Halloween in Paris

Happy Halloween! The French don't really celebrate it like we do. In fact, no country really does (though apparently Britain is trying to catch up). Kids don't go trick-or-treating, and while there are a handful of bars that decorate for Halloween and some people dress up, it's just not the same cultural juggernaut like it is in the US.

So with that in mind, we decided the best way to celebrate Halloween would be to go to the biggest American cultural influence in France: Disneyland! They have a Halloween party on Halloween night, where you buy a special ticket and can enter the park at 5pm, they then kick out everyone else at 8pm, and then the park stays open until 1am. This party isn't just done at the Paris park, but also the LA and Florida ones too. We actually went to the LA one last year and had a lot of fun, so we were looking forward to seeing both what Disneyland Paris was like, and how they handle Halloween. 

We had a lot of fun too! We took the RER train out there, and it's way way out there, so we didn't arrive about 5:15. The tickets had all sold out, so there was a massive mob of people waiting to get wristbands (which lets you stay in the park past 8pm) in a very un-Disney like unorganized mess. But after the 30 minutes it took to get through that, we could finally enter the park! It's somewhat smaller than even Disneyland in LA, but it has most of the same main attractions, though as we discovered there's some major differences once you actually ride them. Also Tomorrowland is renamed as "Discovery Land", and Main Street USA still opens up the park and looks just like it does in the other parks (English signs and all).

They didn't do as much decorating for Halloween as Disneyland LA did (we were really impressed by that, and highly recommend checking it out if you live in the LA area), but there were a number of pumpkins and things around, so it did feel like Halloween. The first surprise though was when we got on the Indiana Jones ride. In the US it's a dark-ride adventure in a "jeep" that's fairly tame (from what I remember, it's been 14 years). In Paris on the other hand, the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril ride is a looping rollercoaster! Same with Space Mountain, it's a full-on loop+barrel roll steel coaster in the dark!

The Phantom Manor aka, Haunted Mansion, was mostly the same, except for the last half which was WAY darker and scarier (lots of rotting skeletons), and an old-western scene thrown in. There's apparently a gigantic backstory that the Wikipedia article dives into, but that we didn't catch at all. Disney also didn't completely redecorate it in Nightmare Before Christmas style like they did for Halloween in LA, so that was a bit disappointing. But while in line we met a couple from Milwaukee who had been to every Disney park in the world (this one being their last one to complete the list) so it was fun talking to them in the very long line. It was the first native English conversation we'd had so far.

Star Tours was also an interesting mixture of French and English, with C3PO speaking in French while we waited in the queue. He is a protocol droid though "fluent in over six million forms of communication" so it'd be more surprising if he didn't speak French. Overall most of the park was a mixture of languages, and it was by far the most English I've heard since we moved here thanks to all the British tourists. And they had the same incredibly annoying Halloween music playing over and over in English as there was in LA. Actually there was all kinds of Halloween music playing throughout the park, all in English.

Also there's a lot more smoking in the park, even though it's supposed to be in designated areas only, and the best was Smurfette chain smoking in line for Space Mountain.  Oh France!

The only negative thing about the night was that the last train to Paris left at 12:18am, so we had to cut out early to make sure we caught it. But we plan on going back to Disney for the Christmas season, and to ride more rides since we didn't get to go on too many due to the really long lines.

I posted photos here. I also lost my lens hood somehow (probably on the Indiana Jones ride) so I'll have to figure out how to replace it. 

Also I forgot to mention that November 1st is a national holiday due to All Souls Day, so it's a 3 day weekend. This means that people always get the day after Halloween off. It would be pretty awesome if it was like that in the States.

Mexican Food? In Paris???

Today we set out to find some Mexcian food, as it'd been 3 weeks since we last had some and there is no way I could last 6 months without at least some sort of Mexican/Tex-Mex. There's actually a surprising number of Mexican places (ie over half a dozen) that get decent reviews. Obviously nothing will ever be as good as back home, but we were just looking for something to get us through the trip. The one closest to us is pretty expensive though, so we took the metro up north a place called Itacate Saveurs de Mexique, which I thought wasn't half bad, though Kara didn't particularly like it (she found it too bland). That is something common among Mexican food place reviews in Paris, apparently Parasians do not like spicy food much, so it tends to be under seasoned and spiced. It was also a bit of an adventure as we ended up ordering in Spanish since the owners spoke that and Kara's Spanish is still much better than her French. There's quite a few more places to try so we'll keep exploring Paris's Mexican culture!

Also there's actually a Chipotle now open in Paris, though neither of us really like Chipotle (I really don't get the fanatical devotion, Freebirds and Moes are so much better IMHO) but at least it's an option in a pinch.

On the way back home there we ran across a tour group on rollerblades. Those "wheelie shoes" as an unnamed person might have described this as ::ahem::, are still alive and well here apparently!

Finally I also attempted to get a haircut today. There's a place near the train station near work, so I stopped in after work to try and get one. This is another one of those things that is much more difficult in another language. Luckily one of the people getting his hair cut spoke English, so he could translate for us, and I discovered I needed an appointment, so I was able to make one then. Under the name she wrote "Monsieur Anglais", or "Mr. English" which I thought was fun. The appointment is on Tuesday, and my hair is getting crazy uncontrollable, so hopefully this all works out before I leave for Vienna the next day. 

Quick Burger

Today I got our first fast food hamburger, as we'd been missing American and Mexican food (maybe Mexican for tomorrow, supposedly there's some decent ones, but we'll see). I decided to be adventurous and not get McDonalds, and instead go across the street to the Quick, a Belgium fast food chain and kind of like the McDonalds of Europe. The sauce was kind of weird on it (I think it was trying to emulate a Big Mac) but all in all, not bad for a fast food burger. Granted this was a fast food burger that costs like $6.50 for the sandwhich alone, but that's Paris on the euro for you.

We also finalized our plans to go to Vienna in 2 weeks! I'll be going our Czech offices near the border, and so Kara will stay there while I'm gone, and then I'll meet her for the long weekend (we get November 1st and November 11th off, though of course not Thanksgiving, so it all evens out). We're really excited about visiting, as it's supposed to be a great city.

We're also trying to figure out what to do with the long weekend this coming week. We're going to Disney Paris for the Halloween party on the 31st, as it's about the only way to celebrate Halloween American style while in France. We went to the one last year at Disneyland in LA and had a lot of fun, and we're sad to be missing out on the Halloween festivities this year so this is the next best thing. 

But as far as the rest of the 3 day weekend, we're still trying to plan. It's too expensive/late for trains or planes, so we're looking at road trips. Unfortunately the weather is supposed to be cold and rainy all over France (and Paris) so it's limiting the motivation to go out and do something.

I also had an interesting experience today when trying to figure out roaming rates for Kara's cell phone plan. Roaming is a bit more difficult in Europe as while we have a gigantic area of all the US where you'll be "in network", in Europe you only have your country. But what makes it particularly interesting is that France has different names for the countries than we do. The obvious one is the United States is "États-Unis" as it's directly translated. But Germany is "Allemagne" and the Czech Republic is "République tchèque". This is why I think all countries should be called what the people who live  there call them. It just makes more sense!

Paris is Dark in the Winter

Daylight Savings Time ended in Europe on Sunday (a week earlier than the US) and so now the sun sets at 5:33pm, so by the time I leave work it's pretty much pitch black. That's one of the sad things about the timing of our journey, is that it's during the long dark cold winter. But it also means way less tourists and cheaper airfare to move around Europe, so there's always positives.

To give an idea though, in January, Paris gets 8 hours and 20 minutes of daylight, while Austin gets 10 hours and 14 minutes. The opposite is then true during the summer when Paris has 16 hours of daylight compared to Austin's 14 hours. I'd love to live somewhere where the sun doesn't go down until 10pm!

I also got my French checkbook in the mail. It's somewhat different than checks in the US, as it's the same format, but the individual check numbers and account number are just stamped onto the paper. It's not "professional" like US checks. I don't plan on writing any checks (rent and utilities are handled through the relocation company) but you never know when something might come up.

Wandering Around Paris

As you may have noticed, Kara's posting things too now. If you couldn't tell the difference between our writing styles, it has our names at the bottom of which ones we write. 

Today we went to the farmers market near us, and got some pastries, bread, rotisserie chicken, and some caramelized onion galettes. I wasn't too big of a fan of the last one, but Kara loved hers, and there was a really long line for them (we probably waited about 15 minutes). The market was really crowded and the food all looked really good so we'll definitely be back.

Kara still wasn't feeling great, so I went off exploring on my own again. I went across the Ponte des Arts, which has a ridiculous number of locks attached to it that people have placed. It's crazy, it's locks upon locks at this point. There's quite the online argument though over if it's romantic, or if it's vandalism.

Then I read for a while in the Tuileries gardens, and then wandered across a really pretty bridge before taking the metro home. It's supposed to rain the next 2 days so I had to get in some sightseeing while the weather was still pretty nice. Also apparently I look Italian, since I had one Italian couple ask me to take their photo, and another ask me where Les Invalides was (which we were right in front of, so at least I could say 'oui').

I forgot to send in my Federal Voting Assistance Program application in time for Austin elections at the start of November, so I'll be missing only my second election ever. Doh!

The internet also went out in our apartment this evening. Trying to get that fixed isn't quite as simple when you don't speak the language. Luckily a power cycle fixed the problem and we were once again connected. 

And finally, I added new photos from the walk today, so check them out!

Bonjour Paris!

"You want to live in Paris for awhile?"

When Anthony came home from work to tell me that he might be getting a temporary job transfer to Paris, I couldn't believe it. Like, actually was physically incapable of wrapping my consciousness around the idea. I was honestly too afraid to even try, as if the waves my brain sent out from the effort of comprehension might somehow alter the energy that had manifested such good fortune to begin with.

I still didn't believe we were actually going as I set out to put together decent winter wardrobes to get us both through a Parisian winter. I didn't believe it as I packed my suitcases. I still didn't believe it when our friends gathered together for a heartwarming bon voyage party, or even when we boarded our flight. Not until we touched down at Charles de Gaulle and hopped in a taxi did I let myself finally dive in to the idea of living in Paris. 

As a linguist and hopelessly studious nerd, I relished the idea of learning a new language. That aspect of living abroad I actually did let my brain mull over. Several weeks before our departure date, Anthony and I started trying to learn French using DuoLingo, an online language learning program a lot like Rosetta Stone (only free!). In my first few hours of study, I was taught useful phrases such as, "My dress has a pocket," and "Your duck is perfect."

Curiously enough, I haven't gotten to use those yet. Obvioiusly DuoLingo isn't perfect, but it is free, and I found its odd sentences engaging. Even if I think that learning vocabulary such as "suitcase" and "hotel room" might have been more useful, learning animals and basic adjectives was a lot of fun. However, DuoLingo, in its effort to teach me masculine from feminine noun forms, neglected to tell me it was teaching me vulgarities.

When learning words like "dog" and "cat," DuoLingo gives you a choice to use either the masculine or feminine form. Being a bit of a feminist, I always favored using the feminine form, wanting to give female animals fair representation. I had gone through several lessons practicing talking almost exclusively about female animals when Anthony informed me he had been reading the discussion boards after the lessons and had learned some interesting things. Apparently, he said, the female forms of "dog" and "cat" in French are only used as vulgarities. As in "bitch" and...well, you can guess what cat is.

I was hesitant to believe that a program would be teaching me curse words, so when told to translate to English the French phrase "Ma chienne est sale," I typed in "My bitch is dirty." And it was correct. I also have yet to find an occasion to use "My bitch is dirty" in conversational French, but I'd wager it's easier to fit that into a tête-à-tête than "Your duck is perfect."

Anyhow, my first foray into applying the ghetto street French I had learned from a free Rosetta Stone knock-off program was with our Laotian cab driver. He was splendid. For the twenty or so minutes it took to get from the airport to our apartment, he taught me all sorts of things. I haven't had a formal lesson on how to talk about the weather yet, so he is the only reason I can say "It's raining/snowing/sunny." And he seemed quite pleased as I kept oohing and ahhing as we drove through the increasingly scenic avenues of our new home.

All of Paris looks to me as if it's smeared with buttercream. All the buildings are that sunny shade of fatty dairy product, adorned with curly 19th century iron grates on the windows, much in gingerbread house fashion. Or maybe I'm just fat kid at heart excited to be in the pastry capital of the world. To my surprise, the cab stopped in front of one such building on an exceptionally cute stretch of street. Do we really get to live here? I thought. We thanked the French professor/cab driver profusely and walked through the iron gate to meet Sophie, the real estate agent waiting at the door to show us our apartment.

Sophie was adorable, too. She happily chatted to us in Franglish about how to use the dishwasher and where the spare towels are stored. When he had mostly sorted everything out, she left us with two sets of keys and fobs, mine with a tiny blue Eiffel Tower on the key chain. We bid Sophie adieu and locked the door. Home, in Paris!

Paris Cell Phones

Amazingly, a day after ordering it, Kara's SIM card from B&You came in the mail, so we can finally stop living in the 90's, and can text each other on the go. Having a smart phone with an Internet connection has already made walking around so much easier since I can now bring up Google Maps (for some reason the map caching feature wasn't working at all on my US phone). I took advantage of it by wandering around our neighborhood tonight to look for some à emporter (to-go), and found some delicious panini.

One of the things I didn't really realize would change by living in France: Twitter and Youtube give me ads in French now. I mean it makes sense, it's just not one of those things I expected.

The guy at the grocery store today had a whole conversation with me in French without me saying a word.  I wonder if he knew I didn't speak French? I just let him keep talking, he seemed excited to have someone listen. It reminded me of my experiences in Tokyo where they would do the same thing, and say WAY more than the transaction required and I'd just smile and nod.

Speaking of groceries, Kara keeps wondering why French yogurt is so much better than anything we can get in the US. It really is quite spectacular. Considering we live in a flat world nowdays, it makes me wonder too. This is a missed opportunity! 

Also I figured out how get my phone to work properly in French. I wanted to have my phone language settings set to French to help me practice and learn vocabulary (you quickly learn that "annuler" means "cancel" and "rechercher" is "search" for example). The problem is that when I typed text message or emails, it auto-corrected to a random French word instead of what I'm actually trying to type in English. But after some Googling I found the solution and now all is good in the world. 

I have to say, I never imagined I would ever learn French. I thought Spanish would be my (very poorly spoken) second language, but alas I already speak, read, and write French WAY better than I do Spanish, even with the 3 years I studied it in school. It does help that at least for reading it, French is way easier than Spanish too. 
  
The first photos are finally uploaded as well. Check them out! 

Baguette Traditional

With the money in the bank, I was finally able to order Kara's SIM card today for her phone from B&You, so hopefully by Tuesday next week we can be texting and calling each other without it either not working (roaming on T-Mobile randomly stops connecting sometimes) and/or costing a small fortune. I do have to thank Tmobile though for their WiFi calling, so we can easily send and receive calls just like we were in the States anytime we're around WiFi. It's pretty awesome.

I also discovered a new crêpe stand that is actually slightly closer to our flat than the other one, and this one has poulet (chicken)! For some reason all the crêpe stands only had jambon (ham) for the meat option, but as I prefer chicken, I was very excited to finally get my poulet et frommage crêpe. I was also able to order it in very broken but apparently understandable French.

I also learned not to get the multi-grain baguette. Stick with the traditional one, it's much better.

Translate

I managed to make a cash deposit at the bank today, even with the deposit slip being all in French. I had planned on just doing an online transfer, but that was before I found out it would end up costing $70 to do it thanks to fees (thanks Bank of America!). So it was much cheaper to eat the ATM fees to use the ATM right outside of the bank to get cash, walk the 10 feet to go inside, and deposit it at the reception desk.

It's also been an interesting experience having to Google Translate the bank webpages. Since it's HTTPS you can't just translate the entire webpage, so I have to copy and paste each section to figure out what exactly I'm agreeing to or trying to do. Some things are obvious, but other things, not so much.

I also finally got my work phone today, so I can finally use the mobile Internet in France. It's an iPhone 5, which as a die-hard Android user who has been using Android since the very first handset back in 2008 and who has rooted and re-flashed all my devices, changing to iOS is a bit different, but mostly it works pretty much the same. I do miss all the configuration options, but as long as I have Internet, email, and Google Maps, I'm good to go.

Also I am perfectly happy with a dinner of fresh French bread from the bakery right down the street, peanut butter, and Nutella. Bliss!

Amelie Day!

Today was a great day! Since it was beautiful weather (and quite possibly the last really nice day left before we leave in April, as it was 20C and sunny) I took the afternoon off from work to go be a tourist. Living in Paris is something a lot of people dream about, but the actual day to day living can be quite difficult at times and there are just moments where I want to just get exactly what I want without a fuss, or hardship, or trying to figure out what the hell is in the food I just pointed to. Kara saw I was getting a bit overwhelmed, and so told me to just take the afternoon off and remember why we were so excited to move here in the first place.

To start the journey I met Kara after her language class for lunch, and then we went to visit the places in Amélie (my favorite movie of all time). We went to Montremare to visit the cafe she worked at, the grocer she went to, the Sacre Coeur, and the canal she skipped stones at. As well as a really delicious bakery and explored the Luxembourg Gardens. All in all it was my favorite day yet in Paris!

Oh and to make it even better, we discovered an even better grocery store, even closer to us, and even cheaper. I swear that can really make a big difference when you're having to lug the groceries home by walking. For some reason it doesn't show up on any Google map or any other web search, other than the chain webpage, but it exists! We've actually found there's quite a lot Google doesn't capture, as both our favorite crepe stands aren't listed anywhere online that we can find.

Paris Ikea

We made it to real Paris Ikea!! It was the one at Thiais Village, which is the second closest to work (and therefore the second closest to the car), but this one was a real Ikea and not just the kitchen supplies.

We managed to get just about everything on our Ikea list, so that was great. We didn't get there in time for the food court to be open though, so we missed the Swedish meatballs, but hey, you can't win them all. I also got to drive in the pouring rain on the way there, but we still made it successfully even with the crazy French road signs and driving. It was stressful, but worth it.

As part of the journey, we also picked up a Queen sized foam mattress pad, since the bed in the apartment was kind of hard and Kara's back wasn't agreeing with it. We had to figure out a French map to the warehouse about a kilometer away, but with the map and the nav system, figured it out.

And to expand on the last post, let me just say, there's a major difference between visiting France, and living in France. And that difference is lugging a 50 pound Ikea foam mattress, plus 2 heavy Ikea bags, on the metro across a transfer and then 4 blocks to our flat from the metro stop. When the RER train driver saw us with this gigantic rolled up mattress, we could see his disbelief. But we made it!

French Feast

Today was quite the adventure as we tried to go to Ikea using the Ikea bus, but were too late and missed it. So then I went in search of a heating pad for Kara for her back, which took me all over the city based on the Google searches I'd done (which again, how did anyone do anything before Google and the Internet??). I did eventually finally find one, as well as hangers, so success!

Though again, the fact it took sooo long to find an electric heating pad and hangers was really frustrating and one of those culture shock moments. I always thought culture shock was like your neighbor eating monkey brains and thinking nothing of it, but a lot of it is just the day to day stuff where what used to be trivial at home becomes a giant hassle in your new country. We were talking about how this is probably the worst Kara's had it since at least in Italy and Spain the culture is much warmer, and New Zealand is close enough to American culture (they just speak funny) so it didn't come up much. And this is all new to me so it's been much more difficult than I expected as well. Having to live somewhere is a FAR different experience than vacationing somewhere. When you're vacationing you're not trying to figure out how to find trash bags and then convert the liters on the box to the gallons you're used to to figure out which size to get for the kitchen trash can.

So to help fight it, I finished off the night with the ultimate French feast to remind us of why we were excited to move here: Fresh French bread, cheese, super cheap (3.50 euro) bottle of wine that was AMAZING, and a Bueno Bar, which is the best candy bar (besides a Snickers) known to man. I really don't understand why you can find them everywhere across the world except for the US. It was all delicious!

French Cafe

We finally saw the Eiffel Tower! I know it's kind of sad it took a week and a half to make it to the most famous Paris landmark of all, but I've been sick, and then we've both just been so exhausted and so it wasn't until tonight that we finally rode the metro to go see it. Luckily we made it for the flashing part, which happens on the top of every hour for 5 minutes, so it was extra pretty. Though the prettiest is the 1am showing (which we got to see the first time we visited Paris together 5 years ago when we walked like 3 miles to the Eiffel tower since it looked so close... yeah... not so close) when all the other lights are turned off so that it's only the flashing lights. I still want to go up it again, but I'll take seeing it close up for now.

We also ate at our local cafe just down the street for the first time, and wow, was it really really really good. Kara just had the potato soup, which is somehow marked as "Healthy" (though in French of course) but there is no way that is good for you. I had the lamb, which was delicious. It is expensive ($25 a plate), especially when compared to Austin (same meal would be $15 a plate probably), but about average price for a French cafe in central Paris.

Kara did get a bit frustrated that our waiter kept trying to talk to us in English while she kept trying to talk to him in French (so she could practice). Googling it though, it seems they just want to practice their English and/or just be as efficient as possible. Kara's been picking up a lot of French already though from just one week of classes and living here for a week and a half.

Checking RATP Passes

I opened my first foreign bank account today! I needed to get one so we can get Kara a good and cheap cell plan: 20 euro a month for unlimited calling and texting, including to the US(!), and 3 gigs of data. You can't even get that in the states! And no contract! Unfortunately it debits the amount out of your French bank account (with no option to pay by credit card unfortunately) so needed a bank account for that, as well as a way to get cash out for free instead of paying crazy ATM fees each time for the next 6 months. I wrote about the whole experience here, and I'll know next week if everything is going smoothly or not.

Today's train ride to work was a bit more interesting than normal because on the way to Massy – Palaiseau stop, there were like 20 policemen (train police men?) moving down the train to check everyone's ticket to make sure it was valid since we were heading outside of the central Paris zone, so it costs extra. And the guy across the aisle from me didn't have a valid ticket. He argued passionately in French (I really wish I could understand it!) but alas it didn't get him out of the ticket.

Getting Used to the Culture

I had a funny conversation on the train today (in English of course) with a guy traveling to his work. There was a group of women from Venezuela going to the airport, and so they were asking in English (because again that's the second language most people are likely to know) which stop they needed. A French person answered and started chatting, and as I was squeezed right next to them, I chimed in too about the metro in Tokyo. After the group got off on their stop, the French guy started talking to me in French, so I had to apologize in my very broken French that I didn't speak French (which is an oxymoron in a literal sense which always amuses me, but I digress). He then stated he was wondering why my English was so good, so I just told him I had a lot of practice :)

And speaking of people talking to me in French, I've now had 5 different people ask me for directions. Apparently I look like I know what I'm doing and look French enough when just standing around. It also probably helps that I travel on a very non-touristy commuter line with a messenger bag and am dressed up (relatively) for work, so I look about as non-touristy as one possibly could. Of course most of the time I completely go blank and can't even think of how to respond in French that I don't know how to speak it (nor even how to give them the right directions) but after a few seconds of silence they generally get it. One day I'll be able to answer though. One day!

I've also started to get the hang of my new job at work, and am busy planning a bunch of business trips (to the UK, Germany, Czech Republic, and France) so things are starting to feel more normal. My new role involves a LOT more traveling than I used to do, and my mentor/boss travels even more. I like flying and traveling though (obviously, I thought it was a good idea to move halfway across the world to a country I don't speak the language of) so I'm excited.

I've also decided to just keep using the DD/MM/YY European format. Like the metric system, it just makes more sense then the backwards way we do it in the States.

Finally we decided to explore "crepe land" next to Montparnasse, and have learned the hard way never ever to exit out of the Montparnasse station. That thing is a gigantic maze where I could have walked from our flat and gotten there faster I think. Vavin it is from now on. The crepes were quite good though, and I'm sad to say, it took me this a whole week to have my first glass of French wine, but wow was it good!

English is My Native Language

Today we had a customer conference for work, which I helped out at by manning the booth and proctoring a class on Vybrid. The most notable things about it were that I wasn't much help at the booth since most of the customers only spoke French or else poor English, so I just let my French co-workers take over for the most part. Also while part of the keynote was in English, a lot of it was in French, which of course makes sense, but it was just interesting since all my previous international work experiences were always solely in English since that's the one common language across the world.

We (as in Americans) really are incredibly lucky in that we speak English natively, since if you go to any country in the world and if there's a second language posted anywhere, or someone happens to speak a second language, it's going to be my native tongue. It's why I don't get the people in the US who get so worked up about people speaking other languages. Relax, English isn't going away anytime soon.

And of course there was wine served during lunch, because it's France and all. And it was held in the tennis stadium where the French Open is played, so that was pretty cool. It wasn't on the actual court of course. They have conference rooms and areas to make some money during the non-tennis season too.

Trying to Learn French

I've been surprised even before we even left how easily I could read French (for the most part) and it's only improved since being here almost a week now. It makes sense given the huge amount of French influence in the English language. Of course, speaking it, and especially hearing it, is a whole different matter, since the pronunciation is completely different in a lot of cases. But there are a LOT of cognates between French and English, and so by knowing a few key connector words and common phrases, it's fairly easy to get the gist of most ads, signs, and even newspapers.


Speaking of learning French, Kara started French langugage school this week. She's only signed up for a week so far, but will probably continue for another week or two after that to get her up to speed. She's so incredible at languages, and already knowing Spanish and Italian is a huge boost as well. She tries to teach me, but I find it so much more difficult to remember words, and particularly how to pronounce them. My goal is just to be somewhat understandable by the end of the 6 months, but I have no doubt Kara will be quite proficient by then. She's already the best student in her class and she missed the entire first week (as her husband I get to brag on her shamelessly :))

I've been looking for evening classes for me, but there aren't a lot of options. In the meantime I've been using Duolingo, but I just need to put more time into it.  At work everyone speaks French except when specifically talking to me and/or on conference calls, so I'd really like to get some understanding of it so I can participate in lunch conversations. Hopefully this will get easier over time.

Kitchen Ikea

Today was Ikea day. After another 13 hour night of sleeping, we treked out to the car to try our hand at driving with the French for the first time. Luckily it's out in the suburbs so I didn't have to deal with city center traffic, and after a few wrong turns due to the nav system (and learning that when it says "turn right now" it actually means in like 10 meters, and not actually right that very second at the street you are right at) we made it.

And we were happy... until we realized it's just a kitchen Ikea, not a normal Ikea. Meaning it just has the kitchen section, and not everything else. The internet lied to me, as everyone on forums said all the Ikeas were the same. But it ain't so!

 So that was disappointing, since most of the things on our list (like hangers, which we can't find for the life of us in the stores around us) have to wait. That is definitely one of those culture shock moments where you just want to go "WHY CAN'T BUYING A CLOTHES HANGER BE SIMPLE?!?!!"

But we did pick up a few things, so all in all not a bad trip. And I got to show Kara were I worked, which truly is WAAAY outside of Paris. Like there is corn and crops being grown on the other side of the street from the office.

On the brighter side we discovered there's now apparently an Ikea bus that takes you from a main train station and drops you off at a real Ikea, so we'll take that next weekend instead. No need to have a car anymore to get to an Ikea in Paris.

We also got our photos taken at a metro photobooth so we can get our Navigo metro passes tomorrow. Looking forward to not having to stop at a ticket machine every single trip.

We also finally found where all the street food is at (next to the Saint-Michel metro stop on Rue de la Huchette) so we got some kabobs and ate them on the steps of the Seine, looking out towards Notre Dame. It'd been the first time it really felt like we were really in Paris, and things were starting to feel semi-normal. It's nice.

Jetlag

So.... 15 hours after we went to bed we got up. Yes, we slept for 15 hours. This jet lag is awful, probably the worst I've ever had (though still fighting this stupid cold probably isn't helping at all). So with most of the day shot, we didn't get too much done, but we DID go to the grocery store! After some research (I really have no idea how people did anything at all before the Internet) we found a decent sized Carrefour (which is like the HEB of France) that is a 8 minute walk from our apartment. It's a decent size, but probably a quarter of a normal US super market. Though being in the center of a major city that's to be expected (as well as the high prices). But all in all it was a success, and we found the random items we were looking for, even though it was insanely crowded.

One of the more interesting things is that the yogurt section is HUGE in all the grocery stories. You expect the cheese and wine to be big (and they are) but yogurt? Also I have to say I love being in foreign countries with their easy access to the second best (after Snickers) candy bar ever: Bueno Bar. It's so good that "good" is in the name! 6 pack for 4 euro? Yes please!

The other thing we setup today was a way to watch American TV/Netflix while in France. Due to stupid licensing agreements, you normally can't view stuff like ABC, CBS, Netflix, ESPN, etc. But Unotelly has been awesome. You just change your DNS to use its servers, and it fools the websites into thinking you're located in the US. It's worked excellent so far on Netflix, Hulu, and even CBSSports.com so I could see the Gators play. I highly recommend for anyone traveling or living overseas! And since it's DNS and not full fledged VPN, it even works on smart phones and other devices, not just your computer.

Unpacking

Jetlag is killing me! It's not bad in the morning (probably because I'd usually still be up in the US when I wake up in France) but around 1pm-3pm I'm dying.

My role at work is also somewhat different, as I'm dealing more with marketing and working with our distributors, versus the strictly technical work I did as an apps engineer before. So I'm still trying to figure out what exactly my new job for the next 6 months really entails, but I'm sure I'll get the hang out if eventually. And I'm already learning new things, so that's a positive.

I also hadn't had time to unpack very much before tonight, so we decide to stay in and chill and unpack and try to feel more moved in. So far I haven't forgotten anything, though we spent like 5 months preparing to move so we had all kinds of lists.

Strike

Today was a very French day, as the flight I was supposed to take was so delayed due to the French air controllers striking that we had to end up cancelling the trip (it was going to be a quick 1-day meeting, and if you only get there in the later afternoon, there's no point anymore). When we told people at work this, it was treated like it's just one of those things that happens from time to time, no big deal.

I also then got to experience Parisian traffic going into the city during the last half of rush hour(s) in the morning, which was not enjoyable. My co-worker was doing the driving, as I'm still too nervous to attempt driving in Paris yet, particularly due to that the first few pages of Google results of "driving in Paris" explicitly say don't do it no matter how much you're used to driving in large US cities. Also the street signs, markings, and intersections are REALLY confusing in the center city. There isn't really any marking between opposite lanes of traffic, you just got to know you're not on a one way street. I'll probably eventually get to it (it would make an Ikea run much easier) but at the moment I'll pass.

Instead I take the train out to work, then pick up my rental car (actually leased since it's for 6 months, so that's cheaper) from a parking lot near the train station to get the last few kilometers to work. I wish the office was right next to a train station, but this is a decent compromise. It does take about 15 minutes longer than it would if I drove the whole way without any traffic, but when there is traffic, it's 30 minutes shorter. Obviously we could have also lived closer to work, but neither Kara and I are really suburb type people, and we wanted to take full advantage of living in Paris if while the opportunity presented itself.

I do need to get a Navigo (unlimited) metro pass, as buying the tickets individually gets expensive!

We're in Paris!

We're in Paris!!! After months and months of waiting and wondering, it's actually finally here. Unfortunately I'm fighting a cold, which is not the way I wanted our Parisian adventure to start. But at least the taxi driver was really friendly and we somehow managed to squeeze our 8 bags (2 check-in each and 2 carry-on each) into the taxi. Once we arrived at the flat, the owner was there waiting for us, and after going over the keys, wifi, fuse box and TV, we were left to live in our new home for the next 6 months.

The flat is small but nice, and the location great, so we still feel very fortunate to have it come up, and was quite the steal since we were originally mainly looking in the 14th and 15th arrondissements. After a quick shower, I jumped onto the metro to take the hour ride out to work, where a co-worker was picking me up to take me to the office. Unfortunately since I left so late, most of my coworkers already left for the day, but at least I got to get my bearings a little bit and now know which train direction to take.

Then once I got back home we went out in search of crêpes since it's our favorite French food. Unfortunately (as we later learned) we went the wrong direction and ended up wandering around Paris jet lagged, hungry, and cold, until finally giving up and going back the apartment. Of course we still had to eat something so I went out to search on my own. I then went the opposite direction, and 5 minutes away... success! Unfortunately it didn't have chicken, but they did have ham, egg, and cheese, and of course nutella-banana, so we were set! Tired and exhausted, we headed to bed as I was scheduled to travel to Leeds, UK the next morning to visit the distribution partner I'll be working with the next 6 months.

Also I'm really glad we decided to fly British Airways instead of American, as the plane was quite nice with video on demand, the seats decent sized (for economy) and the stewardesses sounded like Mary Poppins. And even for the short 1 hour flight between London and Paris, they served us ham croissant sandwiches, which is perfect since we didn't get a chance to eat before getting on the plane.  The only negative part is our gates for both LHR and CDG were REALLY far away from our connections, and we actuallly had to be bussed in from the airfield since they didn't park at an actual gate. But we made it, and that's the important part!