About Me

My photo
Centre, France
I'm a Canadian travel addict. After Travelblogging during two world tours, I'm settling down for a nanny blog during this year in France.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Red-Tape Revolt

Shortly after Ryohei left I had another run-in with the French bureaucratic system - this time not quite as light-hearted as my Christmas-package-retrieval expedition to a far-flung post office. During his visit I had the misfortune of losing my new Visa card in a Paris Metro station. Of course, "misfortune" is the word I'm using to avoid saying that I got what I deserved for carrying my card in my coat pocket; and in the end I was quite fortunate to find that it had been turned in at the ticket booth by a VERY Good Samaritan.

This could have made a great story about how the French don't deserve their reputation for being self-centered and inconsiderate if it weren't for the fact that, once found, my Visa card became a hostage of the Lost and Found labyrinth controlled by the Prefectural Police and the RATP (Paris public transit system). As I watched my Visa card slip from arm’s reach into the depths of a plastic bag and disappear into the safe behind the counter I was assured that it should be available to me at the Police station in no more than 3 working days. I could wait that long.
Watching my Visa card slip away from me...

Ten days later, having given the bureaucrats a little extra time for good measure, I rode into Paris (a two-hour, 20€ return trip) to retrieve my beloved credit card. I practically waltzed into the Police station, one of the first visitors of the morning, armed with every piece of ID I owned and sure that they would have my card at the ready. Not so. The white-collared man behind the counter made a taut grimace as he sucked his teeth and told me that my card was nowhere to be found, the Metro probably hadn’t sent it yet.

I cried.

The man became a little more sympathetic, switching from grimace to watery smile as he searched the system one more time and gave me the phone number to complain to the Metro, who told me, in turn, that they had sent my card the day after it had been lost and found. I walked back into the Police station, now filled with people retrieving everything from umbrellas to passports, and cried again.

“It must be in storage,” they told me. Shoulders shrugged as colleagues united to defend the most inefficient administrative system I have encountered in all my travels; and I wished for the first time ever that a little baksheesh transaction were an acceptable means of rectifying this unexpected “delay”. I left with a bitter taste in my mouth accompanying the salt of all the frustrated tears I had shed.

Suddenly nothing was right.

As I pounded my heels into the pavement on my walk back to the train station my spirit began to revolt. Good wine and cheese were not enough for me to love a country! Good sushi and a beautiful language were not enough for me to move back to Japan. Even the prospect of building a life with a wonderful man was not going to be enough for me to spend another year on the road.

I had to go back to Canada. After a year of rationalizing my every plan – from extending my career-break for a year in France, to the way my life would evolve when I moved back to Japan to be with Ryohei – I lost all sense of rationale. My heart was saying loud and clear, “you need to go home, to communicate, understand the things around you and feel comfortable again.” In the space of a train ride my life plans transformed themselves from an exciting adventure to a hellish nightmare in which I could only envision a very tired me going crazy trying to change who I was at the core.

After two and a half years of wandering the earth trying to find where I fit in best, I had to stop denying that I could ever be anything but Canadian.

I agonized over what to say to Ryohei. If I wasn’t moving to Japan, I was narrowing to the size of a sliver our chances of ending up together. In the end I dashed our hopes and dreams – every plan made in the course of the last year – in one 25-minute Skype conversation. He took it stoically, said he’d be in touch and disappeared.

Juju and L-Daddy, luckily, were compassionate as I poured my enlightened heart out at the dinner table. Unlike me, they weren’t surprised that I was suddenly aching with desire to get back to the place I truly belonged. They experienced the same sensation when Big-L was born and they made their hasty return back to France from Canada.

With their sanction to stay if I want but go if I need to, I’ve begun to seek out other opportunities that will bring me back to my home and native land. Though I still don’t have a definite return date, it’s quite likely I’ll repatriate myself before I reach the 11-month mark of this latest leg of travel-challenge. In the meantime, I’m indulging in a little extra good wine and cheese (and family time, of course!) to make up for what I might miss out on by leaving early.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Bonne New Year Omedetou Gozaimasu!




Despite the excitement of celebrating Christmas in a new country, it was actually December 27th that I had been anticipating most in 2008. Not usually an important day, this year it brought the arrival of Ryohei from Japan.


For those who don’t already know our story, Ryohei is my Japanese boyfriend, whom I met quite fatefully as we were each hiking on our own in the Northern Japanese Alps in summer 2007. With his good English skills and xenophilic tendencies I found in Ryo a hiking partner for the mountains and a friend with whom to share a few days in Tokyo. Even though I left Japan two weeks after our first meeting, Ryohei and I stayed in touch and have developed our relationship through lots of Skype chats and semi-annual visits to one or the other’s country (wherever we happen to be residing).

Thus it was on the afternoon of the 27th that I made my way, heart aflutter, to Charles De Gaulle airport to meet up with Ryo for our second New Years week together. Since Ryo and I share a mutual love for travel, we always make the most of our visits from a tourism perspective. This year the major destination was Paris, with a little jaunt to the countryside thrown in for authenticity’s sake.


For sleeping we rented (via the internet) a sweet little light-blue room inside an apartment in Paris’ “15eme Arrondissement,” one of 20 unique neighbourhoods in the city-centre – walking distance from the Eiffel Tower and the Seine and conveniently surrounded by metro stations for access to all the other important sights we might want to visit.


Though we started low key on the first night with some dinner and drinks at a local café, we spent our entire second day on foot climbing the stairs of the Eiffel Tower, window shopping the Champs-Elysees and skirting our way around the Louvre before catching a show at the Moulin Rouge.


Sadly, by the time we actually sat down for the dancing and champagne at the cabaret, we were so tuckered out from the walking that we spent half the show asleep on the table. I have to say, though, that from what we did see the performance was amateurish and should be nixed from itineraries in favour of one of its competitors like the “Lido” or “Chez Ma Cousine.”


Days 3 and 4 brought more walking, non-shopping around the Galeries Lafayette and a very special dinner with L-Daddy’s mom and companion at the Café du Commerce brasserie – a well-hidden gem serving up French specialties to locals and tourists alike (Ryo and I split a giant medium-rare steak fit to rival the best cuts of Alberta Beef).





Having seen what we could of Paris, we made our way to Juju’s house for a little quietude and Ryohei’s initiation to another version of French life. Since the family were all skiing their hearts out in the Alps, we had the house to ourselves and spent our evenings sipping wine, watching movies and trying out different cheeses and foie gras. We also squeezed in some day trips to nearby Chartres and Versailles to visit the Cathedral, munch savoury crepes and tour the Castle – newly modified with a bizarre exhibition of Jeff Koons’ modern art…


All our activities were grand, but I think the moment de resistance of our countryside stay was our celebration of New Years Eve with some of the family’s friends. Though I originally thought they had invited us to a giant bash, it turned out to be an intimate gathering where they plied us with specialty dishes, wines and cheeses from all the most “gourmand” regions of France. It was a cultural experience the likes of the ones we hope to have when we embark on “home-stay tours” in countries like Thailand and Vietnam – except 100% authentic. Even the language factor was authentic as only one other guest spoke English! But everyone was interested in Japan and after a few glasses of champagne all three languages (French, English and Japanese) were flowing more freely.


This was a perfect near-end to our tri-cultural vacation; the only thing obstructing perfection was the fact that I got the stomach flu on Ryohei’s last night here…darn those European super-germs! So we didn’t get the romantic goodbye we’d both hoped for – more a squeamish half-kiss (I was so scared I would throw up on him). But we’ve vowed to meet up again someday. In the interim here’s hoping for a healthy and happy 2009 for everyone!