We're Back!!! First Few Months in Paris

We've started up our blog again and hope to keep you more informed as to our daily life in Paris!

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.

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!

KaoHsiung I

Lotus Pond

Ok. So I haven't posted in forever and I really should have posted this way back in April, but here goes. It was a quick trip, and hopefully I'll be going back soon.

I just took this pic cause it was a big tomb. It's pretty common to see these things around. Hope I get one when I call it in!

I went to visit my friend's chicken farm. 

We saw this cool field full of flowers. It was just out in one of those new development areas. All paid for by the city.

My friend and her nephews and niece. 

I guess in the old days people who were traveling by foot needed to a place to rest, so they built this type temple by the roadsides. This one happens to be in the middle of Lotus Pond.

The "resting" temple at Lotus Pond.

Towers before the resting temple. You can go inside the dragon's mouth and you come out a tiger's mouth!

  

You can feed the turtles before heading into the dragon's mouth with these fish pellets. So many turtles! The turtles are awesome, but I think we are over-feeding them, so let's go to the resting temple.

You gotta go into the dragon's mouth.

Lots of cool pictures around on tiles. 

Inside the dragon.

Chinese "ghosts".

 After going through the dragon and tiger, head to the resting temple. It's about 100 meters, and it goes way out into the Pond.

You have to traverse the walk-way to get to the resting temple. 

After walking this, no wonder they call it a resting temple!

Inside the resting temple. Bottom floor.

Once you're at the temple, you're actually way out on the water. So, everything seems really calm and cool. 

 We'll head here next, just a little ways down the road:

Pagodas not far from resting temple.

There's also a big regular temple right across the way from the resting temple, if you wanna check that out.

These pagodas look imposing even from afar! You go into the dragon and tiger to access them. 

As you approach the pagodas, you'll see all these types of decorations. I'll have to come back to make rubbins of the designs. These reliefs depict different Chinese proverbs. I think it's over a hundred!

 

The inside of the pagodas. Each floor is a different set of gods, I think.

 

On the way back home, we stopped to get some roast duck and watched the lady chop up the duck. 

She does a whole duck in under three minutes. When that meat cleaver starts flailing... scary.

The duck roaster. Looks to be about 100 years old.

Beitou Hot-springs I

This is the public hotspring area. 

Ahhhh the Taipei hot-springs. Actually, there are no hot-springs in Taipei. You need to go a little ways out of the city to find these. Beitou is in the north, and to get to it all you have to do is take red MRT just like you're going to Danshui, but you need to switch to the pink line when you reach Beitou. The pink line will take you to Xin Beitou, which is where the hot-springs really are. 

Once you exit the MRT there are very easy signs to follow to get to where you are going. 

Just outside the MRT there are very easy signs to follow. You don't even need a guide book... you just gotta be a little intrepid. 

Ok, so to get to the public hot-spring, all we need to do is walk through the middle of that big green park there to the East of the MRT and we will reach it. Just keep a look out for the plentiful signs to guide you.

Very easy maps to follow. Be careful, though, some of the MRT maps don't orient North towards the top of the map. This one does.  For example, see below. 

Hmmm... Never, eat, soggy... hey wait a minute!!!

Cool staircase. It leads up to a public library with huge windows set amidst the lush greenery. 

Lots of lush foliage in the park we are walking through. Another tip to reach the public hot-spring is to simply follow the little river. It's a hot-spring river and will lead you right by the public bath. 

A cool place to sit and have some tea. 

View of the hot-spring museum through the foliage. 

Some kids playing on the rocks. I must admit I warn't much interested in museums at that age either. 

Museum has nice architecture. 

A court-yard of the museum.

One of the museum's back doors. 

More easy signs. These are all over the place. Just have a little faith that another sign is just around the corner. 

When you see this staircase and the white wall, you know you have reached the public bath. Don't go down the staircase. The entrance to the bath is on the left. 

Don't try to sneak a pic over the top of the wall. 

Front door of the public bath. 

Rates for the public bath. 

Obviously, we couldn't take pictures inside the bath, but it is really cool. You'll just have to see it for yourself.

After the bath, you can head over to the Plum Garden Residence. Some famous guy lived here a long time ago, but I don't know who he was except that he was a master at calligraphy. The residence has traditional architecture. This place is just after the public bath.

The landscaping is very beautiful.

Inside the front of entrance of the Plum Garden Residence. 

After the Plum Residence you can take a stroll through this forest walk. It's pretty cool and it's not too far out of the way to where we are headed.

Here you begin to see the hot-spring river flowing out of the Thermal Valley attraction. 

Hints of the river through the trees.

Awesome old tree looms over everyone in the river. 

Everybody just hanging out in the water. 

Ancient steps lead to the water. 

Damn, my feet are white!

You can see I am very satisfied. 

After the river you can check out some of the private hotels. They have hot-spring baths, too, but they are way more expensive. The "public" bath is open for a fee of about $400 per person, but it doesn't include a room. You can get a room for about $800 per person for 90 minutes and it includes hot-springs bath and bed. The baths here look really nice, so we'll probably head back for the hotels some time. 

Hot-spring hotel from outside. 

A cat sleeping in front of one of the hotels. 

This is what I really want to see: the Thermal Valley attraction.

This was a cool little pottery shop outside the entrance to the Thermal Valley.

Walk down this way into the trees to get to the Thermal Valley. 

Almost there! 

Naturally, when I got there, it was closed. Tomorrow is a national holiday, so they closed early. 

Oh, well. I'll have to see the Thermal Valley next time. 

Even after the Thermal Valley, theres a lot to see.

Very popular restaurant in the hot-springs area. 

I found a crazy-looking church right in the middle of everything. 

All around the hot-springs area you can find these really cool stairways leading up the mountains to people's houses. See videos below!

Okay, I took too many videos. But I just couldn't stop going up the mountain!

Beitou from the top of one of the staircases.

And now, back down!

Xin Beitou is even more beautiful by night!

Hot-springs hotel at night. 

Most places near the city have pedestrian walkways, but some areas are old or the buildings are in too close, so you just gotta walk on the street! I've never seen someone get hurt and people don't drive too fast anyway, fortunately. 

The walkway by the hot-springs river by night. 

The Xin Beitou MRT exit from outside. Headed back home. 

Well, we missed the Thermal Valley, but there just is too much to do in one day in Beitou. Definitely deserves multiple weekend trips back just to soak in the thermal waters!