Up In The France

Paris welcomes us again

2010-05-04T15:26:00.000-07:00

After a long hiatus, Up in the France returns with new installment: how Jay and Cody returned to France and moved into their new home.

As many of you know, Jay and I returned to San Francisco for two weeks at the end of March to take care of a few details that were left unaddressed before our hasty move to France. Primary among these was the need to obtain long-stay visas, which happened with no difficulty on the first day back in SF.

In addition, and equally important, we had to move every bit of furniture and our personal effects from the front half of our house to the basement and other rooms, so that the renovation of our bathroom, bedroom and front room could proceed. This purging, reorganization and renovation was long overdue, absolutely essential to be able to rent our apartment in SF, and for our move to France to be successful -- but that made it no easier. Between working, moving furniture and seeing friends and family during the scare moments in between, we were thoroughly exhausted on our departure.

The flights from SFO to ORD and from ORD to CDG were uneventful. I'm using the term "uneventful" in the broadest sense, including to mean "the flight was so uneventful, we didn't get a wink of sleep overnight." Note: one might be tempted to consider the constant screams of the baby two rows behind us to be "an event." However, considering the duration and volume of such screaming, I think it was not an event, but rather something closer to torment and provocation to fantasize of infanticide.

In this state of mind, we arrived at CDG. At the luggage carousel, 4 out of 5 of our massive bags stuffed with clothes and toiletries and other necessities that are symbolically and literally necessary to move continents arrived immediately. We were entertained while waiting for our final bag by a platoon (or part of a platoon) of American troops hanging out at the same carousel. They were not aware of our entertainment, which added to our enjoyment.

But the fifth bag did not arrive. Long after the carousel stopped spinning, I stared at it, hoping it would cough up a final phlegmy piece of luggage. Alas, we learned, the bag was still in Chicago. We left our address with the airline and proceeded to the rental car.

Now, it's important to tell you that we knew in advance that "move in day" would be difficult and prone to disruption and aggravation. You see, we were moving into a new apartment for which we did not have keys, our stuff was split between the bags that had arrived, the bag that had stopped for day trip in Chicago, and the stuff that I had stored in a wall of cabinets in my office. But we had a comprehensive plan for getting through it. Here is how our day unfolded:

Step 1: Retrieve Rental Car - we arranged with Sixt to rent a car so we could transport our bags to our apartment. We knew another train/metro fiasco would not be acceptable. So we got the keys from the reservation desk, only to find ourselves with a "smart car." Cody, Jay plus one reasonable sized bag would barely fit in a smart car, let alone the half ton of bags we'd assembled. So, back to the reservation desk, for a bigger car, then exiting the parking lot. Step 1 accomplished.

Step 2: Drive from CDG to Rental Agency - this was the fun part for me. I was pumped on a morning espresso, excited to be back in Paris, and ready to take on the driving experience a la Francaise. With Jay and a useless GPS navigator acting as my trusty (and sometimes testy) co-pilots, we took the highway to the ring road to the heart of Paris on rue de Rivoli, all without accident and only a few snips back and forth. We met Stephanie, the fabulous rental agency employee who helped us secure our apartment and taught me to sign my first French check (trust me, it's complicated), and with Stephanie and keys in hand, we drove the few short blocks in circles to our apartment.

Step 3: Arrive in New Apartment (and soak in the relief that we made it -- and also that we actually had secured an apartment and did not got scammed out of huge sums of Euros, which was my irrational fear over the previous two weeks) - we reviewed with Stephanie the current state of the apartment: New wood floors with just a few scuffs, sofa with only minor stains, functioning stove and refrigerator, non-functioning light in bathroom, functioning toilet. Voila! It all checked out.

Step 4: (only 15 minutes later) Say Goodbye to Apartment and Hello to IKEA - our new apartment required linens, towels and other essentials to be habitable. So we drove again from our apartment to the outskirts of Paris where the great blue and yellow monster store of Sweden sat with cavernous jaws, welcoming us to the universal consumer mindf**k party that is IKEA. Our first stop was the cafeteria for Swedish meatballs and more espresso.

Following that, fully dazed, confused, sleep deprived, and disoriented by the jibber jabber of French children and adults enjoying a nice weekday at IKEA, Jay and I wandered through simulations of living rooms, bedrooms and bathrooms, each of which was larger than our entire apartment. We picked out a desk which would comprise Jay's home office, various lamps, towels and sheets, and generally moved through our list of needs and wants with few complications.

Until we got to the drapery. There is a window in our bedroom that faces a courtyard where our neighbors face as well. Of course, of all the places where privacy is important, the bedroom is key. Now, I don't know how many of you (probably heaps of you) know about drape, curtain and hanging systems. I had never given it much thought myself. But I have to ask: what would you do? Faced with so many choices of how the drapes/curtains/whatever would attach to the fixture at the window, which fabrics would provide the right amount of privacy without cutting off all light, and which would "go" with the decoration in an apartment in which you had spent less than half an hour in total, what would you do?

We had a meltdown, naturally. I'm not saying that people in the Paris IKEA saw two Americans screaming at each other about preferences between patterned or plain drapes. Or that "hanging systems" were thrown at each other with ultimate malice. But it's safe to say there were a few people who wondered what was up with the guys with bloodshot eyes who were pawing through the bargain bin and wearing ruts into the floor, pacing back and forth, while running their hands across the drapes decorating the IKEA faux-home/warehouse. If I die and come back as a ghost, there's a likely chance I'll haunt the IKEA nearest you -- there's so much unfinished between me and those drapes...

Step 5: Drop IKEA stuff at home and retrieve other stuff from Cody's office - we only accomplished half this task. After depositing our goods from IKEA, we completely forgot about the other stuff. Subsequently, over the following several days, I brought home a bag of stuff from the work cupboards nightly until they were bare.

Step 6: Return rental car and return to apartment - we drove north this time, heading somewhere near Gare de l'Est to return the rental car. Unfortunately, we weren't quite sure exactly where the rental car place was. It only took two circumnavigations of blocks near the station to find it. Car returned, we then pondered how to get back home. We could have taken the Metro, but at this point in my addled mind, I had a strong fear of confined places, bad odors, noise, people and moving faster than I could under natural power. I also had a strong desire to ride a bicycle. Somehow, in my mind, this was the equivalent to standing at the top of the Eiffel tower and screaming "Je suis arrivé!" And right now, writing from the lovely South American country of Columbia (the chronicles of which will be detailed separately) -- I honestly can't remember whether we took the Metro or rode bikes.

But the rest of the night, I spent assembling IKEA furniture and marveling at my new live which arrived so felicitously.

saying adieu to Paris the first time

2010-03-18T13:11:00.000-07:00

Over the past few days, I've been packing up my clothes, toiletries, papers and other scant possessions that I have here in Paris. Bit by bit, I'm moving these things to a storage closet in my office. Over the next few weeks I'm moving out of my current apartment, visiting San Francisco for two weeks to pick up my visa, then coming back to a new apartment.

This complicated process is a minor inconvenience compared to the hoops that Jay and I have jumped through to find and lease an apartment here. Woe to any American coming to work in Paris -- the real estate market will not be kind to you!

I had heard that French landlords prefer not to deal with foreigners. I have some sympathy for their troubles: 1) tenants cannot be evicted in Winter - it's illegal, 2) tenants can stop paying rent for months before landlords can take any action - meaning that it's not uncommon for landlords to loose out on a full year of rent because of flaky tenants, and 3) I'm sure the taxes on income from leasing property are significant. However, I've just been though six weeks of looking for apartments as a member of one the lowest classes on the social ladder in France: the expatriate, Anglophone, American without a French work contract. So my sympathy for landlords in France ran dry weeks ago.

After many hours of looking at apartments, waiting for real estate agents who never showed up, climbing endless flights of steps to see six-floor walk-up apartments that should have been torn down years ago, we did it! We found a small, one-bedroom, recently refurbished apartment that still retained an old-world charm in a nice, central neighborhood for a reasonable monthly sum.

Yet, once you find a place here, the odyssey has just begun. For French citizens or expatriates with a French work contract, it's fairly straightforward: you pay a deposit, first month's rent (and an agency fee, if applicable), you sign the "contrat de bail", receive the keys and move in. Or, in our case, we also had to put a whole year of rent into a financial instrument (similar to a certificate of deposit), as a guarantee not to flake on our obligation. We also had to get rental insurance and several letters from our bank to reassure the landlords that we're not a risk. All this and we still won't get the keys until we return from our trip.

I should not complain. As Spring creeps into Paris, we will have a lovely apartment in an amazing city with a whole year of exploration ahead of us. And it will be all the sweeter for the pain of working to make it happen.

I'm getting nostalgic already for the six weeks I've been here. I'm saying au revoir to the tiny studio, the damp winter winds, the neighborhood haunts that I've come to know in a short time.

A bientot, Paris! I'll be back soon.

Here are some random photos from the last few weeks:

A delicious meal of "raclette" where you melt cheese on a burner and eat potatoes and meat until you burst. It's like on-demand fondue.

An amazing chocolate-orange-cream cake dessert - light as a cloud.

A riverside park on the Left Bank -- I'm hoping this becomes my "thoughtful spot".

Jay and Cody on our first walk about town.

This is the clock tower at Gare de Lyon.

A carousel in the Jardin de Plantes.
Big crows, I counted one, two, three...

The Jardin de Plantes - very old school park/zoo combo from post revolution days. It could use a more interesting name.

View of the Seine

An elevated park that used to be a set of elevated train tracks.

A car on a house boat.

A church on Boulevard Voltaire.

The elevated park, again.

A living wall.

We approach the Dark Tower.

A view of the Dark Tower from below. There was a wicked powerful and frigid wind that day, so we passed on going to the top, but we hope to someday soon!

Sometimes Paris Is Just Too Cute

2010-03-12T04:53:00.001-08:00

This came down our street today while I was working... just too cute.

I've been on a crusade to use my euro coins rather than let them pile up, so I only had about 1 euro in change to give this guy. Everyone in the apartments on the street was throwing change down wrapped in paper or plastic wrap.

Working From Home, in Paris

2010-03-07T14:26:00.000-08:00

Today I saw the Eiffel Tower up close for the first time in the 3 1/2 weeks I've been in Paris. But I forgot the camera, so I don't have a photo. Oops.

I've been working full time since the day I landed, and haven't had a chance to get out and see much. I've wasted a good amount of time at the mobile phone store (actually, several of them; blog post to come on that), hit up the nearby supermarket regularly, checked out a market (two produce stands and generally pretty disappointing), and now spend an hour and a half 3 times a week with a French tutor at a Starbucks in Saint-Michel (where a tall coffee costs 2.40€).

But there have been some awesome highlights nonetheless, most importantly: FOOD

Bread, bread, bread, omg...bread.
Brie, camembert, brie, brie, gruyere
Saucisson Sec and Cornichons
Raclette (thanks Julien!)
Sandwiches on fresh baguettes with the best tasting mayo ever
Pains au chocolat
Homemade Bœuf Bourguignon
Rillettes du Lapin
Decent wine for 4-5€
Yummy Phở in Belleville

And also some places we've wandered around and stumbled across:

Walking along Canal Saint-Martin (even in the rain, I felt a little like Amelie)
Madeleine Church
Hôtel de Ville
Centre Pompidou (which is just a few blocks from our temporary place)
Rue Montorgueil (where I bought the beef and bacon for my bourguignon)
Rue Mouffetard (where we had some awesome hot chocolate)

And a few photos...

Chinese New Year parade that went down the Boulevard at the end of our street

The statue in Place de la République

View down the river from Pont Neuf

stockholm in the snow on the sea

2010-03-02T09:53:00.000-08:00

Last week I was in Stockholm for about 72 hours to visit a few companies. While I was there, I chatted with H&M folks about supply chain sustainability, with Acne about sustainable fashion and with Electrolux about sustainable consumption. In between all that sustainability, I managed to walk from the old town to the new town and snap some photos. These should explain why I love Stockholm, but they aren't the whole story.

A couple specific reasons:

Swedes are actually very friendly (as a gross generalization). They are not quite as obviously full of inner joy as Norwegians, but they are very nice to foreigners, which I deeply appreciate. They are nice despite having to do things like unblock frozen drains and shovel snow off of rooftops to ensure they don't cave in. It takes a deep well of cultural positivity to maintain good vibes in these circumstances. Don't believe me? Boston is the perfect converse example.

They are also quite smart about design. The airport had these lovely colorful tints on the windows and I stayed in a "design hotel," which had suitcase-shaped light fixtures and couch pillows. Lots of whimsy and color helps them cope with miserably cold winters.

I also like the pretty skylines. These are a couple snaps of the view from the bridge between the old city and the new. They are somehow able to have old and new co-exist side by side, not just co-existing, but actually enhancing each other. Very impressive.

Finally, though I don't know really how Swedes feel about wildlife, any city that takes care of ducks and swans is okay by me. Notice how the swans seems happy even though they occupy precious and soon-to-melt real estate. No doubt there are other places they can stay during the summer.

And this is me, just before I headed to the mothership, i.e. the H&M in Stockholm.
Stockholm, you'll be seeing more of me, I promise.

something is not right with the CDG

2010-02-24T04:33:00.000-08:00

The last thing I expected the first time I arrived in Paris was to find myself on the set of a Barbarella meets Logan's Run trashy science fiction movie set. Yet, upon landing, I wandered slightly dazed into a post-apocalyptic nouveau technologic aero-transport hub that belongs in a galaxy far, far away.

This week, I traveled to Stockholm for work and I as passed through the Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, I was able to put my finger on what disturbed me the first time: There is something vaguely reproductive about the design of the airport.

Despite the lack of bright colors, the curves, portals and chambers of the terminal building remind me of biology class and the complicated wet works that make it possible to pass genes from one generation to the next.

Because most of the materials used are colorless concrete, stainless steel and stucco, being inside the building is like being inside a giant egg.

The most striking feature is the central hub of terminal 1. A series of covered moving walkways carry passengers from floor to floor through the central circular atrium. Transparent plastic tubing covers the walkways and seals them in. While these tubes should evoke fiber optics or something purely technical, their girth and apparent mass are more similar to tree trunks, arteries or ducts. Enhancing the disturbing feeling of passing through an organism are the portals that function like a heart valve to pump blood through the heart.

This is not at all meant to be a metaphor about being born-again entering (or exiting) France. It's more to highlight what a crazy place this is, and I'm sure I haven't even scratched the surface. More to come...

secrets moments (p.s. this title is in French)

2010-02-16T10:20:00.000-08:00

One of the advantages of working in a Parisian office is that there is no pressure to "show your face" at 6 am every day to prove you're a go-getter. That would be a sure way to piss off your co-workers. In fact I don't think I would last a month in that type of environment, let alone many years. Mornings have never been easy for me.

On the other hand, there can be pitfalls to a late opening office. I'm still a relative newcomer and I haven't learned all the tricks that everyone else takes for granted. For example, although I can get in the building either via the reception or a key that I've been issued, the doors to our office are locked every night. To open the doors, one needs a key, yet this key has been a secret to me.

I thought it was like a secret handshake, or more appropriately, a secret decoder ring that others in the office had, but not yet myself. It turns out that the key is actually located in a logical place, although not in plain view, it is accessible. However, I did not know this when I arrived this morning at the office at a respectably leisurely hour, and since no one else was yet there, I could not get in.

Last week, I would have gone across the street to a cafe and sipped a delicious cafe au lait. In fact, that's exactly what I did when this happened before. However, this time, I've not only come to appreciate the still powerful and mighty Euro, I've also figured out that if I'm going to see ANY of this wonderful city between deliverables, I'm going to have to take some unexpected moments to do so. And so began my first trip to the Seine.

It was a frosty morning somewhere around zero degrees Celsius, but today the sun was shining and this had quite an impact after days of only grey skies. So I meandered past the L'église de la Madeleine toward the unforeseen (ha!) Seine, which is a very imposing Roman Catholic church near my office, though it looks more like a public (secular) building than a church. Note: it's better not to cross the street to get close to the Madeleine, because once you have, it's not easy to get back out again, meaning that it's enclosed in a huge traffic circle with few crossing points for pedestrians. Just a tip...

From the Madeleine it's just a few blocks to the gigantic Place de la Concorde, and from there, a bridge takes you to the Left Bank. By this time, my American work sensibility started tugging at me, so I decided to be satisfied with just my glimpse of Paris magnifique and I took this photo to share with you. Next time, I will make it to the river, and perhaps beyond to the Great Tower itself!

P.s.s. I am fully aware that my grammer is suffering, but I will gladly trade it away for being able to shop for a loaf of bread without incident.

Budapest Was Easier to Navigate

2010-02-11T08:03:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I arrived in Paris, after a layover in Frankfurt.

First, I want to note, that on my 45 minute Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Paris we were served free beverages (including free wine) and a free half of a camembert cheese sandwich. Nice. Take note US airlines.

I landed in Paris in light but very large-flaked snow. Cody was planning to meet me at the airport, but due to his own transit snafu, was running late. The text messages were reasonably calm at first and went something like this:

Cody: Running late due to french transit madness.

Jay: Flight was late. Waiting for baggage now. I'll wait here.

Cody: Just transferring in a moment to the RER train to the airport. Which terminal are you in?

Jay (after asking a woman who refused to look up from her computer): Terminal 1. I'm heading toward the RER station. I'll update with my location shortly.

Cody: Ok. Try getting a ticket for yourself if you can. I'm ten stops away

Jay: Ok. Or should we get a cab? I'll be at the RER station in Terminal 2.

...This is where things begin to go wrong...

Cody: Cabs are expensive and can be slow in traffic. But if we have lots of luggage [I did] it could be a better option. We can figure it out when I arrive.

Jay: Crap. RER stations at the airport are closed. There's a connecting bus service. Should I take the bus to Aulnay-sous-Bois or wait here?

Cody: Yes, if you can make it and I'll meet you there. I'm two stops away but we're holding at this station.

Jay: I'll try to figure it out.

Cody: Okay, I'm at Aulney-sous-Bois.

Jay: I'm waiting for a bus at what I think is the correct place. Budapest was easier to navigate!

...Here I seemed to have lost text messaging connection with the outside world..

Then after about 20 minutes of standing in the snow with 70 lbs of luggage, watching buses go by, and getting confusing looks when asking about the RER shuttle bus...

Jay: Can you tell what the bus is? There's 350 and 351 here. I'm going to go back and ask.

Jay: I'm in the wrong place... Stay tuned :)

... I now head to the Terminal 3 RER station, realizing that the shuttle buses are probably there. On my way, a few airport workers feel the need to squeeze through the 2 inches of room on the escalator by my luggage. They're thankful, but I walk onto the train about 5 seconds behind them. Somehow it didn't seem worth it.

... At this RER station, surprisingly, trains are running! I get on one...

Jay: Ugh. Misread signs. Now on RER train. Leaving shortly. Will get off at Aunlay-sous-Bois and meet on the platform?

Still no responses.

After arriving at the station, which was outdoors, I didn't see Cody. I hauled my luggage down the stairs, back up onto a different platform, then back down and up to the previous one. Finally, after collapsing on a bench in the snow, up walks Cody, frozen, not noticing me until I call his name.

He had been standing outside in the snow for an hour. There was, apparently, a huge fleet of shuttle buses at the station heading (maybe) toward the airport. He expected me to be arriving on one of those. I even expected me to be arriving on one of those.

We finally get on an RER train, the queued up text messages begin to arrive, we transfer to the Metro, walk a few blocks, and enter the warmth of our tiny little apartment. It's then that I receive this message:

Cody: This situation is fracked.

Indeed.

Welcome to Paris!

lingua franca

2010-02-09T12:36:00.000-08:00

"A lingua franca (originally Italian for "Frankish language") is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons' mother tongues" - Wikipedia definition

I've been trying to complete one or two Rosetta Stone French lessons per day since I arrived in Paris. This is complicated by a few factors:

1. I feel the need to repeat every word in every lesson to practice my pronunciation. This limits where I can practice, e.g. alone in my apartment (and not very late at night so as not to annoy the neighbors), and it slows down the process.

2. Also, I find the Rosetta Stone pace annoying. Maybe it's because I started with the very basic lessons, but I find myself impatient, blurting the answer out loud, and clicking through the wrong answers, so that the program throws up a big red "X" and sad-face sound. The program is meant to build confidence, not raise blood pressure, but it makes me want to throw my computer through the window.

My other compliant is that the program focuses on all the wrong things. I really don't care how to say circle, square, yellow, red, or the little girl drinks a glass of milk while the lady points at something with her left hand. I want verbs and nouns that I use in every day life, such as "which breakfast pastry has chocolate inside?" and "which of these dishes is from a part of the animal that is eaten by people other than the French?" What I need is a vocabulary that can help me navigate a gastronomy that is obsessed with doing freaky things to animals in the name of haute cuisine.

For example, last night I went to dinner with a friend and former colleague at a "very French restaurant" in my neighborhood. It was lovely catching up with her, hearing about her new career that combines art and sustainability, and how she's managed to move on to do very interesting work. We talked about art, philosophy, politics and culture: it was a very French meal.

But again, I had problems deciphering the menu. She ordered foie gras, and encouraged me to have try some. It was very good and tasted fine, but I couldn't help thinking of little fat ducks being force fed in order to fatten and corrupt their livers so that I could have some tangy meat paste with bread on Monday night.

However, I made a huge mistake with my selection, which I blame on my unbalanced vocabulary. I started with leek soup. For the main course, which by the way is a "plat" because an "entree" is an appetizer (wtf!, I know, counterintuitive), I ordered "fromage" which means "cheese."

BUT, not all fromages are created equal. I ordered "fromage de tete," which literally translates as "head cheese" and which is actually a select group of organs of a cow, namely, the feet, tongue and heart.

Now, she had warned me this dish contained odd meats so I can't claim complete ignorance. But I honestly thought it would be something like tender lamb cheeks in a meaty sauce.

If only....

The dish that arrived has haunted me for several days. At first, all I noticed was some marbled cubes of meat, arranged over a bed of lentils. I "tucked in" and took note of the interesting flavors and soft, gelatinous texture. Yet, after a few more bites, I started to wonder if the cubes were gelatinous due to fat content that had somehow "set", or whether I was actually eating pieces of the hoof. (And it's really amazing and surprising that hoof can be softened like that!)

The next bite I took, I don't think I'll ever forget, because as the piece of meat on my fork came closer to my mouth, I noticed: little white hairs on pink meat with little raised buds. It was clearly a wedge of tongue. At that moment, all the cubes of meat assembled themselves in my mind like the pieces of a three dimensional puzzle and I could see the image of a small, cute, very healthy cow staring at me with questioning eyes, and I just couldn't eat another piece.

Even today, during a meeting where we hosted guests from Sweden, Spain, Germany and the UK, where many of us spoke in English so we could all communicate about the role of business in upholding human rights, I had to wonder about the cow tongue, and what it would say if it could talk. Probably something like, "where's my joie de vivre, you jerk!?"

things you learn through experience

2010-02-01T09:29:00.000-08:00

I arrived in Paris on Thursday night after an ordeal leaving Oslo that involved a passport left in a hotel safe, four train trips and a dash through town, and too many Euros wasted. This was a sign of things to come.

Friday morning I went to the BSR office to join the team, get caught up on emails and project emergencies, and finish a deliverable that was months overdue. (although is it a deliverable if it's not for a "client"? are all commitments created equally? these are questions too profound for this blog post.) Suffice to stay I was in the office from about 8am to 8pm on Friday. Not the French work week I was told to expect.

After leaving the office, I dropped my stuff in the hotel and went out to explore. But I made three mistakes:

1. I thought that I would walk to Le Marais from Opera in order to get my first real glimpse of Paris city streets. What I didn't realize, and contrary to what several people told me, is that Paris is a BIG city. It took me about half an hour to cover the distance, and along Rue Reumer at night, there's not a lot going on. Except: Palais Garnier, also known as Paris Opera, build in 1875 and host to opera and ballet, is absolutely stunning at any hour of the day.

2. It is not advisable to walk any distance in sub-zero temperature with high humidity. Somehow it actually felt colder than in Oslo where there was snow on the ground and it was a dozen degrees colder. Next time, I'll take the subway.

3. I didn't have a specific destination in mind. Now, of course, it's nice to explore and wander around and stumble upon some great place you never would have expected (which did end up happening, by the way), but again, this is not advised in the freezing cold, nor when hunger indecision has set in. I passed by at least one hundred (no exaggeration) perfectly fine eating establishments in Le Marais before I happened upon Falafel Cafe near the Centre Pompidou. The food was amazing or I was just delirious from cold and exhaustion. Either way, next time, I'll make a plan beforehand.

Following that odyssey, I returned to my heated hotel as quickly as possible and cursed myself for botching what could have been a good night out.

The next day I trumped all of these mistakes.

After a really nice yoga practice with Frederique at Yoga Marais (I would link to it but the web site is down), I was wondering around near the Arts et Metier station looking for lunch. I settled on a nondescript brasserie and found a corner table.

Picture me sitting there looking through the menu, not understanding a word coming out of the older, portly server's mouth, and asking for a salade nicoise on the menu and being told they don't have it. I took it in stride and asked for what I thought would be universally available: a croque madame. No, not available. He gave me a few minutes to think, during which I translated about two menu items (both of which didn't appeal) and when he came back I acted on instinct and chose the Andouille grillee with patat frite. I mean, how bad could it be?

Imagine if you will, a thick sausage, somewhat pale of color, tannish, maybe a little pink. Now gently cut the casing and watch all sorts of parts spill out--This was obviously a sausage of questionable integrity, but I didn't worry, I was sure the French could be trusted. Yet, there was an odd smell, somewhat sweet and foul at the same time, like when someone sprays air freshener is an unfresh bathroom.

I'll say this, if you haven't had it, you can't quite imagine the feeling of eating pork that is as chewy as calamari. To keep from gagging, I paired the pork segments with lots of fries and onions. Also, the entire time, I was grinning broadly to show the other patrons how sophisticated and daring I was, how pleased with my choice of andouille grille, and to show them that I could eat the local delicacies with gusto.

Of course, at the time, I didn't know I was eating mainly pig intestines, grinning like an idiot, with pork juice dribbling down my chin...

Cody's D-Day

2010-01-28T11:50:00.000-08:00

I’m writing to you while on an SAS flight from Copenhagen to Paris. J’arrive en France aujourd’hui!

Earlier this week at a two-day meeting in Oslo focused on supply chain sustainability, the chair of the meeting described the agenda as a pair of “D-Days; Day One was Discussion, and Day Two was Deliverables.” Little did he know that I would have my own D-Day shortly thereafter!

The leadup to my D-Day continues to be an adventure it its own right. The experience in Oslo over the past few days included several highlights:

1. The coldest temperature I’ve ever experienced, specifically negative 12 degrees Celsius. After that, I think I’m prepared for any winter chill that Paris has to offer. And I can never complain about San Francisco winter or summer again. Really, it wasn’t that bad and the snow on the ground is really charming in a city like Oslo.

2. I ate my weight in fish. I had baked fish, grilled fish, pickled fish, fish sauce, and secret fish, i.e. fish that I didn’t know I ate over the past few days. I’ve had fish for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I’ve had trout, salmon, scallops, halibut and who knows what other kinds. And I really liked it, but given the option at lunch today, I chose roast beef.

3. It’s a small world after all. On day one of our meeting this week, the head of a Norwegian telecommunications company’s corporate responsibility function described their experience dealing with child labor and gross health and safety violations in the company’s supply chain. On the plane today, I read in the International Herald Tribune an article about the Norwegian law requiring public companies to have at least 40% of board members to be women. Featured in the article was the same woman. Three days ago I wouldn’t have recognized her.

4. I love Scandinavia. The design of buildings, the coziness of interiors, the friendliness to foreigners, the silent way the trains pull into and out of stations. It really is a special place in the world. And I’ve now been to 3 out of 4 of the countries so I need to make sure I visit Finland this year.

5. Never, never, NEVER lock your passport in the hotel safe! It’s just asking to be forgotten. My facebook friends will have seen the ordeal of this morning, my dash across town, the re-booking of flights, etc. But I guess it’s all part of the adventure.

But enough reflection! I think we just crossed the border into France somewhere below the sea of clouds outside the airplane window. I had intended to catalogue my pre-conceptions of France before my arrival, which would have read something like a slapdash amalgam book report on Roxanna, A Tale of Two Cities, The Pillars of the Earth, the Eight and other novels set in France. Not to mention a number of historical dramas, both TV and movies that have shaped my opinions. But now I’m out of time.

These things I’m sure of:

I will enjoy good food, good wine and good travel over the next year.
I will learn to speak French and hold my own in conversations.
I will have the opportunity to do interesting and important work in a new setting.
I will celebrate my 10 year anniversary with Jay in one of the most romantic cities in the world.

Yes, this life is good to me.

The end of denial

2010-01-22T16:42:00.000-08:00

I have harbored an irrational fear for the past several months: that my plans to move to Paris would fall apart and it wouldn't actually happen after all. I was secretly in deep denial that my life was about to change dramatically. The first step to dealing with a problem is to admit it exists, and I just haven't been ready to admit I'm leaving. I've been going through the motions, saying goodbye to friends, packing up some of my stuff, and taking care of paperwork.

This Wednesday, just five days before I would ship out from San Francisco, the notice about my work assignment in Paris was finally emailed to my coworkers. Many of them already knew this was happening, though some were surprised. But for me, it capped a months long journey from a far fetched idea (hatched while Jay and I were traveling this summer through Europe) to an imminent reality.

But it really didn't penetrate until Thursday night at dinner with Jay and two close friends and colleagues. As we entered Kokkari, a fine Greek restaurant in the SF Financial District, I passed by a table in the front room and recognized former mayor Willie Brown sitting with a young beautiful woman (of course!). At that moment, I realized:

1) In every aspect, San Francisco is my home and will remain so, and it's these little moments that I'll miss,

2) When I'm in Paris, I could catch sight of the most famous political or cultural figures and have no idea who they are, and

3) I had precious few moments left before this chapter of my life was written.

After a lovely meal, the dessert below came to our table and I admit I got a bit choked up seeing "bon voyage" written in a drizzled sauce on the plate.

So, what comes after denial? PACKING! Giving up my video game habit. Saying "so long for now" and "you'll see me in two months" repeatedly to everyone I encounter.

And now, just five hours before I board my flight, my bags are packed, I've said goodbye and it's time for the adventure to start. I'm ready, willing and able. Au revoir for now!

Ok, so I'm a packrat

2010-01-15T10:16:00.000-08:00

This morning I shredded my tax returns from 1992 through 2000. Is it wrong that I saved these for so long? Probably. But I've come to my senses.

I haven't had a good reason to purge the excess junk from my life since 1997 when I loaded as much of my crap as I could fit into my car and drove from the east coast to California. Since then I've been accumulating. In 2000 I moved to Australia, kind of in a hurry. Everything went into boxes (everything that wasn't still in boxes from a previous move) and went into storage. No purging happened. When I came back about a year later, all the boxes moved right back in and have been with me ever since.

But now I'm on a tear. I've shredded all of my bank statements, credit card statements, phone bills, electric bills, and tons of other useless papers that I've saved for no good reason since 1997. I've opened boxes that I haven't seen the inside of for 15 years and have thrown 90% of the contents away. Why was I saving 20 half-used notepads, half a ream of paper, a few National Geographics, brochures from every national park I've ever been to? It's all in the recycling bin or on the sidewalk for San Francisco style recycling -- feeding the other packrats in my neighborhood with more useless stuff.

From here on out, though, it gets harder; now I'm getting to the boxes of notebooks and handouts from college and grad school. Even during my first two years out of school, working in the field in which I had 2 degrees (chemical and environmental engineering), I had already started losing my science and engineering book-knowledge from sheer lack of use. I was forgetting the crazy math, the chemistry and physics, the insane equations I had understood so deeply, and the ways to apply the crazy math to solve those equations. The real engineering world I found myself in didn't demand that I know how to describe the velocity of a viscous fluid flowing down a sloped wall or how to use the Laplace transform to calculate the behavior of a PID controller. No, I was in the land of geology hand-waving and cheap solutions to suck contaminated water and soil out of the ground and satisfy the EPA. Math had only a very small place in this, usually only involving budgets. So my hard knowledge was slipping away.

The problem was, and still is, that I have always felt that "what I know" defines a huge part of who I am. But I was bored. If I was going to lose this knowledge anyway, I might as well find a job that was at least challenging to me. After about 2 years, I got sucked into the dot com boom and became a Java web programmer. There was plenty of knowledge to acquire there. It was a huge and fun challenge. It was stressful, which I love. I'm still enjoying some of those challenges today. But I always knew that, if the internets came to a grinding halt tomorrow or solar radiation destroyed all computers on earth, I could go back to my books and notes, re-learn what I once knew, and offer up my skills in calculating turbulent flow through a pipe or calculating the number of theoretical plates in a distillation column. Is there even a remote chance that that's going to happen? Probably not.

So here I am, purging junk from my life, and staring those boxes of notebooks: the proof that I once had that (arguably esoteric) knowledge and my mechanism to reclaim that knowledge, if I ever needed to.

I think, for now, I'm keeping them. Maybe in another 10 years I'll be ready to let go. But right now they're still define big a part of who I am. Except maybe the linear algebra notes. I never really did fully understand that class.

Welcome mes amis!

2010-01-10T19:22:00.000-08:00

We are two gay men moving to Paris to begin a new chapter in our lives, much of which we plan to share with you through this blog.

For the past six years, we've lived in San Francisco, enjoying good jobs, good friends and family, good food and all that SF has to offer. We've been in a long term relationship together for almost ten years and looking forward to many more. Now, with a job reassignment opening up, we've decided to take this opportunity for an adventure in Europe that is sure to be magnifique!

A little bit about us:

Cody was born in California, is about to turn 30, and has been working in corporate responsibility for years. He is pursuing this opportunity to work with companies in Europe in the tech and consumer products sectors. He is a science fiction, comic book, and video game afficionado, but is going to leave these behind (temporarily!) to make room for new interests in France. He's also a late blooming sportsman who considers bowling, softball and yoga to be the pinnacle of physical athleticism.
Jay was born in New Jersey, is in his early mid-30s, is a web software architect and a super inquisitive tech geek. Be careful when posing questions to Jay--he will undoubtedly find the answer. He is a fan of Swedish schlager and maybe soon French schlager, an amazing cook (more to come on this subject), and will one day soon be an Irish citizen.

What we hope to do during our time in Paris:

Eat amazing food. We want to get to know a neighborhood cheese shop, butcher, wine shop, bakery, and produce market in order to expand our culinary repertoires. We will cook and eat the freshest and finest food France has to offer; and when we're too lazy we'll get Moroccan merguez from street vendors.
Learn to speak French. We both made the choice in high school to learn Spanish, so now we are starting from square one with French. We hope to be able to function in France with a degree of poise by the year's end. We look forward to many embarrassing moments as we learn the language through trial and error.
Travel to hidden corners of Europe. Before 2010, we had traveled to Spain, the Netherlands, the UK, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Hungary and Turkey, but there is so much left to see. We'll try to get to some new places "in the neighborhood" and explore the French hinterlands as well.
Get to know Gay Paris (and Gay London, and Gay Amsterdam, etc.). We are extremely curious about how gay men and women in Paris (and the rest of Europe) see their place in society, how they dance and sing when they get tipsy, and what else we can learn from the OG's here (Old-world Gays). Though neither Jay nor Cody was born with the gay fashion gene, the gay decorating gene, or countless other skills our gay compatriots exude effortlessly, we're hoping maybe we pick up some of this from the population at large (at least enough to impress our friends back home).

So, dear reader, stay tuned for updates about our (mis)adventures. The countdown for the move starts now--in two weeks, Cody will be in Europe, followed shortly by Jay.

Let the ruckus ensue.

p.s. Cody's Dad gets all the credit for suggesting the title of this blog at a family gathering last night. We're not quite sure what it means, yet.