Hogwarts + Liberal Expats = Dream School

Today, we found the little one's future school.  For us, that is no small accomplishment: even back in Portland we had already been devoting some serious brain time to deciding on the best educational pathway for the kid(s) (Public? Private? Montessori? Charter school? French International School? Magnet school for the arts or the environment?).  Once we got to France, our choices at first glance appeared to be limited to the traditional public school system, which is free of charge from kindergarten through university.  Kids typically start attending kindergarten (maternelle) at the age of 3.  Kindergarten lasts 3 years, after which students move on to primary school, then collège, then lycée (pretty much the equivalent of elementary, middle and high school in the US).  There is no school on Wednesdays: instead, students spend the day playing sports or doing other extracurricular activities.  The French school system has a reputation for being relatively rigid, and there appears to be a pretty heavy homework burden starting in some of the younger grades.  Neither L nor I was totally sold on this system, but we were not aware of many alternatives...

Until now.

These are two of the many buildings and open spaces that make up the incredible Steiner-Waldorf school in Verrières-le-Buisson, just 5 km away from us.  Upon the recommendation of our midwife, we checked out the open house this afternoon and were totally sold on the school from the moment we set foot on the property.  We foolishly forgot to bring our camera, so L snapped some quick photos on our super crappy cell phone camera.  I apologize in advance for the quality of the photos, but hopefully you will get the picture!

The school is a Waldorf school and is home to multiple expat families from all over.  They have a sheep on the property, as well as chickens, a woodworking shed, a freaking blacksmith shed (yes, kids learn to forge), as well as pottery, sculpture, foreign languages, and an incredible campus made up of multiple buildings and surrounded by nature.  The kindergarten classes (4 of them) each have 20-25 kids from the ages of 3-6, who share a common class and learn through arts, play, and interaction with the world around them. These are some photos of one of the kindergarten classrooms:

Notice anything crazy?  ... NO PLASTIC!!!  Students arrive at 8:40, and school ends at 3:30.  Students collectively eat lunch in the classroom, that is equipped with its own kitchen.  Even the 3 year olds help set the table, shake out the napkins, rinse plates, and compost the leftovers.

After lunch, the kids get to take naps at school in TRIPLE BUNK BEDS!  Aaaaah!  So cute, I almost died.  The photo is too dark to really see, but each little bunk has its own stuffed animal peeking out from under a soft comforter.  Kids spend a couple of hours snoozing in the afternoon before being allowed to wake up at their own rhythm.

Each kindergarten class also has its own garden play area.

We seriously got giddy walking around the campus.  I don't think we could have dreamed up such a magical school.  There are enormous stone mansions (seriously, think Hogwarts), contrasted with eco-friendly smaller structures and green spaces, and the whole campus just oozes with this awesome hippie commune vibe.  There are tons of international parents (English ones, too!) and maybe, just maybe, if we are really lucky, another gay or lesbian family.  No teacher or parent that I spoke to could think of anyone at the school with same-sex parents, but that response was also usually followed up by "but there's really no reason there shouldn't be!"

So there is a sliver of hope that we can finally connect with some like-minded souls here.  I know that both L and I feel like our own souls were nourished in the 2 hours we spent on campus - imagine the effect of YEARS in such an amazing environment. 

- E

Photo of the day

Saw this quote today... after taking a photo of my bike commute home.  Sweet.

"You can't buy happiness, but you can buy a bike.  And that's pretty close."

-E

4015

4015.  That is how many page views our blog has had since its conception in October of last year.  Holy crap!  That's a tiny number to many seasoned bloggers, I'm sure, but I was pretty surprised that our ramblings for family and friends have been viewed that many times.  I know I've said before how much we both enjoy posting to the blog, even though we don't post nearly often enough, so merci, tout le monde, for staying with us through the periods of drought!

It also occurred to me that while we probably know most of the current blog subscribers in person, there are probably some people who keep up with our posts that we don't actually know, and we should probably do a better job of introducing ourselves and explaining how we even ended up in France.

L is from the Southwestern United States, and I am from the province of Quebec.  L is American, and I am Canadian-American thanks to the nationalities of my parents.  Since we met 6 years ago at a dinner party, we first dated long distance for about a year, and then reunited in Portland, Oregon, where we spent 5 years surrounded by awesome friends, fresh, local, and eclectic food, and beautiful hiking spots.  We are married (thanks, Canada!), registered domestic partners (thanks, Oregon!), and will soon be PACsé (the French equivalent of civil unions), once we assemble the required paperwork.  We are looking forward to the day when our marriage is recognized everywhere so we can stop collecting certificates that are only valid within geographical boundaries! 

Both of us took the road less traveled to our current occupations, although L is currently on hiatus from work to do the incredibly important and exhausting work of raising our 2 year old son (and soon to be baby #2 - stay tuned in the next few weeks...).  Before we met, both of us had traveled, moved far away from our families, and generally been pretty good at building a life in a new place.  We had talked about moving to Europe in a 10 or 15 year plan, but had no idea that the opportunity would come as soon as it did.  We dove headfirst into this move and I can definitely say that it has been more challenging than either of us expected.  Moving to another country is tough; moving away from an incredible support system of friends is tougher. 

When we were researching France before our move, it hit us that there was virtually no information available to same-sex couples emigrating to France, and even less about same-sex parents.  Second parent (same sex) adoption is illegal here, and it is also illegal to provide fertility services to lesbians (and, I believe, to single women regardless of sexual orientation).  In starting this blog, we first hoped to remain connected with our amazing network of family and friends, but second, we also hoped to provide a resource for same-sex couples here and abroad.  I can admit that we have not done a stellar job on the second objective so far, mainly because things move pretty slowly and we are still in the process of going through all of the immigration formalities.  I can safely predict that in the next month or so, there will be more posts on these topics!

Hope you enjoy what you have read so far.  More will certainly follow!

Cheers,
-E

Anyone? ... Anyone? ...Bueller? ...

Ok, pop quiz.  Name the movie/show/product/event associated with the following quotes:

"Car!..."
"Car!"
"Game off!''
"Game off!"
...
"Game on!"
"Game on!"

"Did I do that???"

"My mama always said life was like a box of chocolates..."

"Hasta la vista, baby."

"Are you crying?  Are you crying?  There's no crying in baseball!"

"D'oh!"

"Wardrobe malfunction."

I could go on, but you probably get the picture.  References to pop culture are so ingrained into our daily lives that we can recognize many movie lines even in the complete absence of context (evidence? see above). We use them to relate to people, to lighten a tense situation, to relate one scenario to another.  We use them unconsciously, and this fact was totally lost on me until we moved to a country for which I have absolutely no cultural references.  This essentially means that both L and I are complete French Pop Culture virgins, stepping out of the back woods into a civilization that we do not recognize.

I've mentioned this to colleagues, who come up with lists of movies that L and I need to rent, but the reality is that making up 30-plus years of acquired pop culture knowledge is damn near impossible.  The practical result of this in my daily life is that for months now, I have been enjoying some of my co-workers' random comments or actions and thinking to myself how nice it is to work with such delightfully quirky people - only to find out that the delightfully random comments are actually movie quotes (or, even worse, quotes from TV commercials!).  Boo-urns (See? There's another one for you).

It reminds me of a story I heard on This American Life (I listen obsessively. And you should, too) where a woman recounts this silly song her dad used to sing to her every day.  When she gets to college she randomly sees an old movie ("The Jerk" with Steve Martin) and is utterly crushed that her dad's quirky song is totally lifted right from this movie.  It's way better for you to listen to it youself:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/play_full.php?play=438&act=3

So where does one begin?  Should we press rewind and start with the classic 80s coming-of-age movies?  Apparently, here, that would start with a film called La Boum, but even following the plotlines via wikipedia (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Boum) has left me exhausted.  Should we forget the past and just start fresh with the latest and greatest in French pop culture?  Even thinking through all of this is daunting.  Perhaps we should throw in the towel and just continue watching Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice via itunes...

-E

"Universal Healthcare" - a look at France with a comparison to the US

We follow a blog called Paris Missives which I discovered prior to moving here.  It is also a gay couple who are ex-pats living in France.  He wrote a well written blog on the healthcare that is provided to us here in France.  We are almost on this system...hopefully within the next month we will finally have it.  In the meantime, we have been using private insurance provided through E's work.

Since I have had several people asks me about how healthcare works here, I thought I would sum it up by pointing you to his blog to have a read!  :)

http://parismissives.blogspot.fr/2012/03/frances-universal-health-care-what-is.html  

Thanks to Randy and Jack!

Adventures in Social Security

I figured I would share my conversation today with a representative of the French Social Security Office:

Me: "Bonjour, Madame!"

Sécu Lady (SL): says nothing.

Me: "I am here because in January, my company deposited my file for a social security number.  In February, I received a letter that my birth certificate was not valid because it did not have a stamp on it.  I came to your office in February and your colleague verified my original birth certificate, made a copy, and sent it in with my file.  Just this week, I received another letter telling me that my file could still not be completed because my birth certificate needed to be translated by an official government translator."

SL: says nothing.

Me: "The funny thing is that my birth certificate is already in French, so I am not sure why it needs translating."

SL: "Let me see the letter... Yes, this letter does say that your certificate needs translating."

Me: "But it is already in French."

SL: "That is strange.  Let me call the person who sent the letter... (SL on the phone) "Oh, so that person is not here... Well, I have Mrs. E here in front of me and she has a letter that says that her birth certificate needs to be translated, but it is already in French... (pause) ...Oh, so that is not what she needs at all... (pause) ...But that is what the letter says... (pause) ...Ok then, bye." (hangs up)

SL: "Your certificate does not need to be translated.  The problem is that it does not have an official stamp on it."

Me: "But that is exactly the issue I came in last month for.  The province of Quebec does not put stamps on their official birth certificates.  If you look at the document, you will see that there are 5 security features built right in to the document to certify its authenticity.  The 5 features are literally printed right on the document for people to verify."

SL: "Well, write down everything you just told me on the letter that they sent you.  We can then send the letter in with a photocopy of your birth certificate."

Me: "But the security features don't show up on the photocopy."

SL: "But the letter does not ask for an original.  We only take copies here.  So write down all the security features on the letter."

Me: copy, verbatim, the info from my birth certificate onto the letter, and hand it to SL.

SL: "But this won't work because the security features won't show up on a photocopy."

Me: "I know. That is the problem."

SL: "We don't keep your originals.  We only make copies."

Me: "Well, then, could you include a note stating that you saw the original and that the copy is a valid reproduction?"

SL: "We do not provide that service."

Me: "I do have a second birth certificate that might work - In Quebec, like in France, births are declared via the mayor's office, and I have an extract from the registry of births that I could bring.  It has a stamp on it."

SL: "Yes, you should bring that."

--- So I bike back home and grab the second certificate, and bike back to the social security office, take another number, and get a totally different agent this time. ---

Me: (re-explain the entire situation and hand over my documents)

SL2: "This Quebec birth certificate does not have a stamp on it."

Me: "Yes, that is the problem. I have this second certificate you can compare it to, in order to see that the information is the same."

SL2: "Quebec should really put stamps on its documents."

Me: "Yes, I agree.  Instead they use a much more sophisticated system to prevent fraudulent documents, which ironically means that they are less trusted."

SL2: "I will make a copy of your certificates." (makes copies) "Look, your Quebec certificate does not even photocopy properly. The word "void" appears across the photocopied certificate."

Me: "Yes, that is one of the security features that prevents fraudulent copies.  In fact, the very fact that the certificate cannot be photocopied should prove that it is indeed an authentic original."

SL2: "I don't think that the office will accept this.  We should send your original certificate."

Me: "Will I get it back?"

SL2: "No."

Me: "Then I guess I will order another copy from the province of Quebec and have it sent here.  But that might take another month."

SL2: "That is ok.  It will probably take the office that long to review your file and notify you that we need to see the original."


Seriously.  Am I living in crazy town?

- E

And the score is: 3-1 for the pebble.

Yep, this teeny tiny little pebble. 

It has been responsible for no less than THREE flat tires over a 20km span, has left me stranded in the middle of a field, has made me late for steak dinner with the family, and for a department meeting at work.  Finally, though, I think me and bike commuting are back on track.  I found puncture-resistant tubes for my cross bike (sweet - I didn't even know they made those!) which means that flat tires may be a thing of the past.  On the bright side, I am now a hell of a lot faster at patching a tube :o)

- E

Dog Park!

Okay, so I failed miserably at posting this blog entry yesterday, as promised.  I tried, y'all, I really tried, but the bed just seemed too comfortable and I just couldn't seem to stay awake.  So, 24 hours later, I am here to make up for it!

Portland has lots of great dog parks, and we used them frequently when we lived there.  A particularly lovely park (Fernhill) was literally 3 minutes (by car) away, or a 15 minute walk. It was great to head over there on a weekend morning with a coffee in hand, ready to be entertained by offleash dog shenanigans.  If we were feeling more adventurous, a huge plot of BLM land along the Sandy river (Thousand Acres) would be our destination; even further out was a great hike in the Columbia river gorge (Eagle Creek).  The dogs had plenty of opportunities to run free, which gave everyone a nice break from the daily routine.

Fast-forward to France.  Dogs are not allowed in many of the small city playgrounds.  We do have a large park close by, and I sometimes see off leash dogs there early in the morning, but the park borders a major street and I am too afraid of the dogs running into traffic to really let them loose there.  The result has been that in the past 3 months, the poor pooches have not been able to run off leash.  We have two terrier mixes, so you can just imagine the frustration (and energy level) in our tiny apartment!

Sunday, the dogs finally got to run wild.  We had heard about Parc de Sceaux for several weeks, and had been told that it was a nice nature park with trails and an off leash dog area.  Sold!  Since we don't have a car, however, the ride to the park was a little different than the dogs were used to:

Yep, we took the train with the dogs.  Officially, according to the RER rules, we are supposed to purchase reduced-fare tickets for each dog (equivalent of the fare for a 4 to 10 year old).  I will let you guess where I stood on this policy.

The dogs did pretty well on the train - a little shaking, a few tiny whines, but no barking or crying.  Of course, the little one thought it was h-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s that his dogs were riding the train with him.  We made it to the RER stop, walked through a gorgeous neighborhood of mansions, and finally found Parc de Sceaux.  It is absolutely gorgeous... but not exactly a nature park, particularly by Pacific Northwest standards.  I guess this is a nature park 'à la française'...

 The dogs were so stunned that I removed their leashes that they just sat there in stunned silence long enough for me to capture the moment:

Aaaaaand then it was off to the races.  Maple (the one on the left) ran laps for a good 5 minutes before even heading off to explore.  As she darted in and out of the pedestrian traffic, an old man carrying a walking stick kept swinging it along the ground at her as if to trip her.  I was about to write him off as a grumpy old man until I realised he was trying to make her do agility tricks - he wanted her to hurdle his walking stick!
The park includes multiple gorgeous lawns like the one seen above, pavillions to buy coffee and sandwiches, running trails with workout stations along the sides, horseback riding, and some areas specifically reserved for dogs to run.  They had a blast.

  One more note - see the manicured trees?  They are all trimmed into squares with perfectly aligned edges.  This particular stretch extended a good 400m on either side of the path.

The dogs needed baths to wash off all of the nasty stuff they found to roll in, but whatever.  They slept HARD once we got home, and that is sweet for all of us.  I am pretty sure we will be back next weekend...

- E

Allez les Bleus!

E here.  I am a little tardy on the posts and I am going to try to post not once, but twice today!  Let's see how this goes...

So anyway, first topic.  I got to see a Six Nations rugby game last Sunday - France vs. Ireland - at the Stade de France.  The stadium is massive (apparently it holds 80,000 spectators) and we had an amazing view of the field from our seats.  Watching an international rugby match has literally been one of my 'life list' items to check off, so I was SUPER pumped to finally get to see a match live.

The French national anthem is La Marseillaise.  I haven't learned it yet, but got to hear it multiple times during the game.

Before heading into the stadium, there were tons of food tents selling draught beer and merguez sausages tucked into baguettes.  You can get your merguez on baguette "American style", which means topped with a mountain of french fries.  I did not partake in the deliciousness, but next time, it's on.  Once you are in the stadium, however, things are a little different.  North Americans: take a look at the picture below.  Yep, look closely... what is missing?

Give up?

No vendors!!!  Once inside the stadium, people forget the food and the drinks and just focus on the match.  There was a single concession stand (that was only busy during halftime) and not a single vendor selling candy/chips/popcorn/peanuts/hotdogs/sodas/beer/balloons.  Compared to pro or college sports in North America, this might seem shocking, but people here are actually here to watch the game.  And to yell about it.  And to whistle at the refs.

Of course, I had to show some Canadian pride in the stands...

The French were down 17-6 at halftime, but managed to come back to a 17-17 tie.  If it wasn't for an unfortunate turnover in the first half that led directly to Ireland's first try, les Bleus may even have pulled off the win.  What was really nice was that after the game, the team made the rounds of the stadium to thank the fans.  Nice touch!

Stay tuned for post number two... dog park!

- E

French healthcare tidbits

A few things keep sticking in my mind that I have encountered while having appointments.  Today, I had to have blood drawn.  They insisted on sticking me twice to get my blood because I had two separate orders for blood draws...yet, they were both from the same midwife just written at different times.  Odd but I didn't argue or ask questions perhaps I should have.  Oh wait, that would have required I speak French.  I was also shocked at how expensive the labs were compared to the rest of the healthcare expenses we have encountered.  It was 101 Euros for 4 tests.  I had to have a toxoplasmosis test (required when you are pregnant...in fact, most women get tested for this every month of their pregnancy), a rubella test (another one not common in the US), Group B strep (which is common in the US but done via a vaginal culture and not a blood test), and a blood type test because I don't have a "blood card" which verifies my blood type.

I had a trip to the ER recently and after waiting about 4-5 hours, triage, a visit with the doctor, an ultrasound of my legs, and a final visit with the dr, our total was 75 euros.  That is the total for the whole bill not a co-pay or a portion...but what we would pay without insurance.  Luckily, we will be reimbursed that through our temporary insurance.

Have I mentioned how much I love my midwife visits?  She either comes to our home or recently, we have been going to her home because she is about a 6 minute walk away and her husband will most likely be caring for Little One while I am in labor.  We are getting him used to her apartment, girls, and husband...which he doesn't seem to have any issues with because he loves all of the toys!  Her visits are all of 40 euros which is also reimbursed.  Usually, you only see a midwife or OB once a month here while pregnant even late in pregnancy but we have decided on every 3 weeks to get to know her better.  It has worked out nicely and is a nice break from going once a week in the final month.  I believe the total cost for a homebirth (which we are planning!) is 1000 euros which will be reimbursed to us by our insurance.  In general, healthcare is so much more affordable here.  The pediatric appointments cost of 35 euros which the doctor said he feel awful charging us so much...ha!  It would be 10 times that without insurance in the US!

The lack of modesty that I must have has continued with all of my appointments.  I have frequently dropped my pants in front of a few doctors now...  No paper gowns here or cloth ones for that matter!

-L