Sunday, March 30, 2014

Why am I always lost?

I haven't posted in awhile (pure laziness), but I did want to write something short about how I am always hopelessly lost in this bewildering city.  Most of my complaints are completely unjustified, but I don't think I am the only foreigner to have the same problems.  At least I hope I'm not the only one.  That would make me feel even dumber about wandering the streets with a constant look of confusion and panic.

I have been here for almost three months now, and I am really starting to feel comfortable in Paris. However, that doesn't mean that I'm not still constantly getting lost.  Seriously, it's all the time.  Thank god I live near the Eiffel Tower, so that I can at least use that as a landmark to get home.

It's not all my fault either although I do have to place most of the blame on my terrible sense of direction.  If I have a gut feeling that something is in one direction, your best bet is to go in the opposite one.  Besides the fact that I am spatially challenged, Paris is not an easy city to navigate.  I am used to cities like New York or Philadelphia which are set up as grids, easy simple grids.  But Paris?  No, no, no, Paris had to be different and set up its streets diagonally that eventually meet to form "stars."  I still have not wrapped my head around this.  You think that if you miss your turn, that you'll just take the next one, and you'll arrive at the same street.  Wrong!  You'll end up on a street, but probably not the one you want.



Also, the metro causes me a whole different kind of anxiety.  The metro is extremely easy, and I would like to think I've mastered it.  I even give dirty looks to tourists holding up the line, trying to figure out why the Navigo only entrance doesn't have a slot for their tickets.  Yes, so the metro is great, until you try to get out. Oh, you're meeting someone at Montparnasse, and they didn't tell you which exit to take?  Good luck because you're going to be wandering the streets for a very long time.



Okay so let's say that you've managed to take the correct exit, and now you have to find the street to get to where ever you're going.  Normal cities make sure that street signs are visible and clear, but Paris is not a normal city.  God forbid there's a cafe on the corner (which is pretty much every corner by the way) with an awning, there will be no street side on that side of the building.  You just have to take a wild guess if it's the correct one.



Between all these factors and my absolutely horrible sense of direction, I'm consistently pretty lost.  Warning: if I make plans to meet you somewhere I've never been before, expect me to be at least 20 minutes late and to be extremely stressed out when I do finally arrive.  I do usually find my way, but there is always some cursing and "I hate Paris" thoughts going through my head before I do.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

The Struggles of learning another language

When people ask me why I became an au pair in France, I have many answers - I love the city and Parisian culture, I wanted to do something adventurous, but most importantly, I wanted to finally become fluent in French.  I say finally because I have been learning French since I was about eight, and I'm still not fluent. Trust me, I know how pathetic that is.  What makes it worse is being surrounded by people who speak like six different languages and picking up a new one is like buying a new pair shoes.  This post is not for those people because if you are one of them, you make me feel really shitty about myself.

Pretending to know what someone is talking about

This happens to me more than I would like to admit - I'm in a friendly conversation with a French native speaker, and honestly, I have no idea what the hell they're talking about.  They could be talking goat ice hockey for all I know, and what do I do?  I just smile and nod.  Anytime the other person seems to be asking me a question? I just respond with "oui."  Word of advice - don't do this! I look like a complete idiot about 75% of the time, and I'm not fooling anyone.  Then once the person discovers that you've just been nodding along, not understanding anything they're saying about goat hockey, they will treat you like the complete idiot that you are for the rest of the conversation.



When people ask you if you're fluent

When people ask me this, especially if they've known me since I was a kid and know that I've been studying French forever, I completely panic.  How do I answer this?? Should I be honest and say "nope I still suck at it," or should I lie my ass off and say "uhh yeah pretty much"?  I can't be completely truthful because then they'll know that I'm pathetic, but then there's always the chance that the friend they're with is actually fluent in French and will want to have a conversation.  That's my worst nightmare, so I usually respond with "no, no not at all" which somehow comes off as being modest.



Thinking you've finally got this

You're feeling really good about yourself because you can finally understand everything your teacher says or the journalist on the news.  You think "hey, this isn't so hard, I'm finally getting the hang of this," but then you go to a bar or a party.  You hear people your own age talking to their friends, and you suddenly realize that you know NOTHING. 



When people ask if you want to teach that language

If they could only hear the roaring laughter in my head when someone asks if I will teach French.  Even with a degree in French, yes I said degree, from a real school, I am in no way qualified to teach French.  Those poor kids would sound so stupid.



When people ask you to translate on the spot

"Oh hey, I read this sentence in a book that's French, listen to it once, and translate it for me NOW."  Again, this is my worst nightmare.  I usually have a hard time understanding real French people, but when someone who's not a native speaker tries to say something to me, it's absolute jibberish.   



The moment(s) when you lose all hope

There have been so many times when I want to give up because I'm tired of being publicly humiliated or struggling just to say a seemingly simple sentence.  It's easy to get discouraged because learning another language is really hard.  Let's be honest, those people who know six languages are freaks.  Anyway, don't give up because learning another language is rewarding and not to mention, really useful.  If you're feeling discouraged, take a little break.  Call your best friend from home or watch an English TV show.  Then pick yourself up and try again.

These have been a few of my struggles while learning French.  There are more because let's face it, the list is endless, but if you are in a similar situation, please feel free to share what has been difficult for you!

Sunday, March 9, 2014

What to expect when you're expecting... a visa.

This post is long overdue since I got mine about two months ago, but I did want to sum up what you should expect when applying and receiving your visa to become an au pair.  This is an overly-detailed description of exactly what you have to do and what to expect when you are getting your au pair visa.  Hopefully, some of you who are currently going through the process or anyone thinking about being an au pair will find it useful.

Since I lived in New Jersey, I had to make my appointment through the French consulate in New York. A few days before I sent my DIRECCT paperwork to the family, I made my appointment online.  You will need your passport number on hand as well as a vague idea of when you will be available.  I cannot speak for all French consulates, but the one in New York only had time slots available from 9 am to 12 pm, so make sure that you can take off of work, don't have an exam that during that time, etc.  After scheduling my appointment, I proceeded to change my appointment a total of three times because I was unsure of when the DIRECCT paperwork would be approved and sent back to me.  This was cautious, but in the end, not necessary because all of the documents had been stamped and given to the family within two weeks. Warning: time slots fill up fast! You probably won't be able to make an appointment earlier than a month in advance, so keep this in mind if you need to reschedule.

Now that you have your appointment, read and reread the list of documents that you are required to bring to the consulate.  In New York you will need:

  1. Your au pair contract + one copy
  2. The letter (or email) confirming the dates that you are enrolled in school + one copy
  3. Your visa application with a recent passport photo attached + one copy
  4. Your passport + one copy of the identity page
  5. Proof of your education status in the US + one copy

Note: just because the website says to bring one copy of each document, I would bring two.  I only brought one and had to make more.  Also, I brought all of the documents that I had sent to be approved by DIRECCT.  I was not asked for any of these papers, but it gave me peace of mind while I was there.

When you fill out the application form, try not to do it the day before like I did.  I was rushed, made mistakes, and had to print it out again... many times. Also, you will have to change the page settings when you print out the application because it is in A4 format (the standard French paper size).  This means that it is a bit longer than the standard letter size in America causing a few questions to be cut off.  I can't describe to you how much this stressed me out nor do I like to admit that I had a small (okay not so small) temper tantrum while trying to figure out how to fix it.  Also, make sure you check off "student" as the type of visa you are applying for - you are not considered an employee by France!  I made this mistake and got yelled at by the disgruntled lady at the consulate.

Okay, so you have double and triple-checked that you have all your documents and that you have filled out your application correctly.  Now it's time to go to the consulate.  Depending on where you live, it may or may not be easy for you to get there.  Either way, make sure you give yourself plenty of time for transportation and finding the consulate as it could be difficult depending on your familiarity with the city.  I am a crazy person and left at 6 in the morning to get to my appointment at 11:30.  Obviously I had a lot of free time beforehand.

When you arrive at the consulate, they will ask you for the confirmation email you received for your appointment.  I was unable to print mine, so they just checked my passport.  You will then be given a number, and when it is called, you will give all of your paperwork to one of the consulate's miserable employees.  This is why it is important to make sure you have completed everything correctly and have all necessary documents: they will be even meaner to you if you don't.  Trust me, I found out the hard way. Maybe only the employees at the New York consulate are this awful, but brace yourself just in case - they're not nice.  Imagine DMV workers times 100.

They will ask you when you plan on leaving, so make sure you know the date of your flight.  I didn't have my flight booked yet, but I knew when I wanted to leave.  Do not give a vague answer, you will only make them angrier.

After you have given them your paperwork, you will be asked to wait again until they call your name (which you will barely be able to understand over the loudspeaker).  At this time, they will give your appointment to come and pick up your visa.  I had thought that they would mail it to me, but no, I had to go all the way back to New York for my appointment which was "anytime between 9 and 10 in the morning."  It's more than annoying, but luckily my lovely mother booked a hotel room for the night before for a friend and I. Also, I had to pick up my visa the day before I was supposed to leave.  Just a little stressful.  

When you pick up your visa, they will give you your OFII paperwork which will be very important for when you arrive in France, so make sure you hold onto it! I will writing a post in the future describing this process.

Luckily, I did not have any problems getting my visa, but I know a lot of girls who had to go back to the consulate several times because they did not provide the required paperwork.  Make sure you have everything, so this does not happen to you!  I'm sure it will save you a lot of anxiety.

I hope this helps some of you sort out how to get your visa and feel free to comment if you have any questions!  


Saturday, March 8, 2014

What I miss about the US

Don't get me wrong, I am having an amazing time in Paris, and I am loving stuffing my face with croissants and ALL the cheese.  However, I received an awesome package from my lovely mother this week, and it reminded me that there are some things that the French will never be able to give me.  It's not that I can't live without these things, and I probably never missed or even thought about them before I left, but now, now is a different story.  Finding out that my favorite pasta sauce tastes different in France (apparently I've grown to like the unique flavors of pesticides and hormones) is enough to send me spiraling into homesickness.  In addition to my parents, my friends, my cats, and my car - can't forget about Howard - these are the things I miss about the US:

Shamrock Shakes


It's March which means only two things - it's finally going to get warmer and the best food-related invention since someone decided to potatoes in oil and make French fries - the Shamrock Shake.  It's green food-coloring and mint heaven, and the best possible way to celebrate Irish heritage and culture.  Why, why don't the French sell them?  I'm sure the French would love them too! This is my plea to the McDonalds of France, PLEASE realize your horrible mistake.  You can still make it right for next year.  I will even accept if you don't put whipped cream and a cherry on top like they do in the US, I just need my shamrock!





Snow


I know that everyone in the US will hate me for this, but I really miss the snow.  It seems like every time I go on Facebook or talk to my mother, New Jersey gets another foot of snow.  The one year I leave, the North East turns into Canada.  I'm sure that if I was still home, I would hate the snow right now and never want to see it again.  However, in Paris, it's really not that cold and it rains almost every day in the winter.  Maybe that doesn't sound too bad, but it will make you go insane, especially when you lose your umbrella and are too stubborn to buy a new one.  I wish it snowed and was actually cold.  Maybe just for a week.





Calling people ratchet

They don't know what I am talking about. I'm tired of explaining the definition of a word which technically means a type of wrench.




Southern Comfort

You don't know what I would do for a SoCo lime right now.  Yes, I can go to the Hardrock Cafe and buy one, but my pride prevents me from stooping that low.  If I did go to the Hardrock,  1. I wouldn't tell a soul 2. if you did somehow find out, put me on suicide watch because I'm that homesick  3. I would pretend to have some sort of different accent, it seems better that a foreigner goes there than an American.  Too bad all of my accents suck, I can go from Indian to eastern European to British in one sentence.




Buffalo Sauce

I have been craving buffalo sauce for the past two months, and thank god, my mom sent me a bottle because it's impossible to find a good one in France.  The French definition of spicy greatly differs from ours not to mention that everything 'American' is excessively expensive (I'm talking 6 Euros for peanut butter expensive). I put it on my pizza, I dip my fries in it, I eat it with EVERYTHING, and I am a happy, happy girl now that I can have it again.




Hair conditioner

Apparently, the French don't get knots in their hair.  How? I don't know.  I imagine that they spend a lot of time trying to force a comb through a solid glob of hair after showering.  Have they not heard that we have this amazing product called conditioner that makes your hair shiny and soft and gets rid of knots?  Okay, so you can find conditioner, but it's rare and expensive.




These are a few things I miss about the US, and I am sure that there will be parts 2, 3 and 4 in the future. I am going to go eat some bread now.



Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Le Carnaval de Dunkerque

I spent this past weekend in the north of France, in Lille and Dunkerque, for the Carnaal de Dunkerque. Perhaps the Ch'tis get mocked by the French but not by this American girl.  1. They're food is ungodly good. If I lived there, I would definitely gain about... 50 pounds, but hey, I'd be happy. I had fried Camembert with frites, and I thought I had died and go to fatty-foods heaven.  2. They definitely know how to have a good party.

The beach in Dunkerque.

Okay so let me explain the Carnaval.  I guess it's what Americans would call a festival except everyone dresses in crazy costumes.  Typically men dress as women in the most tacky and outlandish dresses with clashing tights and boas and whatever else they can find.  Everyone also puts on a full face of makeup (my friends decided to give me a nice black unibrow and a huge clown smile), wears masks, wigs, or hats.  It's absolutely ridiculous and oh so entertaining.



Did I mention that everyone drinks heavily during this extravaganza?  It'll be important for the next part of the story.



As you have just about taken all of these glorious sights in, a procession leads you to a square in front of the mayor's office.  This is where things got a little dicey for me, and the alcohol became necessary.  Everyone packs themselves into the square and pushes themselves to the very front in order to catch the fish which are being thrown from the office.  Yes, they throw fish at people.  At the end, they throw a few lobsters which are apparently extra special.

The people in the windows are throwing fish into the crowd.

It gets pretty rough in this crowd. I was thrown and pushed in every direction, I broke my shoe, and was almost strangled a few times thanks to my boas.  I also have a few really awesome bruises that I love to show off as battle wounds.  Anyway, as I started worrying about my well being and dying alone in a sea of drunken people hungry for some fish, I left the center and made my way to the outside of the crowd.  Not an easy task by the way.  My friends and I had a meeting point because it was pretty much inevitable that we would get separated, so that came in handy.  Otherwise, I would be living in Dunkerque right now.

After the fish catching, everyone links arms and walks through the streets.  Unfortunately we missed this part because our bladders had needs (girls ya know?), and speaking of which, I peed in the street in front of hundreds of people.  Not my proudest moment, but when you gotta go, you gotta go.

Yup, that just happened.  They saw... they all saw.

I also did not mention that random people come up to you give you a zeutch, or kiss, on the mouth.  It's said that back in the day, if you were married in Dunkerque, the only time when it was acceptable to cheat on your spouse was at the Carnaval.  Cute. Well the tradition lived on, but it's really not as scandalous as it sounds.  I was terrified of old gross men forcibly kissing me and slipping me the tongue.  However, it's really very tame, and I only received one zeutch (I like to blame my unibrow for my unpopularity).



After a break, you then all join together around a merry-go-round, link arms, and continue crushing each other while running in a circle.  You also sing traditional French and Ch'tis songs during this event and the whole festival.  Obviously, I knew none of them.

We ended the night by forming a random dance party in front of a bar where I learned, again, that I am completely ignorant of all popular French songs.

Sorry for the poor quality, but this is our dance party

So to sum up - fish, kissing, and costumes - what do they have to do with each other? I have absolutely no idea, but whatever, it's fun, so it doesn't matter.  The Carnaval was definitely an experience, to say the least, but despite what I thought before, I will be going again one day.  Although it may take me a few years to prepare myself.


Tuesday, March 4, 2014

The Heineken Experience

Sorry for the delay in my posts about Amsterdam, but I have shit to do and just haven't gotten around to it. Also, I spent the weekend in Dunkerque for a huge "carnival," but I will post about that later.



Anyway, while in Amsterdam, we thought it would be a great idea to go to the Heineken Experience even though I'm honestly not a huge fan of the famous Dutch beer.  But hey, I'll always take an opportunity to drink during the day. My advice - save yourself some money, suck up your pride, and get hammered in a local bar in the middle of the day.  They will most definitely sell Heineken as well... the same beer you pay quadruple to drink inside the "Experience."




Yes, technically you are paying for the museum (I just cringed while writing that), but there's really nothing worth paying for inside.  I had thought we were going to the brewery and that it would be awesome to see the actual beer being made.  But no, they do not make the beer there.  They do however have all the equipment to brew Heineken on the premise, but it's just for display.  I was pretty disappointed, but at least I got some cool pictures out of the deal.




After you see all of the useless contraptions with which any reasonable person would brew beer, you make your way through room after room of glorified advertisements for Heineken.  The Experience did succeed in making most of the "information" interactive, but at the end you felt more or less brainwashed to drink Heineken.  A better approach, in my opinion, would be to have ten rooms each dedicated to a different drinking game.  I would buy Heineken for the rest of my life if I could play endless rounds of beer pong and flip cup.  Then they could even throw in a few authentic Dutch drinking games as well, and that way I could at least say I learned something.




At the end of all the Heineken propaganda, you finally get to drink your two beers.  However, they fail to mention when you're buying your tickets that these beers are only 33 cL, but it was the middle of the day, so maybe it was for the best.  You also get to taste test a beer in the middle of the Experience, but it's practically child-sized.  Still, a nice surprise.  The bar where you drank your two Heinekens was actually really cool - the walls were huge TV screens that displayed different cityscapes.  For five minutes, you were in New York, then you were in Tokyo, and then Moscow.



All and all, the Heineken Experience was fun, but definitely not worth the 18 Euro admission.  Amsterdam has so many better things to offer than this tourist trap, and your time is better spent wandering the canals or going to the markets.  If you want a true Heineken experience, go to your local pub, order as many beers as it takes to get piss drunk, and at least try to meet some Dutch people.  Even if you make a complete ass out of yourself, you'll have a much better experience, not to mention a much better story to tell.