No longer the City of Lights

I've mentioned several times now that Paris is deserted during the summer months, but I finally found a way to capture the ghost town ambiance on film. This is a picture of the apartment building that faces ours at around 10pm--a time when most French families would be home and finishing up dinner. The complex is generally pretty, with a whole collection of lighted windows providing distant glimpses into people's balconies and living rooms. Not anymore.I know that most countries' tourism industries have suffered during the recent economic crisis, but judging by the number of absent Parisians I'd bet that France is still doing pretty well on that front.

Gone "en vacances"

It started with our favorite restaurant, Chez Gladines. We headed there a few weekends ago for one of their hugs platters of duck in Roquefort sauce and basque-style potatoes, only to be confronted with this:
(Dear clients, we have left on vacation. We will see you again from 7pm on Monday, August 2nd onwards. Have a good summer and a good vacation...the Chez Gladines team)

Dejected, we drank a pint at the bar across the street while we discussed our plan B, smiling in sad solidarity as we watched countless other students approach the restaurant only to turn away in disbelief.

The next strike was when I set out, folder of bureaucratic papers in hand, to the CAF office, to settle some problems with my socialized student rent remission:

(No CAF in July or August; reopening September 1st)

After that, I watched in bewildered American wonderment as each day another of the bakeries on my road pulled its blinds and closed its doors--for the following month! The Moroccan restaurant my office celebrated our last day in was out of kefta and lamb--they were closing the next day and trying to use up their remaining ingredients.

And now, even my office is closed. Friends I talk to back home are incredulous: "how have you already accrued vacation time? You've only been working what? 2 months?"

But no, I tell them, this is France: the country where the entire country goes on vacation. Together. Twice, even! (Once during the summer, and then again during ski season) And where do they go? Well, France, of course. Where else? As any Frenchman will tell you, they have everything they need here: party/wealthy beaches to the South, more subdued beaches to the North, surfing to the West, skiing to the East, sunny fields full of wines and chateaux in the middle--what more could you ask for?

It's good for the national tourism industry, I suppose, but not so much for French industry in the international market. Or their reputation, at least. The French even make fun of themselves, as evidenced by this ad for the Parisian", one of the free daily metro newspapers, which boasts being "the only Parisian that you can count on throughout the summer." In the poster shown here, they say "the only Parisian who will give you news all summer":
As for me? Yes, I'm officially "en vacances" but with my Master's exam fast approaching (end of August) I'm hitting the books instead of the beaches. Hélas! I hope to do a vacation day-trip or two, though, so we'll see. For now I'll just have to satisfy my urges to do as the French do by sipping my kir sauvignon from my wrought-iron window.

Battles with beaucracy (and a healthy dose of perspective)

So I'm currently in the process of renewing my visa, which involves a number of irritating items of paperwork (including a 52 euro official translation of my birth certificate into French...*sigh*). After that, my tasks for next week will be to apply for my carte vitale to be eligible for state health care and to deal with the CAF, the socialized welfare program for students who could use some help for their rent (in my case, because my non-EU, student status prohibits me from getting a real, full-time and full-paying job). Being an adult is tiring.

On the bright side...

...I'm in a country that provides me with these great services--health care, student social aid (for a non-citizen, even!), and even the opportunity to get and keep a student visa without TOO much hassle (comparatively, at least). And worse case, if things ever get too difficult to handle here, I always have the option to return to the good ol' US of A, where I am guaranteed to find safety and employment. It is with all of this in mind on this muggy Monday that I'm going to put aside my lusting for air conditioning and revel in my apartment, job and boyfriend, with the knowledge that emigration could be much, much more difficult than my experience has been.

Penetrating the System

So I've already written several posts about how stupid, stone-age, inefficient, unnecessarily complicated every piece of French paperwork is. Little did I know that I had only barely brushed Purgatory, and that I would soon be made to traverse all nine hellish circles of French bureaucracy in the Inferno that is the Parisian rental market.

I've spent the last few weeks balancing my normal life with the full-time job of hunting for apartments in Paris. The first step is the search, which is done mostly by Internet these days. I start with pap.fr, the French real estate website of choice, then browse through leboincoin.fr, vivastreet.fr, FUSAC (Paris' anglophones magazine) and even paris.craigslist.org. When I can, I repeat this browsing do this cycle about five times a day, except for pap.fr, which I leave open (set to my search terms: one bedroom apartments under 1000 euros/month in the 14th, 5th or 13th arrondissements) and refresh as often as possible.

Next comes the call. In a market as competitive as Paris, the tenant has absolutely no value. If you want a shot at an apartment you have to call as soon as an ad is posted (literally--no more than an hour later you're often already too late), prove you're serious (and have money--landlords often screen tenants by grilling them about their job and salary) and be persistent (follow up emails/calls/texts, whatever it takes).

Parisian apartments are small, expensive, and bare. If you're lucky (and willing to pay more) you can sometimes find them with furnishings, but that's more the exception than the rule. And when I say bare, I mean BARE. In France, appliances like fridges, washing machines, and even ovens and stoves are things that you lug around with you each time you move, meaning that an empty apartment literally comes with nothing but the kitchen sink.

Then there are the visits. Which, for whatever reason, are usually during the middle of a work day--thank God for my flexible student schedule. This is your chance to check the state of the apartment (mold? double-paned windows? collective or individual heating/water? carpeted or wood floors?) and the landlord's chance to judge evaluate you. This is also when you're expected, if you're interested, to hand over your "dossier"--a fat, expensive-to-have-printed folder, consisting of a lock of your baby hair, the rights to your first born child, etc. In other words, pretty much everything that has mattered, ever, in your entire life.

In all seriousness, a dossier should include: your ID (passport and carte de sejour, for foreigners), your last three pay stubs (from a French job), your contract (for the same French job), your birth certificate, a letter of recommendation from your current lodging, your bank account information, and even sometimes your previous two years' worth of tax summaries. Multiply that by two if you're a couple, and by three if you need a "garant"--a guarantor who declares their income in France, and who must provide pretty much the same paperwork (or, at a minimum, the pay stubs, ID and tax statements). Keep in mind that this is all going to a complete stranger, who is likely hosting about ten more apartment viewings that day and may not even consider you a potential tenant.

If you don't have the time (or sanity) to spare checking ads and calling and waiting on landlords, the alternative is to use one of Paris' many localized rental agencies. The convenience comes at a price, however--stricter paperwork standards, an upfront fee (usually around 200 euros) and often a percentage of the rent as a sort of finder's fee. In short, it seems like a bit of a rip off, not to mention a surrender. I'm still looking on my own. But I'm running out of time.

I did my 8th visit this morning. Out of the 8 there are only two possibles, and only one that I'm in love with. As foreigners, Tom and I are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to dealing with landlords. Even if I can muster good enough French to satisfy them, we are unable to provide the same standard of "Frenchness" as other candidates when it comes to our paperwork, in particular the garant. After trying to muddle through without one, we finally got Tom's supervisor to agree to back us. Unfortunately, he seems to be balking at the idea of all the paperwork he has to present (and I mean really, who wouldn't?)

I will end with the very high-tech graphic I made to illustrate the aggravation factor of this whole process. It shows all of the components involved in renting a residence. The arrows indicate the "price" needed to gain the "product" (i.e., the black arrow from the garant to the house indicates that you need a garant in order to get a house). The fuchsia arrows highlight the many catch-22s inherent to the system (i.e., you need a job for a residency card, but also a residency card for a job) that seem designed to weed out foreigners.
...mais, enfin, ce qui ne me détruit pas me rend plus fort...

Being a legal alien, OR how France literally took my breath away

Good news: I don't have tuberculosis. Oh, and I am FINALLY a legal resident. Yes, after many months of waiting and a convocation letter that arrived a week after the appointment had already come and gone, they finally managed to schedule me in to get officially frogged. Bascially, this means that I'm now eligible for socialized health care and financial housing aid. It is also now that much easier for me to extend my stay--an option I'm considering more and more as time goes on.

Ironically, this act of acceptance from my adopted country came on the eve of a surge in American pride: in the last month, we have taken a stand against Israel's abuse of our protection, legalized gay marriage and are considering legalizing medical marijuana (both in Washington DC), and now, passed the health reform bill. Although this still means that my level of health care will drop drastically when I return to the States, it does afford me the right to stay on my parents' insurance plan a little longer (which, considering the current lack of jobs with benefits for college graduates, is nothing to sneeze at).

Anyway. The whole residency process was painfully French, which is to say needlessly inefficient and bureaucratic. After receiving my letter with a non-negotiable appointment time (right after my last midterm, as it turned out) I was instructed to go out and buy a stamp. Not just any stamp, mind you, but a 55 euro "civic stamp". And no, of course you can't buy the stamp at a post office, but only at Tabacs (tobacco stores), and even then only at certain ones. The idea is that the appointment itself should cost 55 euro, but why they can't just eliminate the needless middleman of the stamp and just take a credit card (or at least make the damn stamp available for purchase at the actual appointment) is beyond me.

Once I arrived at the office I began the long chain of steps that went something like this: wait in line to submit paperwork. Sit and wait. Be called up to get more paperwork. Sit and wait. Be called to be lead to a different waiting room. Sit and wait. Hear your name, get some paperwork collected, have an eye exam and a height/weight check. Sit and wait. Read leaflets about diabetes help for Arabs and pregnancy advice. Get called up to wait in line. Be given free condoms and dental dams (does anyone use those things?). Enter a closet with a door on either side and lock the door behind you. Strip down to the waist, then stand for ten minutes clutching your breasts in semi-darkness, debating which is a more real-seeming fantasy: that the door in front of you will open onto Narnia, onto the waiting room a naked David Sedaris described in "When I am Engulfed in Flames" or onto the glass panel of a stripper booth. Suddenly the door opens and two fully-clothed doctors direct half-clothed you to shove your bare breasts against a cold metal plate. Breathe in. The whir of an x-ray. Breathe out, go put your clothes back on. Sit and wait. Get called to admire your x-ray with a doctor, who asks you some questions about smoking/asthma before informing you that you do not, in fact, have tuberculosis. Sit and wait. Get called to a desk, only to be lead back to the original waiting room. Sit and wait. Finally, a full two hours after you first arrived, get called up to get your shiny new carte de sejour (a French greencard) stamped above your visa. It looks a bit like a post-it note, held down with some of that holographic paper you used to cover your books with in elementary school, except applied much more carelessly, without your exact ruler lines and exacto-knife cuts. Congratuations. You passed the French bureaucracy endurance test, you proved that you're not poor or homeless and you don't have tuberculosis: you're allowed to stay.

I celebrated my new-found legality with a late lunch in the company of my fellow immigrants at Tin-Tin, my favorite Vietnamese restaurant up at Belleville. I realized that this is the first time I've ever eaten a meal by myself in a legitimate sit-down restaurant, and I was pleased to find that the experience didn't make me feel self-conscious at all; to the contrary, it game me some much needed space to think. As I scarfed pho and nem I pondered what it is to be an alien vs a citizen and considered the arbitrary nature of what qualifies one for either status. Those lusting after American citizenship have to take a knowledge test to earn the right; I still remember placing my chubby child's hand over my heart to pledge allegiance to the Queen to earn my New Zealand passport. If it were up to me, a French citizenship test would require you to be able to do the following: identify at least five unmarked pastries in a boulangerie by name, use your elbows and your bag to carve out a niche in an already-full metro car (elderly ladies be damned!), direct a waiter how to cook your steak to order then chase him down for the check, perfect your ability to ignore metro musicians, beggars and tourists, know to weigh and price your fruit before you get to the register in a grocery store, and most importantly, be able to laugh at yourself when you're done. That last step is probably the least French thing you could do, but the longer I'm here, the more I realize that I will never be French. If you can't join 'em, at least learn how to enjoy them.

Paris, part I: The Apartment Odyssey

Well, I’m here. Wrestling my luggage through the Parisian metro was not fun (I sweated through a shirt even though it was only about 70 degrees at 7am…gross) but it was actually a little more doable than I had feared. For anyone that has seen Auberge Espagnol, I really looked like Xavier…I was wearing a backpacking pack with a little neck pillow bungeed to it on my back, and sling-style laptop briefcase on my thigh balanced by a large purse on the other side—or, sometimes, around my neck, when I needed two hands to carry my baby whale-sized rolling duffel up or down stairs. For those of you who prefer more classic allusions, I felt rather like Jacob Marley, suffering under the weight of my wanderlust. Getting from the airport to the RER is happily elevator-friendly, but as I realized when I took Sam to Paris, the metro itself is stairs stairs stairs. I had to transfer lines twice, and each time meant several ups and downs, which either meant that I had to grunt and use my iron woman skills or rely on the kindness of a stranger to grab the other handle on the duffel and help me carry (which seemed to happen un-requested, happily). I got stuck only once, for a moment or two (one hundred cool points if you get THAT reference) when I managed to get myself and the duffel wedged in a turnstile together for a full minute. I honestly thought I wasn’t going to be able to get out without taking out clothes to make it more mashable (meanwhile I’m holding up rush-hour traffic) but somehow me and the whale both sucked in our guts and muscled through. Haha.

After wandering the wrong way on the street for a while, I arrived at my little two-star hotel panting and frizzy, where I had to wait to be able to check in to avoid abandoning my luggage. Once checked in, I enjoyed a shower and a nap before I started hardcore apartment research. I’ve never done the whole apartment thing before, but it’s a harrowing and bizarre process. Overall I think I’ve sent a total of more than 50 emails, made about 30 phone calls (and gone through entirely too much cell phone credit). I’ve learned that in this market, my buying power isn’t really a commodity and I don’t matter even remotely. The demand for affordable student housing is so high that you have to respond pretty immediately to an ad to get attention, and even then, my lack of perfect French seems too much of a hassle for already exasperated landlords. When I do get a response, it is often to say that the room will be unavailable until (insert future month here, ranging from October to June 2010?!?) or that to be considered I must produce a stack of different French legal documents which, of course, I don’t have. One woman letting a room refused to tell me where her house was located because she wanted to “take her time” to see if she liked me. Lady, I’m living in a hotel—I ain’t got time.

My best hit so far was with a girl who has an apt in the 15th. We met for coffee, then, after I passed her roommate test, went to visit the apartment. I loved the girl, but much to my dismay (and to the contradiction of her ad!) the apt was a one-bedroom, and I was expected to sleep in the mezzanine above the living room. I feel like I can compromise on a lot in terms of housing, but I at least need a little bit of my own space.

Somehow I feel kind of shy and naïve walking around, I think more from inexperience with city life than with French culture. Although I’ve been here before, it’s always been as a tourist, and just the knowledge that I am a) alone, and b) in for the long haul give the whole experience a different vibe. St. Mary’s made me comfortable in small communities with a eclectic sort of routine (if that’s possible) and few variables, and city life is the opposite. It’s definitely stimulating, though. On my relatively brief wanderings so far, the highlights have some of the space invaders mosaic graffiti that my French professor at St. Mary’s has been tracking, a romantic couple composed of a huge, muscled Arab man and an Asian midget, (Word is telling me those races need to be capitalized—as if that makes the observation any more pc…) and an eerily gorgeous black woman with a hot pink fro. The food is also (of course) amazing—as far as grab & go items go, I’ll take a baguette sandwich and pastry over pretty much anything.

Today my shoulder muscles ached from the pack and my hands are red and sore (from pulling the whale handle with sweaty hands) in a way that gave me an odd-sense of déjà-vu, until I realized what it was reminding me of—monkey bar “injuries” as a kid. I will be incurring more of those tomorrow, I fear. Unless I hear something back about short-term housing by 9am, I’m going to be checking out of here and trooping on over to the international dorms at Cité Universitaire. Yes, I thought I was done with the dorm part of my life, but dorms in Paris > living at home, right? Wish me bonne chance…

Maghrebian showdown: Morocco vs. Tunisia

Hello friends! Due to a sad lack of WiFi, I wasn't able to blog about Morocco while actually in Morocco. I've been home for about a week now, battling lingering intestinal problems (dr's verdict: not a parasite! yay) and intellectual, post-travel burnout, but I'm about ready to get back up on that blogging horse. Overall, Morocco was a blast, especially because I got to share it with my Mom (who also conveniently footed the bill). I was really surprised at how different from Tunisia it was, though...both in its Arabic and its culture. It felt much more "foreign" than Tunisia, much less Western, and also much less-developed. Its people were equally as welcoming, though, and its culture almost richer. I'll be posting pictures and descriptions over the next few days, but because I'm a total nerd, here's a basic comparison chart to tide you over....

I pretty much just wrote things as they came to my mind, and as you'll see, some are more significant than others. The bolded column indicates my favorite when I had a preference.

Morocco	Tunisia
Fresh squeezed orange juice	Fruit smoothie “cocktails”
Ceremonial, yellowish mint tea, poured from a silver teapot at a high height into ornate glasses	Often oversteeped, brownish mint tea, usually kept in an industrial-style water boiler…but it often comes with pinenuts
Shisha illegal at cafés	Shisha EVERYWHERE
Comparative sampling of dialect: Jooj, bzehf, bshal? (two, a lot, how much?)	Zooz, barsha, bu qaddesh? (two, a lot, how much?)
Coffee with cinnamon	Coffee Arabiya with too much sugar
Tajine= a sort of rich stew, made with onions and either a meat (beef and prunes, or chicken and almonds) or vegetables	Tajine= a sort of quiche-type thing, made with egg, potato and spinach. This is a hard call for preference, but I’m gonna go with Tunisia, simply b/c Moroccan tajine is too dang heavy of a meal to eat during the summer.
	Tuna (on EVERYTHING)
Bigger cous-cous grains (easier to eat AND less messy)	Smaller cous-cous grains (drier and more delicious)
Breakfast: yogurt, berber pancakes (baghreer and Msemin) and corncakes	Breakfast: French pasteries, bread with fig or apricot preserves
Spanish and hilariously red-faced, overheated British tourists	French tourists
Locals don’t use silverware; scoop their food with taboona flat bread	Locals don’t use silverware; scoop their food with French baguette
Toilet paper! And flushable.	Toilet hoses and BYO TP, non-flushable
Street food: kebabs, or really disgusting sandwhiches with processed meat, rice, and….ketchup?	Street food: delicious sandwiches with fresh vegetables and fries, harissa or salata mushwiya for a dressing, and your choice of tuna, chicken, schwarma, kefta, tajine, omlette, merguez….all for dirt cheap!
Better carpets—variety, color and quality	Better jewelry souks—quality, craftsmanship, prices
More elaborate mosaics and fountains	Cooler painted doors and cast iron gates/windows
Better ceramic tiles	Better ceramic bowls/platters
“Salad”—rice with peas, carrots and peppers Salad Moroccaine—tomato, onion and hard boiled egg	Salad Mshwiya—“burned” peppers and tomatoes, puréed with harissa OR Salad Tunsiya—onions, tomato, cucumber and parsley in a lemon vinagrette
Seemingly efficient and well-loved King, with a castle in every major city. I would need more time to scope out the situation fully, but YouTube and Gmail both function without any problems.	Seemingly resented and corrupt “President,” with a well-guarded house in every major city. YouTube and many other sites are blocked, internet is screened, and freedom of speech/press in general is questionable.
French spoken by pretty much all people, although it still correlated with education. English and Spanish also widely spoken.	French spoken by most people, but a definite trend of more educated = better French. Italian and German also fairly widely spoken.