Highlights (and lowlights) of my life since Italy

Welcome back!  Now that I have time to breath (and write), I would love to catch you up on the happenings of my life since Italy.  After this post I will probably be switching back and forth between posts on Italy and on France.  Good news or bad news first?  Let's do bad first and end on a high note...

After taking the night train back to France at the end of our Italy vacation, Christine and I spent Saturday in Paris, shopping and walking around.  The shopping would have been better had an ATM not eaten my debit card early on in our day!  Thankfully the ATM was next to the bank, so I went inside to report it and they told me that they wouldn't be able to get it out until Wednesday of that week!  But I left them my address and hoped they would send it to me if possible.  Of course I also reported it lost right away.  What a headache.  Although it put a damper on my shopping mood, I still managed to find a classy new trench coat for spring!

(Very) Long story short on the debit card:  I have a new one and everything is now back to normal.  Short side note:  there is perhaps nothing less fun and more frustrating than trying to discuss a problem with french banks on the phone.  

Unless, of course, you include desperately trying to understand the internet tech support guy who would quite clearly rather do anything else than provide internet tech support to you over the phone.  Oh yes, I had the good fortune to experience that this week as well.  Long story short there:  I started crying in a Macintosh/Apple store (very embarassing, no sympathy, mercifully quick exit), came to a dead end with the phone tech support guy, and eventually was saved by the brave, kind technician that personally came to the house to fix the problem.  I am now content and connected!!

Finally, in order to complete my visa, I have to gather a lot of documents and take them to the Prefecture (a gov. office) to go through the process of obtaining a carte de séjour (long stay card).  Having already visited the Prefecture twice (thinking, ever mistaken, that I was completely prepared), I returned last Friday to find that I still don't have what they need!!  They required that I open a French bank account to prove I have enough money to live on each month, and after I put enough money in for one month, they said that I have to put enough in for the whole time I am here!  Red tape and regulations are so so exhausting :(

Now for the bright side of things!  Yay!  I have been to a number of movies recently, all of them good.  I saw Sans Plus Attendre (Without Waiting Any Longer- The Bucket List in english release) with Soka last week, and the voices were dubbed into French!  It was so funny to see Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman and to hear French words!  I got used to it pretty quickly and it turned out to be pretty good- we laughed, cried, the works.  

Since then I have seen three other movies: Paris, Le Cahier (The Notebook- Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame in english release), and Les Femmes de l'Ombre (The Women of the Shadows).  Each was very different from the others and they were all good in their own ways.  I'd like to give a special mention to Le Cahier, which was directed by a 19 year old Iranian girl.  The subject of the film is a 6 year old girl in Afghanistan who wants to go to school like the little boy who lives next door.  It was sweet at times, but also often disturbing.  Les Femmes de l'Ombre was about WWII women who performed a special mission to aid the Allied cause in the days leading up to Jour J (D-Day).  It was a very emotional movie, I was already crying when the opening credits ran!  

Moving on in political history, Christine and I recently attended a political discussion in which the topic as I understood it from the poster was supposed to be "Diversity of Politics in France and America"- that is to say the various political parties and opinions between the two countries.  We were the only students there, every one else was in their thirties maybe, so a few of them came up to greet us and ask us where we were from and how we had heard about the event (there was a poster at school).  When they found out I was from the U.S., their reaction was often surprised and pleased!  Turned out I was the only American there, and from Iowa no less!  One of the people who approached me was particularly impressed-  he said (in French) "The state that launched Barack Obama!!  Are you a supporter?"  Lol.  I told him that indeed I am.  

Well come to find out, the man who asked me that was the speaker for the night!  And guess what the topic was?  Not diversity of opinion, but diversity of skin color!  A.k.a. Barack Obama! We were all sitting in a small circle to listen to him (there were only maybe 12-20 people there) but the only person he focused on was ME!  Hahaha it was as if we were the only two people in the room.  He kept saying things like "Isn't it so, Don't you think that, Wouldn't you agree, Our Iowa friend here, Have you ever been to..." to me, without actually looking for a response.  It was really something.  Mostly I just tried to soak in what he was saying and keep up, as he definitely wasn't simplifying his presentation for me!  He had recently visited the U.S. and mostly his topic was about how great Barack is for America, what a signal he is of the changing times, and how France is lagging in this regard.  I understood his praise of Barack pretty well, but it was more difficult to comprehend the finer points of his criticism of France. All in all, it was just unreal.  What an experience.  

To close with a a few especially good experiences, last weekend Christine and I visited the Citadelle of Besançon, a large fortification on top of the hill/mountain (I never know where to draw the line between those two) which houses a WWII Resistance Museum as well as a full zoo.  It was amazing to see the real papers, documents, and newspaper articles from during the period of Besançon's occupation.  Also very sobering.  The zoo, on the otherhand, was a very unusual and surprising find amidst the high stone walls of this impressive landmark.  We saw flamingos, monkeys, a lion, and three tigers, among other things!  

And best and most recently of all, Kate came to visit me this weekend in Besançon!  We spent the weekend shopping, walking around the city, visiting bookstores, and eating tasty regional cuisine!  What fun and absolutely joy to see her and to share my city with her.  (I'll miss you Kate- see you in a few months in good old Ioway!)

Until next time...