Le Retour

Here it goes!

The city's still a dream in sandy stone and wrought iron.  This time there's a charming Irishman around to make everything more fun. In the evenings we cook and walk around the 16eme; on the weekends we vow we'll stay in and rest and then don't. Work doesn't start until October 1st so I have loads of time to roam around and search for an apartment of my own as well as play the femme au foyer in the teeny kitchen of the Irishman's flatshare.

One of the best parts of returning to the sprawl of sandcastles on the Seine has been revisiting a few old favorites. Now-Former Host Mom greeted me with a big hug and tizane in the same chic apartment, having just returned from my old nemesis, la piscine. Another highlight was finally bringing the Irishman and a friend to Le Temps des Cerises (31, rue de la Cerisaie, 4e) my favorite little bistro tucked away in the Marais. They've raised their prices (about 19 euros for a main, 8 for appetizers or dessert) and added a vegetarian option to the menu (yay!), with the same cozy ambiance and friendly staff.

The settling in process is a bit of a drag as I search for cheap, furnished accommodation. One problem I keep running into is the necessity of a French bank account to do just about anything.  HSBC already rejected my request saying my salary as a teaching assistant will be trop juste to make me worth their while. Quels snobs! Trying again with Société Générale on Thursday. Any bank recommendations out there?

Apart from my continued mission to improve my French, I've now added 3 more goals:

• Not deform any of the young minds that will be in my charge for 12 hours each week,
• Get my cardiovascular fitness up to par with the Irishman so I don't have to stand and pant on the sidewalk while he jogs on all Rocky-like up the Champs Elysées.
• Find gainful employment over here-- gainful meaning something that gets me above the French equivalent of the poverty line.  

Bises, y'all

Visa Extension Part II

As you might remember from the first part of this story, the thing to do if you want to extend your student visa is to START EARLY.  Failing that, gather together as many of the requisite documents as you can, and then...lie.  I can tell you to do that because an honest-to-God, real French fonctionnaire told me to. 

I needed to keep my visa to be eligible to work in France.  (Can we get the US an honorary membership in the EU, please?) Apparently prolonging it isn't even an option, which left me with renouvellement,  renewal.  So I showed up on July 4, the day my visa expired, with as many of the documents from the list as I could scrape together. 

After waking up at 6:00 a.m. in order to be on time for my 8:00 a.m. appointment, I stood in line with some other exchange students and Parisians trying to get their drivers' licenses.  When I finally reached the gate keeper fonctionnaire, he promptly sent me away for not having a photo copy of my host mom's Carte d'identité.  Boo hiss.  Failure.  I left in shame and panic.  Six hours, one afternoon wasted waiting for documents that weren't even in the mail yet, and 48 métro stops later, I'm back.  Nevermind that I don't have the merest whisper of a translated birth certificate or proof of enrollment for the upcoming school year; picture of host mom's picture ID in hand, I got a number and - oh boy! - a seat. 

When my number was called I got my first break of the day: my caseworker was a man! not only a man, but a youngish, non-grouchy man! I felt somewhat relieved, but the stress of the day and my still somewhat slim file must have showed on my face.  He smiled, told me to take a seat, and not to look so scared.  He gave me a form to start filling out.

Where was my birth certificate?
"Well, you know, I'm from la Nouvelle Orléans, and there was this hurricane, which really messed up--"
Doesn't matter.  The embassy could write something up in that case.  Next issue: enrollment for this year?
"Well, I'm still deciding whether I want to stay on as an exchange student or enroll directly..."
Questionable.  Was I done filling out the form yet?
"...I think I spelled my name wrong."

And that is the story of how yours truly got a temporary extension, to be replaced by a renewal after a second meeting, currently set for October 3, by which point I'll "have all the documents together." I'm pretty sure my fonctionnaire saw through the little scheme, but he seemed to find me an appealing character, and I was more than ready to be sympatico with him. 

And that seems to be how Paris works: in a town that knocks you down a thousand times a day, you have to give people a reason to smile at you, either by cutting them a break or being the prettiest girl they've seen all afternoon.  Little bits of solidarity in the big, bad city; little glimmers of vulnerability showing through stony don't-fuck-with-me faces.  One of the most appealing qualities of Paris is how human it is, despite all the masterpieces and elaborate grooming, it's still a place that's okay with nudity, emotional and physical, but show some restraint, doucement, doucement. 

How to Prolong a French Long Stay Student Visa / Comment prolonger un titre de séjour étudiant longue durée

Ok, first of all, when I was nearly hysterical and pulling my hair out I couldn't find a satisfactory answer for this online, so I should say that there is probably a simpler way to do this, and if you do want to prolong your student visa, you should DEFINITELY start TWO MONTHS before it expires.  (NB: If you have not yet applied for your visa, be sure to get the full year you are entitled. At the consulate, my interview was with some girl who thought it would be cute to set my visa expiration for Independence Day. Let me tell you, there were no fireworks for me on the 4th, just lots of métro rides and photocopying.)

So, if you are still outside the two final months of your visa, by all means, head for the Préfecture, and you'll probably have little or no trouble with the process I outlined last month. If you are already in that danger zone, hightail it up to Porte de Clignacourt with your passport (secure all of your valuables first) and get ready to stand in line.  What you are going to do now is a little bit tricky.  Luckily, I got a lady who was about to go on holiday and had just had a lovely chat with a cute indie gay couple whom she seemed to know pretty well (fonctionnaires' moods makes all the difference in these instances).  I told her I needed to extend my visa to work for the summer. If my employer had been willing to give me an embauche d'emploi or contract, this all could have been over in 20 minutes, but no...

**NB: Americans can stay in France 90 days past the expiration of their visas.  Your status automatically becomes that of a tourist.  However, tourists can not work or attend school.**

Here's what we did: She gave me an appointment for July 4 (my own personal D-Day) and a list of documents I needed to renew my visa. Extension didn't seem to be an option. The list included:

• Passport, titre de séjour/yellow OFII thing, visa
• *Official* translation of birth certificate into French, 
• Proof of funds - a notarized letter from my parents saying they'd spot me 500 euros a month sufficed (ha! lucky the immigration officials don't know my parents)
• Proof of housing for at least the next 3 months - My host mom wrote an attestation d'hebergement and gave me an electricity bill from within the past 6 months, and it turned out I needed a photocopy of her passport or carte d'identité, too.
• Proof of enrollment and grades from the last school year, 
• Proof of enrollment for the upcoming school year. 

With a wink she told me to say that I had not yet found the program qui me va for the next year. Stay tuned for how the appointment went down.

Bosser - v; to work

Most of you know by now that I found a job at the last minute.  I currently make 8 euros an hour tapping Guiness and hawking haggis at a Scottish pub in the Marais.  My coworkers are cool and the regulars are a mix of older Englishmen, Americans, and Frenchmen who speak perfect English.  It's a good job with good people. 

What I put off doing, because French bureaucracy is the stuff of nightmares, was extending my visa.  The first hurdle to getting this over with was figuring out which of the multitudinous civil service offices I needed to visit.  Return to OFII Office where they make you strip and then throw you against a wall for a chest x-ray? Try the exchange student office that is almost outside the city, on one of the biggest prostitution streets in Paris? How about the Préfecture de Police, the same place they take you in for questioning, drunkenness, and garde à vue? Any one of these also undoubtedly meant long waits and return visits, so perhaps you can understand my putting it off. 

Yesterday I finally gathered up every possible piece of paper I could need and set off for OFII and see what was up, but the métro broke down (yay ligne 4!) on Ile de la Cité.  An alarm was going off periodically and I was getting claustrophobic in the subterranean tuna can when it hit me - the Préfecture de Police is at Cité. Why not? So I hopped out and went into the vast complex to see what could be done for me.

In the Europe-Proche Orient-Amerique room I was given a piece of paper with a lot of very small print which the lady was kind enough to highlight for me, as well as mark things 1 and 2 and scrawl "ETR" and "EDF" on. Basically, I was supposed to start this process a month and a half ago.  What I'm supposed to do is call a number, give them my numéro étranger (ETR) get an appointment at some offshoot of the Préfecture (bureaucracy = hydra), bring a letter from Joëlle and an electricity bill (EDF) to prove I'm not homeless and then...I don't know, pray? No, that would be a very American thing to do.

I'll keep you posted.

Cultureshock

Okay, one more week and then it's Christmas Break and this blog will get more exciting. For now though, I'm not doing much besides studying, Facebook, and the occasional pastry with friends (which I will post about later).

In honor of exam week, here is a list of a few of the things I have learned this semester:

1. How to navigate les piscines municipales

For 1,70 students can swim as long as they like and take a warm (though not private) shower in a warm building. A proper swimsuit and swim cap is all that's required. Hop under the requisite shower, walk through the foot-cleaning pond, then just pick a lane in the pool. If you bump into someone, just say excusez-moi and swim away.

Warning: Ladies, everyone who works there is male, and they won't knock before entering the locker room (not that there's a door anyway) There are a few private changing rooms, though.

Click here for more info about public pools in Paris

2. Poireaux, fromage de chèvre, St. Honorés, courgette, café espresso - these are a few of my favorite things

Leeks, goat cheese, the most amazing pastry you've ever seen, zucchini/strange pumpkin-looking squash, espresso.

There are books, blogs, paintings, and movies dedicated to french food, so I won't try to sum up my experience with it in this list, but these are some of the things I had never tried before coming here, and now I don't know if I could make it a week without them.

There are some pretty hilarious and wise food bloggers in Paris right now, two that le Chef turned me on to are David Lebovitz and Clotilde.

3. It is never that simple.

It's all about the logic, baby. All of the assignments I've received in my parisian classes have intimidating names - the compte rendu, dissertation, synthese de texte, résumé, explication du texte. What do they all have in common? They all mean, more or less, "read & summarize." No one in France is interested in your interpretation. It's all about the author's logic, and how well you can keep up.

That being said, not all summaries are created equal. The résumé involves summarizing while keeping the tone and point of view of the narrator. The explication du texte hinges on choosing the right 3 examples to demonstrate the thématique of the text. In the compte rendu you do actually get to state what you did or did not like about the text, but you better have a damn good reason why you found it touchant.

Other things that aren't so simple:

• Crossing the street - Why why why would you have the two walk/don't walk signs on either side of the very tiny median on different rhythms??
• Showering - The claw foot tub is beautiful, but I don't have time to run a bath and there's no shower curtain.
• Staying in the country - Searching every tabac in Paris frantically for official stamp - 3 hours; required stamp for immigration documents - 55 euros; printing costs for a housing attestation signed by my host mom to be attached to an electricity bill from the last 6 months- 10 centimes, stress pimples; being ordered to undress before getting pushed against a wall and zapped with radiation by a public health official in the required TB exam - priceless.

4. Franchement, mon chéri, je m'en fous.

This roughly translates as "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," and sometimes, in a crowded, overly complicated city like Paris, it's a necessary sentiment. The French are generally extremely polite, so sometimes it seems to take a willful oblivion to make it through the forced intimacy of the sardine-can metro, past the hoards of beggars (often with strategically cute animals), through the never-ending queues and home safe without having a nervous breakdown. Also handy for when people make fun of your accent, or you've just done something gauche like swimming into that lady at the piscine - What was she doing in my lane, anyway?

5. Parisians are very, very nice.

Sure, they don't smile at random people like we do in some parts of the States, and they don't particularly appreciate it when tourists assume they speak English, but if you brush up your best "Excusez-moi, Monsieur/Madame. Vous parlez anglais?" you'll almost always get what you need. Ask someone for directions and they may very well lead you where you need to be. Look worried/scared or flirtatious/conspiratorial and the world is your oyster. Just be polite.

6. Romance ≠ Love

One of the things many visitors note on arrival in the City of Love is the rampant PDA. That couple making out between the vending machines and the homeless man in the métro station? The ones that look like they'll elope any second? They could be on their third date. The French are in love with Love, and they are more than willing to fake it 'til they make it (and if all those couples in the métro are going home together, they sure make it a lot).

7. The 35-hour work week is a myth.

True, it is hard to fire a French employee, and they do take longer lunch breaks, but most white collar workers don't get home until 8 p.m. these days. They do take vacations and keep their weekends private, but during the work week, it's a little scary.

8. They aren't all that skinny

My first week here I read an article that cited a statistic about France's growing obesity problem. Le snacking as well as le Macdo (McDonald's) have caught on, and by 2020 French obesity rates will probably equal America's. While it's clear that French women do get fat, there are still plenty of Audrey Hepburn lookalikes running around.

Mireille Guiliano is a wealth of advice on how to avoid becoming grosse

9. "Good advice" is highly subjective.

A sample of questions and responses from recent issues of Femina magazine:

Q: My adolescent son's girlfriend showed up at our breakfast table wearing one of his shirts as pajamas! I don't want share my tartines with her! What do I do?

A: Lay down the law, but you and your spouse should consider clearing out once a month to give the young lovers their space. If your son complains, remind him that if the nest is too comfortable, one never leaves it.

Q: My ex, the father of my 6 year old child, refuses to pay any attention to his little girl. This saddens and confuses my daughter, who doesn't understand why her daddy doesn't love her. How do I get him to take an interest?

A: I sense that you aren't really over your ex. The real question here is: Why haven't you found someone else yet? Find a man who can love and take care of both of you, that's the best way to provide a father figure for your daughter.

Have Visa, Will Travel

So le Jumeau and le Frère and I set out for our arduous trek to Houston on July 18. We arrived just in time to see the Galleria, eat dinner, review our forms and pass out. The only problem was that while le Jumeau and I were reviewing our forms, he had a letter from his health insurance provider, and I did not. (Merde!)

Turns out, just like the English version of the CampusFrance website is a big, steaming pile of ish, the English list of documents required to obtain a long-stay student visa on the Houston consulate's website leaves out some important tidbits of information (talk about à completer).

Each region's consulate demands different documents, and the list probably changes de temps en temps, but here is the latest version of Houston's, complete and in English because I love you, my hypothetical pre-exchange reader:

*valid passport with at least 2 blank pages left. Make copies. You might not see it again for a little while.

*1 long stay application form (a cakewalk after CampusFrance)

*1 OFII form

*1 recent passport-sized photo (head and shoulders) - I'm told you should go ahead and get a bunch of these made because we'll need more when we get there.

*letter of admission or pre-admission (?) to your French university - show it to them, but give the consulate a copy. We might need this at customs.

*letter from your American university to prove you are currently registered

*proof of sufficient funds - either a bank statement demonstrating that you can provide yourself with 430 euros a month, or a notarized statement from you parents saying that they promise to send you that much. Remember to check exchange rates to see if your bank account really can provide you with that much before you present it to the workers at the consulate (more on them in a moment).

*a prepaid Express Mail envelope. Fill out your information and sign it if you don't want to have to sign for it.

*a letter from your health insurance provider stating that you will be covered in France.

•Your CampusFrance proof of payment and completion of the application, just in case.

*visa appointment receipt, again, just in case

*about $11 cash, credit, or money order. Yes, another fee.

*If you aren't an American citizen you also need proof of your status in the U.S.

For more details about proof of sufficient funds and links to the OFII and application forms, here's the URL: http://www.consulfrance-houston.org/spip.php?article1068

If possible, meet with one of the older French ladies who work there. Be nice, throw in your best French phrases, and they'll probably overlook it if you don't have your health insurance letter. Everyone I know who has spoken to the older ladies nicely has gotten away with little faults in their paperwork. The girl I spoke to seemed determined not to let me in. She was American.

A highlight of our trip to Houston (big gray skyscrapers in a big gray sky) were the sales at the Galleria, which is just down the street from the consulate. I got this darling petite robe noir for 50% off at Benetton: (picture soon)

CampusFrance: Welcome to Bureaucracy

Before she left for Germany to be an au pair, my stepsister, Hélène, encountered a German woman on the streetcar. Hélène, who only spoke a little bit of German, must've expressed some concern about being able to communicate during her trip because the nice Berliner said to her, "Don't vorry. If you make ein mistake, de German vill politely correct you... Not like de French -- Dey don't vant you to know!"

While the statement may be based on an unfair stereotype, it sure struck a cord with me and my co-exchangers and good friends, Le Jumeau and Le Chef, as we were filling out the CampusFrance form. Why? Let me count the ways:

First there's the website. I get it, we're going to France, we should have a working knowledge of the language. Fair enough. I even started the application form in the French version, but when that became a bit iffy (and I really like to be sure what I'm answering on government forms) I switched the language setting to English. Apparently, the French Embassy's webmaster speaks about as much English as I speak French because all the hard words were still en français. Awesome. The website had a few other quirks. Both my inbox and my outbox on the site's email page - you communicate with them 100% on their terms; there is literally no phone number for CampusFrance - were labeled "list of received messages," the options for the type of education you have received are ludicrous.

Overall, the layout was kind of confusing and the expectations were extremely unclear. The user guide helped a lot: http://usa.campusfrance.org/en/1.html

With the help of Le Chef, who's very precocious, as well as my university's study abroad office, I discovered that I only needed to report my social studies grades and did not need to attach the "proof" the website demands when filling out the 3 part (each with 3 steps) "Education" section. But after doing this, clicking through the point of no return, and sending in my $70, I have a little box that says "Education à completer." This ambiguous phrase is rather terrifying when accompanied by the warning that if any part of your CampusFrance application is incomplete, well, no visa for you! Yikes!

Le Chef had the same message, and he is now the proud owner of a visa, so we'll see what happens when Le Jumeau and I get to the consulate. Yay roadtrip!