Travel log: Februrary 2006
Day 0. The Great Lady’s lights wink at me from the all-too-short ride across the 59th street bridge and I say my goodbyes to New York City. I suddenly realize that I have no keys: car, apartment, PO Box, just an empty key ring. I can’t remember being sans keys ever before. Even when I left the house for college mom let me keep a set of house keys. I realize that once I get on the airplane and the cellphone service cuts out, I will be completely cut off from everyone that I know and care about in the world. A feeling of adventure tinged with fear and an equal portion of pride in my courageous nature is just the first difficult-to-describe emotion in my odd tales of living life abroad.
Day 1. Depart from JFK. Arrive at Charles De Gaulle in not just another country, but a whole new life and culture to go with it.
I get off the plane in Paris and try to work the French payphone. After a full five minutes of trying in vain to translate the lovely-as-a-poem voice of the operator, I miraculously manage to punch in the proper set of digits in order to make contact with my new coworker. This is a very important step in re-establishing a link in the land of the living. I will get my new keys from her. Gisela, who I have never seen before, meets me with my 3 enormous suitcases at my new flat and hands me keys that are like none I’ve ever seen state-side. The door key is huge and turns ‘round 3 times to lock and unlock to door! Welcome to Paris.
The next item of business is to find someone to take me to the bank to arrange setting up my bank account. Sounds simple enough, right? I wind up at my new lab totally jet lagged, being introduced to tons of people who I can't remember since I am so tired. I arrive at the bank to speak with a very nice gentleman who I was told would have my bankcard/ATM card ready to use with an account that already had money in it. This is good, since I only have 30 Euros left after paying the cabbie for the ride from the airport. This gentleman speaks less English than I speak French, and I know virtually no banking terms in French (imagine not knowing the word for “account” and you see why I just signed where he told me to). Ultimately I walk out of the bank with some 30-odd pages of printed French contractual material connected to some sort of a banking account with 500 Euros in it, but without a clue as to how to withdraw money from said account, as I have no ATM card. I’m told it will take 2 weeks to receive this card in the mail. Well, that errand is done at least.
Now I set off for home, and Kathryn has drawn a lovely map for me as she waited a good half-hour for me to settle my banking affairs. I now know how to find the right metro station, but once I surface at Place de Nation which has no less than 13 streets coming off a traffic circle as big as an indoor soccer field; I am like a country bumpkin in the big city for the first time as I stare at the big sculpture-topped pillar demarking Avenue de Trone. Not to mention that the jet lag and its associated disorientation is setting in quite heavily at this point. I pull out my trusty map and realize… that’s right, the non-touristy section of town where I now live is nowhere to be found on it. Cool, I have keys to an apartment that I can’t find. Well, at worst, I can always get in a cab and give him the address, but I only have 30 Euros until I figure out how to get money. After a forlorn 15 minutes of wandering the side streets adjacent to what I think is the correct road that I now live off of, it occurs to me that there might be maps in the subway station. Lo and behold! I am saved! There is a map of the surrounding neighborhood and I find my street clearly written on it. Whew!
It's like, 45 degrees in the apartment, I guess she switched off the juice to save money on the electric bill. But man, it’s still really cold in here! I pile every blanket I can find in the place on the bed, put on jammie pants and socks and climb in. I wake up cold in the night and cover my head with blankets. After finding what I assume is the French equivalent of a fuse box the next morning, I realize that the big chunky-looking things are fuses that are flipped off. Well, that certainly makes a difference.
Day 2. Saturday with glorious electricity!
As I rejoice in the sounds of a fridge that works and a hot water heater that heats, I gaze suspiciously at those weird-looking appliances on the wall that are pretty much big toasters to heat the apartment. Ok they work, good. But there’s no phone, no TV, and much to my despair, no wifi connection appearing when the mac computer searches for one. Huh, this is NOT good, how will I find an apartment without the ability to email people and search for ads? I expected that there would be no phone or television, but hoped I could dial out with phonecard. Well, so much for that idea.
I go out wandering and find an internet cafe in the heart of Paris to jot a note to mom, and the damn keyboard has “w” “m” “a” and “.” in different places, and all of the banners on google.com are in French. I feel like I’m on Mars. I buy a really decent map with a page-by-page layout of each arrondissment of Paris, and some universal adapters so I can charge the computer and run my hairdryer. Really important thing to do #2, check!
I decide to have a really nice dinner, and recognize a restaurant that’s in one of my Paris guidebooks. It’s early, perhaps 6pm or so, but being that my watch has read two-thirty since I adjusted the time on the plane, I’m approximating. The place is devoid of life. Well, that’s no fun, better go and have a before-dinner drink at a café. I come back and there’s an hour wait for a table of one. Alright, the place across the street looks like they have fish. I like fish. The manager seated me and put up a big chalkboard behind me. (Huh, what’s that for?). The waitress comes over and asks what I’d like. Uh oh, I turn and realize that the only word on the entire menu that I recognize is “thme” (thyme). I ask her what her favorite is (remembering to use the formal “vous” for you), my standard trick when I can’t figure out what to have, and she doesn’t have any suggestions. Crap. Well, let’s have the blahbidy blouh avec thym. It’s a good thing I like to eat everything! A very beautiful fish encrusted with thyme comes out a few minutes later, and it’s some of the best fish I’ve ever eaten! I only get a fork to eat it with, and it’s still got it’s head and all of its bones. This should be interesting. I think I managed to eat it reasonably gracefully by daintily removing most of the big bones with my fingers before I shoveled it down the hatch. I had to chew and swallow the tiny ones. Glad I’m not squeamish either. The glace/ice cream for dessert was a work of art, it beat even Italian gelato, and anyone who’s been in Italy with me knows this is quite a compliment. On the way home, I even find a place that’s got used DVDs in French and English for less than 10 bucks. I buy one with visions of falling asleep on the couch in front of an English-speaking actor.
Day 3. Sunday. Sunday in French should really be translated into "If you don’t get out of bed before 10am just stay home".
Searching my 'hood for wifi spots ends in miserable failure. The markets close at like, 1 pm, and that’s if they’re open late. Some cafes and brasseries are open, but not many where I live. I worry about mom not hearing from me, and I feel as if I've been stranded on a desert island within an enclave of aboriginal peoples that speak by making those “click-clock” noises with their tongues, but I am bound and determined to see the Superbowl tonight. I try the internet at home for the umpteenth time to no avail. I have no way to find those American bars that I bookmarked in my computer, so I only have two potential places to see the game, which comes on at midnight by the way. I leave the house at 11pm and the trains quit running at 12:30 in this town (big change for a gal used to the all-night NY mentality) with the full realization that my trusty map with every single Paris street marked on it may not save me since I tend to get lost approximately every 10 meters.
Surprise! The “American Bar” I found on the internet is closed just like everything else in this town on Sunday. *&%$#@! I walk forlornly around for a bit, totally dejected and on the verge of tears. I mean it’s the Superbowl! I haven’t missed seeing one since I was old enough to watch TV, again feeling like an alien on another planet. But then- inspiration strikes! Go to a place you know, you don't even have to know where it is, just ask the cabbie! HA HA! Money is the solution to many minor pitfalls in life. If the Ritz Hotel is good enough for a guy like Hemmingway, well, they’re certain to play the game! Alas, there was no TV in bar, but luckily the concierge at the Ritz is very good (no surprise there) and he writes a name and address on note and puts me in cab, and I'm off to The Bowler, an Irish bar. I proceed to make friends with a nice stout Irish lad behind the bar, and he invites me to stay after hours to watch the completion of the game, and of course I accept. I vaguely remember donning a Kronnenberg shirt he gives me before pouring myself into a cab for home at 5 am.
Day 4. Monday. I awake with an incredible thirst.
Must buy Perrier (the wonder cure for hangovers) and a slice of pizza. Oh wait, this isn't New York. Do I have money? Yes, good -what's this? A note??? It reads "Meet Sean at middle of Pont Neuf at 8pm" and his phone #. Seriously? Is this a joke? Wait a sec, the wispy threads of memory are knitting together as my dehydrated neurons struggle to fire in my brain... I do remember a bit of this. I don’t make it to Pont Neuf at 8pm, I just don’t feel up to it, and besides I have no phone to call him. I could be living in a cave in Siberia and be as socially accessible as I am in this new life.
Day 5 -Tuesday- I try again to find internet places to no avail. !@#$%&* I'm going to kill her. Really, the gal that rented my place said she had internet access but was only poaching a signal, not paying for it herself! I schlep to work to use the internet. I find very few leads on the internet for apartments and I have to find a permanent place to live since the place I’m currently residing is only available for one month. Tonight insomina strikes as my worries spin round and round in my head with no one to tell them to.
Day 6. Wednesday. I get to work in the afternoon and I am exhausted after a 9:30 appointment to sign my contract for the second time. I already signed one and faxed it to them in France, but they needed three originals given to them by me in the flesh. WOW, oh wow, do the French love paperwork and things in quadruplicate. I have taken to just giggling at it at this point, since it’s useless to fight it. Ok- here's the other funny thing. For reasons that I still don't understand, I have to be paid in cash for this paycheck. Yes, that’s right, I have to carry around over two thousand Euros in cash until I run across a branch of my bank because, remember I can’t look up that useful information on the internet. Thankfully I found my $ belt in my three huge sacks of luggage so I didn't have to stuff the cash in my panties. I imagine the look on the teller’s face as I pull wadded 100’s out of my undies and begin to giggle.
Right, so it took me 3 tries to find a bank branch. One- closed. Two- doesn’t take cash. Excuse me? The teller points to a sign with a pictogram of cash money with one of those red circles with a slash through it. Silly me, of course this is a bank that doesn’t take money, whatever was I thinking!? Third time's the charm, I can deposit money without an ATM card, yeah!
I decide that it’s time to get connected to my stateside friends as this may be the cause of my insomnia. I make friends with the Moroccan-Frenchman at the phone store. He calls me "tres gentile" which is a very nice compliment. I don't hate France today, nor the French. In fact, I love everyone. I can call my mother and she can call me.
Even though I am dog-ass tired, I go to Gisela’s housewarming party. I can even follow and speak French in conversations if there are Americans included. However, when everyone in the lab gathers 'round and has a big chat in the lunchroom in French, I get maybe 30% of what’s going on. They all understand English, but refuse to speak it on general principle it seems to me. I am trying not to be irritated by this, but it's really **&^%$#@-ing hard to speak French all day long if you’ve never done it before. It’s exhausting and really frustrating. I was told that my work environment would be English and it's quite a shock to learn that no one in lab speaks English on a regular basis. My friends from New York who worked in labs in Switzerland or Germany told me that nearly everyone speaks English. It's the language of the business of Science and our work will all be published in English from this lab, so why not speak English at least half of the time? I had better start looking at this--French lunch--as a learning experience.
I’ve decided that while I realize that living in Paris brings challenges and rewards unlike those I am likely to encounter at any other point in my life. However, I realize that the physical distance makes a break with my friends and family across the ocean. So that’s why I am chronicling my times and adventures in Paris in these pages. Let me know how I’m doing.
