about the aggressive French woman with the incredible American accent. Maybe he should have taken a photo of me.

As I walked off to find a vegetable stand I thought about living in an American's idea of exotic. I still maintain romantic notions of fresh markets, but more often than not I am annoyed by my Saturday morning ritual of trotting across the street to the market. Only because I'd much rather be sleeping in, instead of rolling out of bed, thinking a few days' worth of meals in advance, making a list, and walking over there before the best fish is picked over and the vegetable stands run out of David's favorite peaches.

I guess this one of those moments of clarity where I realize that I'm lucky to have access to food so fresh that I have to shake off clumps of soil and pick off odd feathers or scales before I prepare it. Remind me to remember this life when I'm glaring at florescent-lit styrofoam packages of prepared meat in my local 24-hour grocery store in the States someday.

Recovering: The Permanent Passport

So getting my passport turned out to be pretty efficient in the end. The temporary passport got me to Rome and London, and within a few short weeks the permanent version was done. Of course, for all the effectiveness demonstrated by the American Passport Authority, I still had to rely on the French Chronopost system (which is sort of like FedEx) to get it to me.

The application for a passport required a self-addressed French Chronopost envelope, which does not come cheap. For that price I expected first class delivery directly into my hands, but what I got was a letter in the mail: We could not reach you. Your package is waiting in our office, please contact us to make delivery arrangements. Call this number, at a price of 15 centimes a minute.

After translating the letter and a little bit of grumbling I called the number. "We couldn't get into your building" they informed me politely. "We need your door code."

Ah, all they needed was the door code. I recited the number, and asked when they could make the delivery.

"Monday morning, 9h00."

"Great."

"You'll be there?"

"No." I have a job, duh.

"Then we can't make delivery. You need to be there."

Argh!

Finally, we agreed that they would send the envelope to the Conflans post office, where I could pick it up at my convenience. The next day I left work early and fled to the post office, just in time to see the gate close in front of my face. A man stood behind the door as he lowered the gate, and I've lived in France long enough to know how to get him to help me; I pouted.

He eyed me skeptically, but accepted the Chronopost letter I stuffed through the gate. He retreated to the back room and returned a few minutes later: We don't have it. Have you tried the other post office?

Oh, the OTHER post office. The one that WASN'T on my side of town. Which was also closed at this hour. Shoot.

The next day I called Chronopost again and made no attempt to hide my irritation as I politely asked exactly to which post office they'd sent the envelope. Confirmed: the OTHER post office.

Another early departure from the office, another trip to another post office where a bored clerk finally handed over the precious envelope. I ripped it open before I even walked away from the counter, tipped the contents into my hand then into my purse, and ditched the Chronopost envelope on the way out the door. Done.

The Move Out

Every time I move, someone reminds me that moving is one of the 3 most stressful events in one's life. A job change and a separation/divorce make up the other two, and I'm also going through the former. Fun times. But as long as David doesn't leave me, I'll be ok.

So we started our move yesterday morning, running a few errands in Levallois before taking off for Conflans. We picked up the keys from the agency and arrived at the apartment just in time to meet the IKEA movers. It took only 20 minutes for them to bring in the components of our kitchen and leave a stack of 20 flat-packed boxes and two appliances on our new living room floor.

As with every IKEA project I've ever undertaken, I paced around the boxes muttering. There is no possible way that all that stuff is in these boxes. It's impossible. Something must be missing. We're going to have to go back to the store and explain in French that something is wrong. The real estate agent came by with the paperwork and saw me sitting on an IKEA box on the floor, eyes glazed over. "She's scared, eh?" she asked David. "Doesn't know where to start?"

She was right. I had no idea where to begin. But I didn't have time to stress for long, as we had to return to Levallois to wrap some things up. Back in the apartment, I made lunch while David talked to our insurance and cable companies. Then I finalized our address change with La Poste and confirmed the moving company was coming the next day. We picked up some tools and returned to Conflans.

By the time were back into the apartment, it was 5:30. We circled the piles of boxes again, then finally dove in. Over the course of the evening we began to assemble our kitchen. And, like every other IKEA project, we were pleasantly surprised to find that everything was neatly packaged inside those clever little flat boxes and not a single screw was missing.

At one point in the evening we were thirsty, so I took a walking tour near the apartment and found a pita shop, which will inevitably become our new place for last minute meals. When I walked in the three guys behind the counter stopped their conversation to look at me. They were not unfriendly, but I definitely had the feel of "what do you want?". I was going to have to make friends with a new set of fast-food guys.

As the night wore on, we spoke less and less, and the only sounds were the bangs of hammers and the occasional curse bouncing off the empty walls. Finally at 12:30 in the morning, after David damaged one drawer and I dropped the same screw four times, we decided to call it a night. We wearily drove back to Levallois, where we immediately began worrying over details of the next day's move and pushing things into useless piles: stuff staying, stuff going, stuff to throw away. Finally we gave up and went to bed at 2:00.

A mere 5 hours later I was being nudged out of bed and toward the shower. The moving company showed up at 8:30, just as the refrigerator delivery men were calling to complain that no one was at the other apartment. David flew out the door with our valuables zipped into a suitcase and I was left with three surly moving guys.

The guys had a look around, asked some basic questions, and started bringing in boxes. I was remined of our last move, when I had nervously watched three strangers pack and haul away everything that belonged to us. The feeling was the same, and I paced back and forth, watching the guys work. I thought there might be liability problems if I got involved, but after a little experimentation I learned that they could care less if I wanted to pack my own stuff. So I participated here and there, making boxes and packing easy stuff like cds and books.

I just wanted the whole thing over and done with and those strangers out of my apartment. And so did Oliver. When they lifted the box spring from the bed, the cat was revealed. He certainly wasn't expecting to be exposed like that and went into a panic. I felt so bad for him, I scooped him up and asked our upstairs neighbors to watch him for a few hours. They have a little girl and I thought she'd like it.

Half an hour later it occured to me that an upset Oliver might react by making a mess on our kind neighbor's carpeting, so I dashed upstairs with his carrier box. I figured if I put him in the carrier, he'd only mess himself, instead of their flooring. Well, when I got up there, my amused neighbor pointed to the kitchen. Oliver had climbed beneath the sink and wedged himself between the cleaning fluids and the potatoes, completely out of anyone's reach. After a bit of pleading I convinced him to take a few steps toward me. Then I grabbed him, and we had a bit of a struggle, spilling potatoes everywhere. I carried the squirming cat to his box, which was not at all well received. Finally he won, climbed over my shoulder, and darted for their bathroom. What a disaster. I decided that at least in the bathroom he wouldn't make a mess of any carpeting, and left him again.

Back in the apartment, I watched and worried and packed until the early afternoon. As more and more furniture was removed, I noticed the sounds of this apartment were changing. When someone dropped a screwdriver or banged a door, the sound echoed throughout. The apartment was coming less my home and more an empty place I used to live in. I wondered if home is really where your heart is, or where your furniture is?

I went back upstairs to fetch Oliver, who was alltogether angry with me, and clawed me all the way back downstairs. I was starving, so I decided to buy myself lunch before cleaning the apartment. I walked down to the pizza place at the corner, where the guy behind the corner smiled when I walked in and offered me a piece of bread he'd just pulled out of the oven. I put in my order and sat at a table near the counter, and the two of us stared wistfully out the window and talked about the weather, like we always do. I decided not to tell him that we were leaving, he would only have to pretend he cared and I would have to pretend that I believed him.

The rest of the afternoon I spent with our new vaccuum, five bottles of cleaning fluids, two sponges, and a very unhappy cat. Despite being back in our apartment, the loss of furniture upset him terribly, and he proceeded to cry persistantly throughout the rest of the day. He was like a living alarm clock I couldn't turn off. Anyway, I vaccuumed up the colony of dust bunnies living in the apartment, scrubbed the walls, scraped at the kitchen, and was halfway through the bathroom when David arrived. I was so exhausted, he took the sponge out of my hand and instructed me to rest while he finished. Oliver joined me, finally silent, and together we zoned out on the futon, both so stressed and tired, we were just happy to be sitting together, happy that David was back. Let's get out of this apartment.

Our New Home

In the end, I couldn't decide.

Each choice had so many benefits, but the weight of the "cons" was too much for me bear. Would I miss Paris terribly if we moved to the house in the village? Would I ever be able to cram all of our stuff into that little apartment in Conflans?

So I let David make the decision. I would be happy either way, I promised.

Finally, it didn't come down to space vs. convenience, country vs. city. The deciding factor was the economy. With both of us working in the automotive industry, David decided that it would be safer for us to be within range of Paris in case we need to find new jobs. It's a depressing criteria for this kind of decision, but we're both happy with the choice.

So, without further ado, here is our new address:

2 allée de la Passerelle
78700 Conflans Sainte Honorine
FRANCE

You can't see it on Google maps, the "allée" is internal to the apartment complex and doesn't exist in the system yet. Since it's not a real street I don't know how if it will ever exist in the system, but apparently this is the legitimate address.

If you'd like to check out the area on Google maps, the next closest thing is:

10 Rue des Fours a Chaux
78700 Conflans Sainte Honorine


The map will point you to a spot just outside the apartment, which in this photo, is still under construction. In fact, you can see directly into the apartment above ours.
I didn't have the foresight to take photos while we were visiting, but I do have a scan of the floorplan.I think it's funny that furniture in floorplans are about 75% of their size in real life.

We move on the 31st of January and there is so much to do in the meantime. I'm meeting with moving companies this week, and just wait until I tell you about our kitchen adventure. More to follow.

By the way, this is post #300. Cheers!