It’s hard to believe, but it’s been six months since we moved to France and began this new adventure. An entire half year already; it truly feels like just yesterday that we arrived, and yet the days in perpetual lockdown can seem so long…it’s funny how that works.
Since there’s nothing much to report in terms of fun new cultural discoveries, here’s a photo dump of Paris in the springtime.
We’re lucky that the weather has (mostly) been nice enough to spend lots of time outside, taking long walks. Before the latest round of lockdown restrictions that came at the end of March, we were even able to sneak in a small day trip down to Fontainebleau, a small town about an hour south of Paris. There’s an enormous château there in the middle of the town, and a huge park/forest to explore. I was too busy enjoying the weather to take any photos, but luckily for me Dani is good at documenting these things.
Lucie has also been enjoying the sunshine. Our apartment, while bright, does not get a ton of direct sunbeams, much to the consternation of our sun-worshipping pup. However, she’s recently discovered that our window ledge does get some sun for a short while in the afternoon, so she quickly got over her fear of the ledge and is now back to begging to be let out, and then back in, and then back out, about 30 times a day. (I hesitate to call it a balcony, because it’s not really, even though we can squeeze two small stools out there and pretend we’re on a terrace.)
Unfortunately for her, the direct sun doesn’t last for that long, which means she has to get creative.
My office reopened at the beginning of 2021 to welcome back a limited capacity of workers. We’re each allowed to go to the office one day a week (though not required, since we are a “remote first” company). While I enjoy remote work and truly don’t mind hanging out at home most of the time, I’ve been taking advantage of the one day a week rule and braving the metro up to the 19th arrondissement so I can get out of the house and, you know, see real people on occasion.
Dani’s position with Duolingo is fully remote with no option right now for office access (since their only European presence is in Berlin) but once the COVID situation calms down a bit she might be able to find a nice coworking space. For now, working from home full time doesn’t seem to be a bother.
Here are a few photos of my office:
Normal, quoi.
My commute is a bit longer than I’d like (~1 hour) but I do make it a little harder on myself since I try to minimize my time on public transportation as much as possible; that means about 45 minutes of that hour is actually spent walking, so I only have to use one metro line. But it’s a good way to get my steps in and catch up on some podcasts, so I don’t particularly mind ; plus, it beats having to wake up at 5 AM so that I could get to work by 6:45, which was my typical day as a teacher. I admit that it’s really nice to have a more “traditional” 9-5 job that I can leave at the office when I’m done. My anxiety has decreased exponentially – no more “Sunday scaries” or late nights grading, lesson planning, or worrying about what’s going to happen the next day. I feel much, much more balanced and healthy, mentally and physically.
That’s it for now! We’re looking forward to the next couple of weeks when there should hopefully be a lightening of lockdown restrictions. The latest round has not been particularly successful, as cases remain high (we’re on a plateau of about 35,000 new cases per day) and vaccination remains slow, but it seems like the French government has decided to adopt a “live with it” attitude for the time being. People are very, very tired of lockdown, and it’s been a nightmare for the cultural sector in particular, which has been entirely closed since the end of October.
Hopefully the progressive reopening doesn’t result in a new explosion of cases, and that the vaccination campaign will start to pick up more speed so that we can have some more interesting things to report!
While I wish I could come into the space with tons of fun new updates and glimpses into our terribly glamorous life in Paris (ha!), the reality is that there has been not much to report. My intention was to do a write-up of how we spent Christmas, but the post has been languishing in my “drafts” folder since…well, we really didn’t do anything worth writing about. The pandemic continues to have a profound impact on our day-to-day — most everything here is still closed, and with a newly-imposed 6 PM curfew, we’ve been in an endless cycle of wake up–work–watch some TV–repeat, with the occasional long walk thrown in on my lunch break or the weekend. Our almost year-long, real-life “Groundhog Day” continues, with no end in sight.
Numbers in France continue to rise, and while the French government first insisted that a third confinement (lockdown) was not in their plans, it seems like they’re quickly changing their tune. My boss is insistent that we’ll be in lockdown again at the beginning of February, once the fifteen-day trial period of the 6 PM curfew is up. Rumors have been circulating that the reopening of restaurants, bars, and cafés — once slated for the end of January — has been pushed until April at the earliest. This makes me think my boss is probably right about the imminent arrival of a third confinement.
People in the States tend to think that everyone else has managed to figure out how to handle the COVID situation except for them, and while it’s true that the US is in particularly bad shape due to the federal government’s complete abdication of any responsibility whatsoever toward ensuring the well-being of its citizens, I really can’t say that France seems to be handling things any better as of late. Cases in France are considerably worse now than they were last spring when the government instituted a total lockdown that lasted for two months. The second confinement that coincided directly with our move to France in November brought cases down from the 30- and 40-thousands to about 10 or 11 thousand per day, but we’ve never approached the goal of 5,000 cases originally set by the government that would allow for a gradual reopening.
Still, France seems to be floundering with how to really get a handle on things. I’m generally a fan of big government, but frankly, I’ve been mystified by the approach here. I’m no scientist, but the decisions being made seem contradictory, only partially rooted in scientific evidence (when convenient, it seems) and, worst of all, totally ineffective. Schools and shops (of all varieties) remain open, yet cultural institutions and cinemas/theaters remain closed. Apparently being crammed into my neighborhood grocery store or shopping center, where no one bothers to limit the number of people allowed inside (as they’re supposed to) is fine and safe, but timed entry at the 650,000 square foot Louvre is not? Restaurants and bars are allowed to remain open for takeaway only, but no one ever seems to enforce the “away” part, since the places around my apartment are regularly crowded with scores of people standing outside where the terrace would normally be, drinking and having a grand old time, while the police simply walk by and shake their heads. Why not allow these places to be open, then, where they could at least place tables at a safe distance apart and say you must be seated in order to be served? What’s the point of keeping them closed if people are allowed to hang out in front anyway?
The government has stubbornly insisted that schools must remain open, but workplaces are to institute restrictions (we’re currently allowed at our office one day a week), though the adults I’ve encountered have been infinitely more responsible in wearing masks than the teenagers, who congregate maskless in groups, often passing around a single vape pen to share amongst ten people. Similarly, curfew has not stopped people from getting together at home and having parties — their guests just simply spend the night now. And since the institution of the 6 PM curfew, public transportation and bakeries and grocery stores have become a true nightmare as everyone scrambles to get home and/or get their daily provisions all at the same time.
This is, of course, to say nothing of the completely disastrous rollout of the vaccine here in France. As it stands, if things continue at the current pace, it will take eight years for the population to be vaccinated against COVID. Of course, only about 50% of French people are currently planning to receive the vaccine — needless to say, I am not hopeful we will be getting back to “normal” anytime soon.
Obviously, I am feeling very negatively about all of this. That’s not to say I’m not happy to be here or that things were better in Michigan (they weren’t), but “COVID fatigue” has set in. Moving to a new place is lonely enough as it is — not being able to go out and do things to meet new people and really settle in to a LIFE here has been extremely challenging.
On a slightly brighter note, I got to actually go to work for the first time last week, as our office reopened for us to attend one day a week. It was nice to finally meet some of my colleagues in person, after two months of only seeing them through a webcam. Then, last Saturday, we had our first real snow of the season! It didn’t stick around for long, but it made for a really lovely scene and Dani and I enjoyed a long day of walking around and enjoying the sight of Paris dusted with snow. We might get flurries again this weekend, but I doubt we’ll get anything like the snow we had last week again.
Make no mistake, COVID has totally upended the way we travel internationally — potentially forever. Moving abroad is never easy, even in the best of times, but the pandemic brought some additional anxiety and stress to a process that is already challenging, both logistically and emotionally.
There was one aspect of this whole process of moving abroad that hadn’t changed though, and that remained as (frustratingly) familiar as ever: applying for a French long-stay visa!
The process varies from country to country, but applying for a long stay visa almost always involves a massive amount of paperwork, a lot of prayers, and — more than likely, at least if you’re me — some crying. When we moved to Lyon in 2018, we were under the naive impression that the process would be difficult for Dani since she was applying as a non-traditional student in a language school and easy for me, since I was the one that, you know, actually had a job lined up. Needless to say, we were sorely mistaken — Dani’s morning appointment was over within twenty minutes, whereas mine involved a four-hour wait past my scheduled appointment time, only to be turned away because I did not have the right kind of work authorization paperwork. I had to re-do the entire process — including a second trip to Chicago — and cross my fingers that my passport came back in time before our flight.
What a pile of visa paperwork looks like!
Applying for a French long-stay visa during a pandemic
When we first decided in late spring that we wanted to return to France, we weren’t sure if it was even going to be possible because nearly all flights between the US and France had been grounded and the European borders closed. The French Embassy had quit issuing visas of any variety, and there was little indication as to when they would start accepting applications again. This uncertainty persisted until well into the summer, when finally, in August, the Embassy gave word that they would begin allowing visa appointments again, but only for students, language assistants, and — luckily for us — those applying for a passeport-talent. Once my work authorization paperwork came through in mid-October, we hurried up and booked a last-minute appointment in Chicago, hoping again that our passports would come back in time for our flight that was planned for Halloween (we had already rescheduled about five times).
We were lucky to even get an appointment in Chicago at all; there were so few appointments available because of how severely VFS Global had to limit their staff to comply with Chicago’s COVID-19 restrictions that it had never appeared before as on option on the visa appointment scheduling platform. Plus, Chicago is the only visa center for the entire Midwest, which means it’s almost always booked solid pretty much immediately. There was a slight snafu when the system gave Dani and I two separate appointment times (one morning, one later afternoon), despite the fact that we had applied as a family; thankfully “my” appointment was scheduled for first thing in the morning, so Dani came with me and we pretty-pleased the receptionist who allowed us both to go back together. This was a huge relief, as not only were we worried that our files would be sent separately (rather than together as they were meant to be), but there was also another woman with the same last name as Dani scheduled for a visa appointment at the very same time that afternoon! I shudder to think of the miscommunication that might have happened if the visa agents thought that Dani was applying as the spouse of this other woman.
At our hotel in Chicago, getting the last of our documents ready to print
Compared to our previous visa experiences, the waiting room was nearly empty — it was just the two of us and one other gentleman, whose appointment was ending just as ours began. There were less than a dozen people on the list for the day, a stark contrast to 2018, when there were at least a dozen people crammed together in a single room during my long afternoon of waiting. We had our temperatures checked upon entry, and wore masks for the duration of our appointments, except for a quick minute when we had to have our photographs taken for the biometrics procedure.
We dropped off our half-ton of paperwork and watched like hawks until we saw that our files were bound together into a single envelope that would later be sent to the Embassy in Washington, D.C. for further processing (for the low-low price of only $105 per person…not to mention the cost of an overnight trip to Chicago. WOOF). The turnaround time was going to be tight, but I knew from past experience (both mine and others’) that though it was uncommon, it was possible to get a visa in a week to ten days, if you could prove imminent departure — and we had included receipts for our flights. There was nothing left to do but to cross our fingers and wait.
Our appointment coincided with Dani’s birthday (lucky her) so we went for a beer on a patio the evening before our appointment
A wrench in the plan: France’s second confinement
About a week after we turned in our visa applications, the President of France announced a second nation-wide confinement in attempt to re-flatten the COVID curve after a worrying second wave. Borders would remain closed and travel restrictions within France would go into effect after the weekend of Halloween/la Toussaint, which is typically preceded by a two-week holiday period when children are off of school and families take time to travel. Immediately we began to worry that this new confinement would mean a denial of our visa applications, which meant that my new job was in jeopardy. I had to be in France to begin my new position, since I had signed a French contract. It was already clear at this point that we weren’t going to make our Halloween flight…but now we began to worry that we wouldn’t make it at all. That all of this would be for nothing, and that we’d have to begin the job hunt again, back at square one.
After several days of feverishly Googling the “small print” of this second confinement, we were relieved to find that it at least appeared as though some visas were still being issued, and that holders of a valid long-stay visa would still be allowed to enter France. However, our new departure date of November 12th was creeping closer, and still — no visas.
Nevertheless, we had to continue to plan as though we’d be able to leave on November 12th. Part of the travel restrictions to France include a mandatory COVID test within 72 hours of departure, so on November 9th, we took a chance and scheduled our COVID tests for the following afternoon. That day, as we drove to our appointments, we got the notification from FedEx that a package from the Embassy would be delivered to Dani’s parents’ house that afternoon, while we were in the middle of our COVID tests — our passports! Hopefully with visas inside.
Let me tell you, that 50-minute drive from our COVID testing site (don’t ask — rural Michigan problems) back home felt like an eternity as we tried not to worry too much about what we might find (or not) when we got there.
Would France let us in?
Once we arrived home, we nervously raced to open the packages that contained our passports. My hands shook as I flipped through the pages in search of my visa — and there it was! Thankfully, Dani had received one, too. They were accompanied by a small slip of paper with instructions that we were to ask for a multi-year carte de séjour (residence permit) within two months of our arrival in France.
Our relief was palpable but temporary, because there was one hurdle remaining: actually getting on the flight and entering the country. As you’re warned when applying for the visa, receipt of a visa does not actually guarantee entry into France — that’s up to the border agent. With only 48 hours to go until our flight, we had no time to do any more research or to contact any more authorities to verify that we’d be allowed in — we’d just have to fly into Paris and see!
We all know how that part of the story ends, but that doesn’t necessarily mean our departure was without complication. I’ll have to save that story for next time!
Coming back to this little space of mine to keep my sanity in check during this period of total insanity that is the COVID-19 pandemic. Since I have a little bit of extra time on my hands and we’ve been talking about the importance of daily writing in one of my classes, I thought I’d make the attempt even if it’s just for a few minutes a day.
Today was day 2 of our official “lockdown”; we’re not quite as shut-in as those in other states or countries, but nevertheless, with all university activity going remote and all “non-essential” businesses shut down, there’s just simply not much else to do but stay home. Dani and I also have the added layer of needing to self-quarantine for two weeks, as we’ve just come back from traveling abroad. While Mexico isn’t a hotbed of coronavirus activity, we spent four days at a resort surrounded by people from all corners of the world and took a total of four flights during our travels. So, better safe than sorry.
If I had to pick a word to characterize the last few days, it would be gone. Everything is just suddenly…gone. The town is empty. The grocery stores look like they’ve been ransacked. There’s no toilet paper, anywhere. Normalcy is gone, and nobody knows when it will be back, if ever.
But there are silver linings to be had as well. These strict measures will hopefully help to “flatten the curve” to keep our health care system from being totally overwhelmed. Carbon emissions are down, which means our planet gets a much-needed break. People are helping each other. This morning I took a live yoga class via Instagram, thanks to a studio in NYC that has moved everything to Instagram (for free) while everyone is stuck at home. Even the instructors appear to be teaching from their apartments. The liquor stores in Pennsylvania are shutting down indefinitely, but they put everything on sale, so I was able to get four bottles of my favorite wine for the price of two normally. It seems trivial, but I’m clinging to the little things.
Still, I can’t help but feel some trepidation and fear of what’s to come. It’s the same feeling I remember in the wake of 9/11, one that I was still too young to fully understand at the time: the feeling that the entire world was about to change, but without any idea of what that new future would look like. Perhaps we can make something good of it.
caffeine & a carry on 