A week behind!

Okay.  I've been slacking.  It's been over a week since I last posted.  Shame on me.  How about 2 posts back-to-back?

Last Monday, March 21 was Sandy's brother's last day in Paris.  I took the day off and we decided to go see Sacre Coeur and take a boat cruise up one of the canals.  What a fun day!

We took the metro and got off at the metro stop.  As we were looking around to find Sacre Coeur, Sandy noticed this:

I think we found it.  Sacre Coeur is a stunning church "that looks like the Taj Mahal" according to Morgan.  It's a good thing because that's what it was modeled after.  It sits high on a hill on the north side of Paris and offers the best views of the city.  Here are the steps:

I have to admit it.  We lied to the kids.  "Are we going to have to walk up all of those steps?"  "Um... no.  Of course not."  Yet, we did.  Morgan counted 124 steps from the little balcony area to the main landing area in front of the church.  And we still had a few more sets of stairs to go.  Here are the kids most of the way up.

Unfortunately, you cannot take pictures in the church itself.  It is gorgeous, though.  Here are Jim and Jennifer resting at the top of the hill:

And here are Sandy and the kids at the top with the view of the city of Paris behind them.

Simply stunning view of the city.  Just behind Sacre Coeur is a shopping and artsy district.  There were a number of artists walking the streets hoping to draw people.  Farther on, there was a square of many artists drawing, painting, and selling their crafts.  We're going to go back another time to buy a few pieces of art.

We headed to the boat tour.  We needed to grab some food first.  We found a little corner market and got a panini sandwich and a crepe.  The guy made both fresh right in front of us.  Nick enjoyed watching.

The boat tour was different.  It wasn't on the Seine.  It was on one of the canals, a large portion of which had a tunnel built over it years ago.  Here is one of the portals to the top with greenery growing down:

The tour was very nice.  We went through 8 different locks, got to pass under pedestrian bridges, and watch swing bridges operate:

It was a great time.  We then headed back for some food and rest before Jim and Jennifer headed to the airport in the morning.

We had a wonderful visit with them.  Good sight seeing and even better company!

I'll get another update in tomorrow.  I promise!

Quick Hitters #1

I'm going to do a series of quick hitters.  Instead of the long ramblings I'm normally used to writing, I figured I would write some quick points.  For instance:


There are 118 stairs from the street level to our apartment.  Thankfully, there is also an elevator.

Speculoos.  "European Peanut Butter" tastes like cinnamon Teddy Grahams.  Seriously good.  (Think Biscoff cookies)

Passports do not survive a washing machine/dryer cycle.

Apparently, the only people in Paris that wear khaki pants are American expats from NC.  On the Metro, a pair of khaki pants stands out quite well against the black/charcoal/dark and dreary dress pants of every other guy in Paris.

Do they have the Cirque du Soleil in France?  No, but they have this:

Lunch on a Saturday featured roasted pork knuckle, potatoes cooked in chicken/port drippings, fresh strawberries and bread... all purchased at the open market just around the corner from the apartment.

Apparently, blenders are like gold in France.  The cheapest one we've found is about $50.  To get one with more than 2 speeds would cost around $100.

The only thing more expensive than blenders is board games.  How much would you pay for this?

We've found it for around 45 euro in several stores.  That would make it more than $60... for Connect 4.

The Medical Exam

Monday morning, we had to get up early and head to the train station.  As part of the visa process, Sandy and I have to get a medical exam to make sure that we aren't just coming to France for a year for free medical care.  The issue is that the facility we were assigned to is well south of Paris.  So, we needed to take a few trains and then... I wasn't sure.  How would we get from the train station to the facility?  It looked like maybe a bus wasn't too far off, so I figured I would make it work once we got there.

So we get off the train where we planned... and there was nothing.  Seriously, nothing.  There was a back road that ran near the station, but nothing else.  We started walking up the road.  After maybe a mile or so, we came to a fairly main road and a bus station.  The problem was I couldn't tell exactly where we had to go.  We hopped on the bus for 1 stop and then regrouped.  At this point, I was pretty helpless, but pressed on.  I found a bus stop maybe 1/2 a mile up the road that would take us to where we needed to go, but we had to walk.

As we walked, we went through an area that definitely wasn't safe at all.  It looked like homeless people might've been sleeping there, but we ran into nobody.  Eventually, we got to the bus stop, but we were already late to our appointment.  We weren't sure if they would make us reschedule if we arrived late, but we pushed on.

When the bus arrived, it was already full.  Sandy, Morgan, and Nick barely squeezed into the bus and there was no room for me.  As the door beeped that it was going to close, I sort of jumped in and pushed, cramming me into everyone standing inside the bus.  As the bus took off, we suddenly realized that we had no handrails to hold onto.  We pretty much smashed this poor lady and then gained our balance.  Thankfully we could laugh about it because we were just running into everyone on the bus.  After 4 stops, we were able to get off and walk around the corner to the OFII office.

They didn't have an issue with us being almost 30 minutes late.  They said that we had to start outside, at this mobile imaging truck.  Chest x-ray time!  We stood there in front of 3 orange doors not knowing what to do. 

Someone came out of one of them, so Sandy walked in.  I stepped into door #3 when that room was vacated.  It was maybe 2' x 3' with another door on the other side.  Apparently, the so-called doctor was on the other side.  We figured out that we were to undress from the waist up.  There were no gowns or anything to put on.  This man opened the door and we walked in to get our chest x-ray.  We then returned to our orange box to get dressed and wait for the films.  They handed us our x-rays and we went back into the building for the rest of the exam, which consisted of us attempting to answer questions from people that spoke only slightly more English than we spoke French.

In the end, we were both approved.  We found a different train station that actually had a bus running to it to get home.  The (hopefully) final step will be to apply for residency.  There is a company hired to do that for us, so we just had to sign a couple of forms.

Sandy and I talked after that and realized that we'd both made a big mistake in this process.  I'll take the blame for it completely.  We pushed on when we got off the train, even though we knew we weren't in a good situation.  We put an agenda ahead of the safety of the kids.  I will never, ever let that happen.  Thankfully, we ended up with just tired feet from extra walking.

Fun Stuff!

Okay.  Here are a few pictures of us just having fun.

Morgan trying to be a fashion model at the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Nick pretending to fall into the fountain in front of the Louvre.

The fam sitting in The Louvre

Also, since the kids did such an awesome job walking all over, even though they were tired all weekend, we decided to have ice cream sundaes Monday night.  We had vanilla and dark chocolate ice cream, crushed Oreo's, crushed jumbo Kit Kat bar, melted warm Nutella, and strawberry marshmallow fluff.  Seriously good and fun.

First Visitors

Sandy's brother, Jim, and his girlfriend arrived on Thursday.  We told the kids we were waiting for Uncle Jim and Aunt Jennifer to get here before we really started the touristy stuff.  They arrived, so everyone hold on.

On Thursday while I was at work, they all (including the kids) walked all over Paris for about 3 hours.  Jim and Jennifer spent Friday on their own and on Friday night, Jim's son Kyle, arrived.  He's working in Amsterdam for a few months and flew down for the weekend. We were all up late talking, but we knew we had a busy few days ahead of us.

We bought tickets to go up the Eiffel Tower on Saturday night at 9:30pm, so we had the rest of the day to explore.  We took the Metro to the "Latin District" and enjoyed some wandering through the shops and restaurants before making our way to the Seine and our first views of Notre Dame.  It is spectacular.

We walked along the Seine and looked at the people selling their wares before making our way across the river to the back side of Notre Dame.  On the bridge, there is a railing with fencing along it.  Couples place a lock on the fencing to secure their forever love.  Some of them were engraved with names and dates.  They came prepared.

They have a small playground area right behind Notre Dame.  I think the kids enjoyed it, especially this tilted disk that would spin.

The line for the free entrance to Notre Dame wasn't long at all.  Inside, it was amazing.  Larger and more spectacular than I could've imagined. 

After that, we grabbed some food from some walk up vendors (gyros!) and then parted ways until the Eiffel Tower.

Unfortunately, it started drizzling later in the day and the wind was blowing.  Regardless of that, the Eiffel Tower was great. 

We stopped at the 2nd floor and looked around for a while.  Then we went up, up up!   Boy, you're really up there.  Realistically, the views are better from the 2nd floor because the top is so high up.  Thankfully, there are 2 levels at the top.  The bottom of those levels is inside.  When you look out the windows, it shows you cities in that direction and the distance away.  HELLO AMERICA!

On Sunday, we decided to skip church and go with Jim, Jennifer, and Kyle to visit the Louvre.  I may ave used these terms before, but it was bigger and more spectacular than I could've imagined.  We spent hours there and barely made a dent in the total museum.  We saw many of the well known pieces, including the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, Liberty, and others.  We went back to the apartment and crashed. 

We all have different things that we would consider our favorite parts of the weekend, but I think Nick would definitely say it was meeting his cousin Kyle.  They'd met before, but Nick was way too young to remember.  I think Nick found perhaps the coolest person in the world.  See this? 

This was 2 full days of walking around Paris together.  Aren't they cute?

Actually, Nick acts a lot like Kyle did when he was younger.  Kyle enjoyed having Nick there.  They walked together, talked together, and even made up little games with swords and freezing each other.  How many guys in their mid-20s would spend 2 days walking around Paris doing stuff like that with a 6 year old?  I think Nick may be right.  He could be the coolest person in the world.

Jim, Jennifer, and Kyle left for Amsterdam on Sunday night.  Jim and Jennifer come back next Sunday for a few days before flying back to Ohio. 

Up next... the medical exam for the work visa.

The first full week

Okay.  I was planning on updating this a lot more than I have.  But it's only the first week.  A lot has gone on!

So, last weekend was great.  Saturday is when we really started feeling a little more at ease in the area.  It's also when we got internet access.  Coincidence?  I think not.

On Sunday, we found our way to The Bridge Church.  And when I say we found our way, it was 3 trains and 40 minutes each way.  It's an English based congregation of expats from the US, England, and other countries.  They setup and tear down every week, like we used to do in K-town.  They were wonderful.  The kids enjoyed their class.  They found kids their own ages of the same sex.  It was great.  We really enjoyed the worship and the message.  It definitely felt like a 2nd church home to us on just our first visit.  We left with emails and phone numbers of people willing to help us if we needed anything.  After all, they had all been through that tough transition of moving to France.

I think the funniest thing was that when we said we were from NC, a number of people immediately said "UNC or Duke?"  We met a guy from the Outer Banks that is a UNC fan and a guy that is a Duke fan.  When we said, "Actually, Ohio State!" we got a few laughs.  Overall, we really liked it and enjoyed ourselves.

On Monday, our boxes arrived!

Remember a few months ago when I said I hated stuff.  We loved this stuff.  It was like Christmas morning for us.  These boxes were filled with clothes and other personal items we hadn't seen in well over a month.  These were the pieces of home we decided to bring with us.  Seriously good.

On Tuesday I started work.  My commute is about an hour each way and requires 2 trains and a bus. There was a guy from the office that met me at one of the train stations on Tuesday morning and guided me into the office.  The great thing is that he also told me which trains were the "fast trains" that didn't make all of the stops, so my commute would be less.  I figure that saves me about 20 minutes of commute time per day, which is pretty large over the course of a year.

This week, Sandy found Monoprix.  It's kind of like a Super Target.  Food, clothes, home stuff, electronics... right in the middle of the city.  When we went back a few days later, I was amazed both at how big it was and how close it was.  Things like this will make life a little easier here.

That may sound funny, but we have to go to several stores to get everything we need.  There are a number of small markets within a 5+ minute walk, but it's a pain to not get everything you need in one spot.  Plus the prices were very good there!

At the Monoprix, we bout some cheese, including some actual French bleu.  We bought some fresh pears, too.  That night, we enjoyed a wonderful snack.  Bob and Claudine, you would've loved it. And yes, that's a cider behind it.

Overall, we are adjusting very well to Paris.  We've realized that we can communicate with just about everyone here, we can get around (including Sandy taking the kids on the metro and the bus), and things are good.  Although Morgan was homesick last weekend, she told a friend of hers on the phone just a little while ago "I love Paris!"

Sandy's brother and his wife came on Thursday.  I'll save their visit for another post, though.

Au revoir, my friends!

The voyage

Well, we have internet, phone and a few English speaking channels on the television.  It's starting to feel a little more like home.

So, here is a recap of the trip over. I'll just say that when I first titled this "The Shafer Adventure" I meant the overall adventure of living in Paris.  I didn't realize how many little adventures we would experience... and experience so quickly.

Getting checked into the airport was a breeze.  No issues at all.  We had a layover in Newark and got to spend some time relaxing a little before the 7 hour flight.  The flight to Paris was fairly long and the plane was VERY warm.  Nick ended up getting sick right as the doors opened in Paris.  I think it was a combination of the lack of sleep, long flight, and heat of the plane.  Thankfully, there was an airsick bag close and he got it all in there. 

We got our bags and found our shuttle bus.  There was a guy standing there with a plaque that had my name on it.  I made sure he knew that we had to go to a cargo area to pick up the dogs.  Let the adventure begin.  I had the address of the facility, but he didn't know where it was and it wouldn't come up on his GPS.  Like a typical guy, he appeared to just go ahead and drive around hoping to find it.  We circled Charles de Gaule airport a few times.  He drove into some cargo looking locations which turned into nothing.  He called several people.  He asked random people on the street.

As we were driving around, we passed what I was sure was the building.  Right past that was some sort of police checkpoint.  We were stopped.  As the police officer took the driver's paperwork, we watched as several guys that apparently didn't have their paperwork in order had the license plates removed from their vehicles by the police.  Sandy and I just stared wide-eyed hoping that wouldn't be us.  After about 10 minutes, we were moving again and we still had the license plate.

We found the correct building.  I went into the building and paid an airport fee for processing the dogs and then was told I had to walk 150 meters to the next building and get the paperwork validated by Customs.  Even with the driver accompanying me, I couldn't find the room.  After about 10 minutes of walking around, we found it.  Once that was done, I had to walk back to the first building to get the dogs.

All told, we spent an hour and a half trying to get the dogs.  They were very relieved to see us, and we were relieved to see them.  He then took us to the apartment.  The good news is that Nick slept during much of this time and was feeling better by the time we got "home".

To be honest, I don't think I've ever felt so helpless as I did the first 3 days here.  It's one thing to visit a country for work and get yourself around.  It's an entirely different situation having your family rely on you to get them around and keep them safe.  The safety thing wasn't an issue.

We spent the first few days walking around and figuring out where to shop, what to buy, and where we were going in our own little neighborhood.  We had a few other interesting adventures along the way.

We went to the American Library in Paris and became members.  That will be a huge help with the kids and the home schooling.  It's maybe a 10 minute walk away.  The Metro can get us close to that, too.  We walked under the Eiffel Tower, and as I mentioned earlier the kids ate a Nutella crepe underneath it.  After all, Mrs. Sparks (Nick's teacher) said he should do it!

Just past the Eiffel Tower is our bank.  We went there to get Sandy's bank cards, which she has to sign for before she can take possession.  The problem is that after 2 months without being claimed, they were sent back to be destroyed.  New cards are ordered.

We received the Orange cable, internet, and phone boxes in the mail on Friday.  I hooked them up and realized that we were supposed to get a welcome letter with our log on and pass code, which we didn't have.  We desperately wanted to get connected to the internet so I tried calling a few of the numbers, only to find that I really didn't speak French well enough to maneuver through the automated prompts.  There was an Orange store not too far away, but when we went there, they couldn't help us.  I got a phone book and found an assistance store that I visited on Saturday morning.  After some pleading, the one guy there called the customer help line for me and got me the codes I needed.  That man is my hero. 

Overall, we've realized that the people in Paris that say they don't know much English know more than enough to help us.  We've also realized that we need to learn more French to help us out at times.  The French people we've met so far are great.

I have more to post about the last day or 2, but I'll save that for another posting.

Tomorrow is when our boxes that we shipped will arrive.  That will be great.  The kids will get their belongings that have been boxed for up to 2 months now.  It will help to make this apartment more our home.

A bientot, my friends.

Bonjour!

Hello to all of you back in the States.  This is just a quick note that we got here okay.  We're getting adjusted to the new surroundings, the new time zone, and the fact that we are strangers in a strange land.  We still don't have internet or a phone at the apartment, but hopefully we'll get that before the weekend comes.  Currently, I'm sitting in a Bistro that has free wifi when you make a food purchase. 

Everyone is doing well.  The kids are very excited.  The kids even enjoyed a crepe under the Eiffel tower today. 

I'll fill you in on the flight, the amazing adventure picking up the dogs, and the current saga of trying to get our boxes delivered tomorrow. 

au revoir!