The next few blogs will be devoted to 5 Things We Love About Living in Paris and 5 Things That Are a Transition. As any expat knows there are going to be postives and negatives about every abroad experience. The good thing is that it gives us perspective, we learn a lot, and we grow as people. You learn to appreciate what really matters.
5 Things That I Love About Living in Paris
1. Skipping lines:
One of my favorite perks of living in Paris is getting to skip lines with a baby. The French have a very generous consideration towards pregnant women and women with babies. You can skip the taxi and sometimes airport lines, lines for the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, post office, grocery store, the line at Notre Dame cathedral, catacombs, etc. I've never ridden the train or metro with my baby and not had at least 2 people jumping up to offer me their seat. It's awesome. The metro is not very baby accessible because there are miles of stairs and strollers are extremely difficult, but if you do have a stroller someone will always offer to help you carry the stroller up and down stairs.
2. Transportation: We moved from an area where a car is an absolutely necessity to not needing one at all. Paris has an amazing network of metro, bus, and train. You can get anywhere easily and cheaply. Rico and I pay about €70/month for an unlimited transportation pass. His employer is required to subsidize by 50%. Since Ender has his car issues this has been such a relief! We can go everywhere and Ender just sits on my lap which is his preferred method of travel! We were completely home bound unless we could walk back in the States. The freedom is amazing.
3. Tax included in price: I love having the tax already included. Makes adding up purchases so much easier. Having said that though, Europe has extremely high taxes on products. You will never beat the States for cheap, quality products. There just isn’t a great selection here and what there is, doesn’t work very well a lot of the time and is expensive.
4. Beauty and art everywhere: Paris is a delight to the eyes. Everything is gorgeous and amazing.
Chateau in St. Germain en-laye
5. Meal tickets: In France the employer is required to pay a percentage of the cost of the employee's lunch. They do this several ways. Most have a cafeteria with heavily subsidized food. The food is prepared by chefs and is absolutely amazing in quality and taste. The usual price Rico will pay for a meal in the cafeteria is about 4 euro for a complete meal. A lot of the time Rico is away from his job because we travels or works on client site and since he can't benefit from the cafeteria he gets this book of meal tickets every month. Each is worth €8,88 and any place that sells food in France, even the grocery store is required to accept them. Lots of the time we just use these to eat out on the weekend!
5 Things That Are An Adjustment
1. Bureaucracy: This is one thing we continuously heard about before we arrived but you can't understand unless you live here.
Example 1: Getting enrolled in Taipei's medical system and our resident cards took about 1 month. We are still waiting 6 months later in France and likely won't be covered under the medical care for at least another few months. That means all my medication and lab work (not cheap) and Ender's vaccinations and pediatrician visits are all out of pocket. Supposedly we will get reimbursed later on, but tales of paperwork getting "lost" officials not responding, giving wrong information, etc. abound. We were advised not to send all our reimbursement papers at once because it would be "too complicated" and it's very likely our papers would be "lost." Photocopies and tracked letters are an absolute must.
Example 2: we are trying to get our residence permits and Rico desperately needs this in order to leave the country and do his work assignment in Switzerland. It was supposed to arrive in May and he was supposed to get an SMS to his phone letting him know to go pick it up at the prefecture. In early June we were told there was a backlog of applications from December 2016 and not to hold our breaths because their vacations were starting and they would be taking their time. One of Rico's coworkers recently said he never got an SMS and instead went directly to the prefecture and not only was it ready but they asked why he hadn't picked it up earlier. It had been there for weeks! He said he didn't get the SMS. The official shrugged. After hearing this, Rico decided to go in to see about the permit. He went to the main prefecture in Paris. They told him no, they couldn't help him, he had to go to a different one. He took off more work and waited for 3 hours in line, outside in 95 degrees. He got inside and waited an hour longer only to be sent back to the other prefecture. When he told them they had sent him there, they shrugged. Rico’s coworker says we need to learn patience. Things are just going to take as long as they’re going to take.
As someone who likes to get things done this is by far the most frustrating aspect of living here. There are a huge majority of incompetent people in administration (like admin worldwide, lol) and the workplace protections are so great no one can get fired (employers might have to pay up to 2 years of pay for employees who are fired). The huge amount of vacation is also a double edged sword. People are constantly going on vacation and their work waits until they get back. In America we have a very different work ethic. If Rico's company needed to deliver a product people would stay late, the boss might apologize and ask everyone to work a Saturday and have days off in lieu, they work get things done. Not so in France. Of course in France people earn a living wage, have paid holidays, workplace protections, and maternity leave, so what amounts to a small inconvenience for us is a much higher standard of living for everyone as a whole.
2. Toilets: So I got quite a shock when I came here in regards to the toilets and specifically how that relates to cloth diapering. European toilets have no exposed plumbing like American toilets. This means I can't attach a diaper sprayer and I have to "dunk and swish" Ender's diapers. Ordinarily this wouldn't be a huge problem, but for some reason European toilets only have a tiny splash of water at the bottom vs our generous allotment of water (that helps with the smell and skid marks) that we are used to in the States. This makes washing Ender's diaper extremely difficult. I usually have to try to continuously flush to try to get enough water to wash them. Not really saving the environment much. They also don't have toilet seat protectors and the handle to flush is always in a really inconvenient place that you can't really use your foot and must use your hands. Ew.
These two pictures help illustrate our European toilet and the others are courtesy of Google.
3. Smoking: Paris in particular has a huge smoking culture. Everyone smokes. I haven't had too much culture shock, but I will never get over the shock of seeing people with a cigarette in their mouth and a baby or child in their arms. You just don't see that back home. The secondhand smoke is terrible.
4. Washers and dryers: this was really important to me because of the cloth diapering. You can't just use any machine for washing diapers. I really miss my American top loader with an agitator. We have a very good Samsung eco bubble here, but it's a front loader and takes FOREVER. To wash the diapers it take 3 hours and 46 minutes. (Vs 90 minutes back home) Condenser dryers are no bueno either. Condenser dryers use electricity to condense the water out of the clothing. It is transported to a bucket in the machine that you empty after every few loads. I was advised not to get a super energy efficient one because those don't really dry at all. I heeded that and got one that I would say dries 80%. However it increases the temperature of the room (the washer and dryer are attached to the bedroom in the bathroom) by 10 degrees and increases the humidity by 20%. It's not fun. I'm sure I'll be glad of the heat more in the winter.
5. The weather: So far we've had 3 "heat waves" and it's only June, the beginning of summer. So I don't really call that a heat wave. I call it "summer." There is no residential AC in Paris and most shops/restaurants, etc are not air conditioned. The long day (sunrise 5:45 am, sunset 10pm) and the humidity make for unbearable discomfort. Even Rico admitted, "the heat is much more oppressive than in California." In California it gets super hot sometimes, but we have no humidity and a good breeze a lot of the time. Also in California as soon as the sun sets (around 7) it cools completely down and you can air out the house. Due to mosquitoes and it really not cooling down much this isn't possible here. There aren't any window screens in France because they think it “spoils the view” so mosquitoes and flies just come in. We are going to get some Velcro screens, but I wouldn't really trust those at night because they don't fit as well as regular screens obviously. It takes some getting used to.
All in all the cons don't outweigh the postives and we love living here! It's certainly an adventure!
1. Skipping lines:
One of my favorite perks of living in Paris is getting to skip lines with a baby. The French have a very generous consideration towards pregnant women and women with babies. You can skip the taxi and sometimes airport lines, lines for the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, post office, grocery store, the line at Notre Dame cathedral, catacombs, etc. I've never ridden the train or metro with my baby and not had at least 2 people jumping up to offer me their seat. It's awesome. The metro is not very baby accessible because there are miles of stairs and strollers are extremely difficult, but if you do have a stroller someone will always offer to help you carry the stroller up and down stairs.
2. Transportation: We moved from an area where a car is an absolutely necessity to not needing one at all. Paris has an amazing network of metro, bus, and train. You can get anywhere easily and cheaply. Rico and I pay about €70/month for an unlimited transportation pass. His employer is required to subsidize by 50%. Since Ender has his car issues this has been such a relief! We can go everywhere and Ender just sits on my lap which is his preferred method of travel! We were completely home bound unless we could walk back in the States. The freedom is amazing.
3. Tax included in price: I love having the tax already included. Makes adding up purchases so much easier. Having said that though, Europe has extremely high taxes on products. You will never beat the States for cheap, quality products. There just isn’t a great selection here and what there is, doesn’t work very well a lot of the time and is expensive.
4. Beauty and art everywhere: Paris is a delight to the eyes. Everything is gorgeous and amazing.
Nothing compares to seeing sights like this on a daily basis
 |
| Weekend stroll |
Chateau in St. Germain en-laye
5. Meal tickets: In France the employer is required to pay a percentage of the cost of the employee's lunch. They do this several ways. Most have a cafeteria with heavily subsidized food. The food is prepared by chefs and is absolutely amazing in quality and taste. The usual price Rico will pay for a meal in the cafeteria is about 4 euro for a complete meal. A lot of the time Rico is away from his job because we travels or works on client site and since he can't benefit from the cafeteria he gets this book of meal tickets every month. Each is worth €8,88 and any place that sells food in France, even the grocery store is required to accept them. Lots of the time we just use these to eat out on the weekend!
 |
| Normal cafeteria meal in France |
 |
| Book of meal tickets |
 |
| Another cafeteria meal |
5 Things That Are An Adjustment
1. Bureaucracy: This is one thing we continuously heard about before we arrived but you can't understand unless you live here.
Example 1: Getting enrolled in Taipei's medical system and our resident cards took about 1 month. We are still waiting 6 months later in France and likely won't be covered under the medical care for at least another few months. That means all my medication and lab work (not cheap) and Ender's vaccinations and pediatrician visits are all out of pocket. Supposedly we will get reimbursed later on, but tales of paperwork getting "lost" officials not responding, giving wrong information, etc. abound. We were advised not to send all our reimbursement papers at once because it would be "too complicated" and it's very likely our papers would be "lost." Photocopies and tracked letters are an absolute must.
Example 2: we are trying to get our residence permits and Rico desperately needs this in order to leave the country and do his work assignment in Switzerland. It was supposed to arrive in May and he was supposed to get an SMS to his phone letting him know to go pick it up at the prefecture. In early June we were told there was a backlog of applications from December 2016 and not to hold our breaths because their vacations were starting and they would be taking their time. One of Rico's coworkers recently said he never got an SMS and instead went directly to the prefecture and not only was it ready but they asked why he hadn't picked it up earlier. It had been there for weeks! He said he didn't get the SMS. The official shrugged. After hearing this, Rico decided to go in to see about the permit. He went to the main prefecture in Paris. They told him no, they couldn't help him, he had to go to a different one. He took off more work and waited for 3 hours in line, outside in 95 degrees. He got inside and waited an hour longer only to be sent back to the other prefecture. When he told them they had sent him there, they shrugged. Rico’s coworker says we need to learn patience. Things are just going to take as long as they’re going to take.
As someone who likes to get things done this is by far the most frustrating aspect of living here. There are a huge majority of incompetent people in administration (like admin worldwide, lol) and the workplace protections are so great no one can get fired (employers might have to pay up to 2 years of pay for employees who are fired). The huge amount of vacation is also a double edged sword. People are constantly going on vacation and their work waits until they get back. In America we have a very different work ethic. If Rico's company needed to deliver a product people would stay late, the boss might apologize and ask everyone to work a Saturday and have days off in lieu, they work get things done. Not so in France. Of course in France people earn a living wage, have paid holidays, workplace protections, and maternity leave, so what amounts to a small inconvenience for us is a much higher standard of living for everyone as a whole.
2. Toilets: So I got quite a shock when I came here in regards to the toilets and specifically how that relates to cloth diapering. European toilets have no exposed plumbing like American toilets. This means I can't attach a diaper sprayer and I have to "dunk and swish" Ender's diapers. Ordinarily this wouldn't be a huge problem, but for some reason European toilets only have a tiny splash of water at the bottom vs our generous allotment of water (that helps with the smell and skid marks) that we are used to in the States. This makes washing Ender's diaper extremely difficult. I usually have to try to continuously flush to try to get enough water to wash them. Not really saving the environment much. They also don't have toilet seat protectors and the handle to flush is always in a really inconvenient place that you can't really use your foot and must use your hands. Ew.
These two pictures help illustrate our European toilet and the others are courtesy of Google.
 |
| No exposed plumbing for a diaper sprayer |
 |
| If you look closely you can see the tiny splash of water at the bottom |
3. Smoking: Paris in particular has a huge smoking culture. Everyone smokes. I haven't had too much culture shock, but I will never get over the shock of seeing people with a cigarette in their mouth and a baby or child in their arms. You just don't see that back home. The secondhand smoke is terrible.
4. Washers and dryers: this was really important to me because of the cloth diapering. You can't just use any machine for washing diapers. I really miss my American top loader with an agitator. We have a very good Samsung eco bubble here, but it's a front loader and takes FOREVER. To wash the diapers it take 3 hours and 46 minutes. (Vs 90 minutes back home) Condenser dryers are no bueno either. Condenser dryers use electricity to condense the water out of the clothing. It is transported to a bucket in the machine that you empty after every few loads. I was advised not to get a super energy efficient one because those don't really dry at all. I heeded that and got one that I would say dries 80%. However it increases the temperature of the room (the washer and dryer are attached to the bedroom in the bathroom) by 10 degrees and increases the humidity by 20%. It's not fun. I'm sure I'll be glad of the heat more in the winter.
5. The weather: So far we've had 3 "heat waves" and it's only June, the beginning of summer. So I don't really call that a heat wave. I call it "summer." There is no residential AC in Paris and most shops/restaurants, etc are not air conditioned. The long day (sunrise 5:45 am, sunset 10pm) and the humidity make for unbearable discomfort. Even Rico admitted, "the heat is much more oppressive than in California." In California it gets super hot sometimes, but we have no humidity and a good breeze a lot of the time. Also in California as soon as the sun sets (around 7) it cools completely down and you can air out the house. Due to mosquitoes and it really not cooling down much this isn't possible here. There aren't any window screens in France because they think it “spoils the view” so mosquitoes and flies just come in. We are going to get some Velcro screens, but I wouldn't really trust those at night because they don't fit as well as regular screens obviously. It takes some getting used to.
All in all the cons don't outweigh the postives and we love living here! It's certainly an adventure!
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