WTF France

As in, "Welcome To France", silly. But I stole it, first from David Lebovitz - former pâtissier of Chez Panisse, author of My Paris Kitchen and fellow expat - who introduced us to the concept of WTF days in his blog. Then there was that Taylor guy and his WTF, France show...what they have in common is this really interesting annoyance blended with forgivable fondness for their adopted country.

Putting the old flat up for sale (child not included)

 

2013

Five years ago this week we bought our flat in Sweden. That was after two full years in the country, and one permanent work contract, and a pretty rough level of svenska. It was awesome. So awesome we hope to wallpaper some future kitchen the same way someday. But ... when?

 

2018

In France - year four - I've just finally had our car licensed here (and that was simply replacing Swedish plates with French plates, theoretically simple in the EU!). But it feels like we're as far as ever from buying our own space. And that - maybe more so for an American - goes a long way to making a community feel like a home.

Am I blaming France? No, others have managed it. But listing our obstacles up to now might include:

1. Les titres de séjour - until last year I was officially a visitor according to my French ID card, forcing an annual renewal, and making it illegal for me to receive a salary in France ... because 
2. ... our applications to live under the same visa statute here, one reunited famille in France, were finally denied (after waiting three years) since we'd gotten married in Sweden;
3. Our French: so we've been here since 2014, I finished a Masters in my field in French at a French university, but contracts in French are still as frightening to us as US healthcare must be for un expatrié français;
4. Work - see #3. Since obtaining the right to work, I've interviewed around ... but posts either require more travel than we're comfortable with, or they need better written French than I have today ... so for the moment I continue as bike delivery guy (and studying).
5. Prices are rising, due to: 1) the 2024 Olympics !!! (and airbnb), and 2) very active development of a new metro line and gare about 400 meters from our current flat.

And so we're in the same ground floor 1960s place, as strong a contrast as possible to our Swedish flat: peeling wallpaper, bad natural light, questionable mold and paint for young'uns. But we have an awesome gardien next door, the building has decent heat, and a basement parking that only floods a couple times each winter. And the school district rocks.

L'arrivée: how we spent Christmas, 2013

But I think we're actually ready to pack it all up again, move into a bigger shell. Hopefully before I can't sling wallpaper.

 

 Further reading

Some more Lebovitz - his "first", 2008 - includes a cautionary tale for those coming for the Paris marathon...

About Paul Taylor: A couple years back I found this Brit doing colorful youtube videos called "WTF France?" ... but with less wordplay. He changed to What's Up, France? (owned by Canal+) last year, and more recently has stopped to focus on standup, here.

"What have I got in my pocket?" (expat version)

In sum:

• about $3.63 in Euro coins, ou des pièces (de 50, 10 cents, et même €2 !)
• fifty pence ($0.66)
• a Swedish crown ($0.12)
• ...and a fake plastic euro 'coin' for borrowing shopping carts at our local hypermarché.
• Oh, and the ever-present tissue, biding its time 'till the washing machine.

I must've picked up some of the guys' coin "collection" and mixed it with whatever was left from a boulangerie run. 

So ... why the inane, hobbit-y blog post? I'm looking for a new rhythm, posting one new (ideally interesting) thing weekly. (Having a sick kid at home limits a repertoire.)

Since finally receiving my work visa at the end of summer 2017, I've restarted French lessons; moonlighted as bike messenger for friends at Ma Petite Couche; and participated on a project with the CFH to translate the famous hydrogeology text Groundwater (Freeze & Cherry, 1979) into French. But I'm still looking for the right full-time post.

Till next week!

40 year-old intern (origins)

We moved to France on the cusp of 2014, making it now more than two years since leaving Sweden.

While Sweden was good to us - career advancement for each, nice Skeppshult town bikes, a solid property investment, couple kids - France has been less generous.

That's not a complaint: as most know, the bread, cheese and wine are amazing (and I assume the basis for most of Hemingway, though I've not read Movable Feast); public healthcare, transport, and free education are benefits an American never, ever takes for granted (even if they were easier to define in Scandinavia); and we're enjoying the proud French culture and heritage (even the sewer museum kicks butt).

But Sweden gave me a work visa on arrival as an "emotional dependent" of my wife (whose research project and visa brought us to Sweden in the first place), even without kids (or being married!). France, par contre, has (inadvertently I expect, there is an issue with numbers of immigrants in the EU just now) made it tougher on this family of four; I can't legally work here, limiting us to my wife's income. In fact I am asked to write a statement each year that I will not pursue activities for economic gain. This would put us under the poverty line in many countries, certainly in Paris, and maybe should have sent us back to Sweden; but after selling lots of stuff (like my mom's house and our Swedish flat) we did math/s, figured we'd invest heavily in France, and are making a go of it. We're lucky to be able to try.

So I enrolled in school. I've often thought about a Master's degree, have even been told my lack of a graduate degree holds back my work performance (ahem), and - dammit, I told myself - now I'm out of excuses. Well ... except I didn't speak French. And French degree programs in geology and related fields are not offered in English.

I took a year of French. It was hard. Our boys were 3 months old and 2 when we arrived; my wife was a first-time-ever professor creating lots of new coursework; and suddenly I was commuting to Orsay each day, watching Top Chef with sous-titres, and doing conjugations until 2am each night, with a dozen motivated Chinese engineering students. I passed, mostly because I have high comprehension - certainly not because of my pronunciation, nor solid control of group 3 verbs...

Which meant last year I could start the degree program. Rather the sitting in with first-year masters students I'd found a way to do the degree in one year ... so began immediately year two (M2) of a hydrology, hydrogeology and soils program (okay, hydrologie, hydrogéologie et sols). Turns out (relatively) high comprehension and 20 years' experience doesn't make things easy!

But somehow I'm nearly through with coursework, and just finishing my first month as an intern (stagiere) at IRSTEA, a French research institution; our Antony office is full of really, really well-regarded numerical modelers who've written various hydrology forecast tools for rivers of France.

I'm not a hydrologist but a hydrogeologist - or geohydrologist (some prefer to exaggerate the geology underpinnings of our science) - with background in groundwater flow and cleanup; my first (and last) class in hydrology was last fall. This takes me back to winning the Renaissance Man award at Occidental some 20 years ago -- an early crisis of personality, distilled to majoring in music while taking a science-heavy geology course load. It's an easy cheat to suggest the reason I don't understand some relationship between meterologic and hydrologic model feedback because it doesn't exist in my universe - but that's not true. The systems are a continuum, and understanding detailed interplay is important for a system perspective.

Finally, motivation. I'm firing up this blog to try to keep myself moving and motivated: on my thesis, pending exams, on visa and reunification applications and reapplications, and on continued language learning. I'll publish some learnings as I develop something called a Verification Scorecard or Scoreboard; discuss my github efforts; and generally try to be productive.

Here's hoping my posts get shorter.

A Year In France, Reviewed

Shortly after we landed in France we were asked to put together a little comparison of life in Sweden and France for other immigrant families who subscribe to this popular expat service based in Paris.

It took me nearly a year to get 'round to it - to the surprise of almost no one in my family.

I'm not sure if this will even be published elsewhere, but I spent too much time on it not to put it somewhere!