Bon Voyage

[Today’s entry is slightly shorter than the others, mainly because I didn’t write enough down on the actual day and now, three weeks later, I don’t remember squat, but also partially because I did less on this day. Took it easy after all the effort; relaxed in the afternoon, did some reading. In a way, what I’m doing in these first few weeks in France – reading and writing – is what I should’ve been doing all summer. Ah well, as one high school English teacher used to say, ‘Better late than dead’. The quotes that stick in our heads, eh? But my activity today, or lack thereof, should explain the format; most of this is thoughts I had at various points throughout the day.]

You know, it is a fight to go out – to go out again today, trying to get this paperwork done, encountering numerous obstacles. I have to will myself into doing it some more and not just staying in this room. Again, I’m sure there are countless exchange students, new missionaries, and others the world over who’ve been experiencing those feelings for decades. I can now relate to them firsthand, a skill that will certainly not remain unused throughout the rest of my life.

I went this morning to try again for my student card. Yes, I know they told me Friday, but that seems like a very long time from now, and if the disorganisation thus far is any indication, not everything they say is written in stone. Sure enough, this time the guy, though he laughed slightly when he saw me, told me jeudi, quatorze-heure. Thursday at 2 p.m. That’s tomorrow. Boom. Persistence.

Speaking of persistence, I also went to the international office to see if the woman had sent our papers back to Bradford that would release our funding. She hadn’t and asked me to come back tomorrow. I highly doubt she will have done it by tomorrow, but I’ll keep coming back. I’ll be the very essence of graciousness each time, but I’ll keep coming back. That’s my plan.

[Whatever you think of that plan, I didn’t actually go back until more than two weeks later.]

Right before I went into the office I ran into a group of French-speaking ERASMUS students and the French girl helping them asked if I needed to go down and do the payment for my student card along with them. She asked in French! And she didn’t recognise me as one of the English speakers, so she asked it at full speed! And I understood! I didn’t know how to respond in French, so I said, ‘Yesterday’ in English, but I understood the question! I will get this.

Went shopping after that; had to withdraw some more money from overseas, hopefully this’ll be the last time.

*     *     *

I was just thinking about when we arrived at Toulouse-Blagnac airport. We swept out of there so quickly – waiting for our suitcases at baggage claim was by far the most time-consuming. The immigration officers or whatever they’re called asked us no questions, they simply (for me) turned to the French visa in my passport and stamped it. Coming to the UK the first time I had to produce my CAS letter, possibly other documents, and they asked me questions. I thought that the laidback-ness of our arrival in France boded well for the registration process and all other formalities awaiting us. It did not, it was a severe anomaly.

[This is the other complaint I referred to earlier that you are meant to take with a grain of salt. It’s not so bad, and like I said then, they gave us mini-fridges! Means I don’t even have to go to the kitchen and risk running into a French person when I wanna munch. That was a joke. I am practicing my French by speaking to French people, yes I am.]

But I’m not just tired of all these formalities, I’m tired of complaining about them, so for both my sake and yours I hope they pass quickly so I can go on to telling all of you about my lectures, my interactions with French cultures, my hilarious language goofs (for that I need to be far more daring – I promised myself I would be), and the people I meet. I’m sure they will; the first few days always seem the longest and hardest. But telling myself that doesn’t help as much as I want it to.

*     *     *

I guess one thing that makes it hard is feeling like a burden, what with not being able to speak even a minimal level of French. If anyone told me I was a burden on the system, I would angrily retort that the system is a burden on me, and that would be true. But I still feel like a burden, coming into their country and expecting them to, at least somewhat, condescend to my level. I need to at least repay them for that kindness.

What also came to me today is that the reason I’m so frustrated with the language barrier is not just that I can’t communicate, but that I can’t express myself. Language has so much to do with how I convey my identity and persona to others that, excluding that, I feel so little. They don’t know me. I don’t fully exist. Now, part of that is valid, and useful to know about myself, but it’s not alright that I am so focused on me and my conveyance of myself. I should be about actions, not words and impressions.

*     *     *

In the distance I see a plane rising into the sky (my window faces the airport, though I can’t see it). Do I wish I were on it?

[Perhaps I should interject that the reason this question comes quickly to my mind whenever I see a plane in the sky is that several years ago, after having been asked at numerous points through my life what I considered home to be, I came up with the following definition: home is where you can look up at a plane in the sky and not wish you were on it. So now I, unbidden, perform that test quite often.]

No. I’ll stick this out a little longer (by a little longer, I of course mean the entire year). I just need to find something to sustain me here, like City Vaults Sunday night jazz in Bradford.

Another reason I don’t wish I were on that plane is that landing in Toulouse on Sunday was the second time in my life I have felt a searing pain in my head during a plane’s descent, and when I say searing, I mean searing. As in it feels like something behind my left eye is growing and trying to escape. My eyeball starts watering and seems about to pop out, every nerve around it is on fire, little pinpricks on my forehead feel like needles stabbing from the inside out, and generally I get the impression my left brain lobe wants to get as far away from my right as possible. It’s awful.

I don’t like to complain about pain, I mean, I am male. I wasn’t even going to write about this originally, but as I’ve been flying all my life and this has only started happening in the past few years, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little worried. The first time was on a flight from Japan to the US last summer. Same sensation. I looked it up a few days after arriving, and at least I’m not the only one who’s experienced it (one of the joys of the internet). Apparently it’s caused by fluid filling some chamber in the head at high altitude, and then expanding as the atmospheric pressure builds. I’ve had some trouble off and on with nosebleeds in my life, and those are always from the left nostril, so some of my piping back there must be wonky. But since I didn’t feel it on my flight back to the UK, I thought (hoped) it was a one-off. Seems it wasn’t. I’ll have to do some more research, especially on potential remedies.

Because it’s not just about being able to comfortably use the fastest form of transportation currently available to mankind. It’s not just that I enjoy flying and want to continue to enjoy it. Flying, for me, is much more than those things; it is far more sentimental.

No, I don’t have childhood ambitions to be a bird or Superman that I’m secretly clinging to (though some of you might take issue with the latter claim). But I have been flying longer than I can remember. I’ve lived in a lot of different places, and airplanes have taken me between almost all of those places. You could say that the cabin of a jumbo jet has been a relatively constant physical location (with irony as my elixir) throughout my life, something I cannot say for any house in which I’ve lived. So air travel is a glue that holds all my life experiences together. After long periods without it, I miss flying like I imagine other people miss their hometown. As for the place I sometimes call my hometown, Yokohama, well, yes, I love it there, but I love it because it’s cool. I probably have stronger feelings for Tokyo and my high school, but Yokohama is cooler so I call it my hometown. I’m not sure that’s completely legit.

Going back to the previous point, I suppose that the reason my definition of home is so useful for me is that it’s not merely asking if I wish I were in a different place, it is asking if the place I am in right now beats being on a plane, a wondrous long-haul plane flight, with all the home-ness I attach to that experience. To be told that I cannot, or probably shouldn’t, experience that anymore would be, in my mind, akin to someone who finds out that they, for whatever reason, cannot return to their home, though I don’t wish to trivialise those actually in such situations. I realise that my mentality, or perhaps sentimentality, rather, is born very much of first world privileges.

There’s more I could say about this, such as that one thing I like about being on a plane (long-haul, of course) is that for the duration of that journey, everyone is from the same place and they are going to the same place. There is none of this pesky, ‘Where are you from?’ business. And likely some of what I have said could be said in a better way. But I will do that at a later date, in a far more polished form. For now, these are some of the thoughts flitting through my head as I watch that jet (Airbus-made, perhaps?) climb away from Toulouse-Blagnac. If you’re a fellow TCK I would love to hear your thoughts on what I’ve said, or even if you’re not a TCK, I suppose.

That’s Wednesday.

Carte d’Etudiant, S’il Vous Plaît

It’s funny the things you treasure in times like these that you would otherwise take for granted. I was so hungry yesterday morning, because all I had were three biscuit packs taken from church at the Midland Hotel in Bradford the day before. I could only drink water with my hand from the tap in the bathroom. Buying food was almost exhilarating – I had lunch: a baguette, of course, along with some cheese and a bag of apples. That would last me several meals at least. Now I’ve just returned from buying some juice, tomatoes, and jam, all of which are so precious. New tastes to add to my palate after several meals of bread, cheese, and apples, as if I’d never tasted them before! And getting a plastic cup was like unlocking an achievement in a video game like Minecraft: drinking ability acquired! All these are thoughts I will soon forget as I settle into the confidence of routine, which naturally I long for in these uncertain times, but as in the past I’ve given others the advice to enjoy the uncertainty, for it is fleeting; to ‘live the questions’, I must heed my own advice now.

This morning we went to see the international office woman to get our signed documents back to release our ERASMUS funds, as well as obtain our student cards, a coveted item that would seemingly unlock all else, foremost being the internet. The woman had not signed the documents yet – she is, after all, very busy – and told us to come back the following day. Then another girl, the girl who’d done her best to take us through the blue form, tried to help us get our student cards.

The problematic requirement was called something like responsabilité civile – health insurance of some sort, I believe. That was what the Americans had been arguing about the day before, because their uni had already made them buy insurance and they understandably didn’t want to pay more. ERASMUS students were supposed to only have to pay €5, well, €20 when you add in some other charge, but they were saying we had to have an EU identity card, otherwise we too would have to pay the full €200. No thank you. I was mentally preparing to put my foot down when the American guy, the one who speaks French well, pulled out his international student identity card (ISIC, which you can get from STATravel which entitles you to numerous discounts) and said he had insurance with that card. Now, I had that card as well, having applied for it during the summer for the discounts on flights and other things abroad. But I didn’t know anything about insurance. Nevertheless I pulled mine out and said, ‘I’ve got that as well.’ That seemed acceptable; the international office woman photocopied them (every time a French person is willing to photocopy documents rather than telling us we need to bring photocopies, even though they have a photocopy machine right behind them, I rejoice, for it’s a rare occurrence) and we trooped down to the payment office.

But I knew we weren’t yet in the clear and stayed on prepared-to-put-my-foot-down mode for when the payments woman balked at a card she didn’t recognise. Miraculously, that didn’t happen, and we got away with paying only €20. Well, I say ‘we’, but the Americans probably really did have insurance with their cards – I doubt I do, I didn’t pay what they did. Thank goodness I ordered that card, though.

Confession: The French have not won me over to their bureaucratic, multiple copies required, filled-out-in-triplicate way of doing things. I tend to think that as long as I can get through the process and obtain the end item or state that is required, it doesn’t really matter if I actually have what they’re demanding – isn’t it just the government making people pay for things they’ll only need in the rarest of circumstances? Or institutions covering themselves so they won’t be liable in any case whatsoever? And then even if young French (who, from what I’ve seen so far, hate it as much as we do) resolve to get into politics to change it, by the time they get to a place where they could potentially change it, they themselves are benefitting from it too much to want to change it anymore. Sly fat cats.

Probably not very morally upright or even completely factually viable, but I am fairly exasperated. You’ll see why in a bit.

Back to the story. Again, I couldn’t pat myself on the back quite yet. We had all the required documents, but we still had to make the actual application. We went upstairs to deuxième étage and joined the queue. Thankfully it wasn’t long. Like at the picnic yesterday, I felt I should talk to people, felt it would be a good idea, but couldn’t quite work up the will. Other than those in our crew. Finally my turn came and I went in. I decided to ask, as endearingly as I could, ‘Parlez-vous anglais?’ She looked at me in a sort of cute, helpless sort of way, shaking her head. Guess not. Oh well. Hope there are no problems.

She was stumped with the ISIC as well, and kept asking her colleague things. The colleague was a bit better at English, but not by much, so it ended up being the other student applying at that moment, a German girl, who asked me in English what they needed to know, then told them my answers in French. Germans are so reliable. I bet they’re efficient with their bureaucracy as well. I won’t deny that the thought, ‘Maybe I should’ve studied abroad to Germany after all’ has come to mind more than a few times over the course of this week, but I’m not a quitter.

In the end they accepted the card, but not before sending me back up to the international office woman to get her to photocopy my passport. Thankfully they saved my spot in the queue. The other things required were, of course, two identity photos, which – this frustrates me quite a bit – are so that they can stick one on the application form and scan one for the student card. Why don’t they just scan it and then stick it on the form, and therefore only need one!? I bought eight photos in the UK before coming, wishing I could buy less, and now I’m almost out.

Oh well. No matter. I was on my way to the guy who prints the cards. Could this be it? At long last, was this fabled mythical item, with all the riches and glory that accompanied it, about to be mine? I imagined myself celebrating with hands in the air as if I were back at Far East junior year, right after we won the football championship on penalties. He had me write my name on a list. He put my photo in the scanner. He stamped a single sheet of paper five times and gave it to me. He stuck a blank card in the card-printing machine.

Ennnh. The card came out with half my face blacked out. Ink problems? He adjusted the roll inside the machine and put another card in. That one came out with a thick black line on it obscuring some of the information. He looked at me. I looked at him. No way.

“Vendredi.”

What!! Come back Friday!? It’s only Tuesday! What could possibly take three days about replacing an ink cartridge?? But of course I had none of the French to express these feelings, so I could only muster, “Vendredi…d’accord.”

Then it got worse. As I left the room the girl behind me, the awesome, helpful German girl, sat down and got her card. just. fine.

What.

And everyone after that, including the people with me, got theirs just fine.

What. What. What.

Most of you will be pleased to know I didn’t pantomime the rage roiling within me. I’ve hated foreigners in Japan (don’t take that the way it sounds, foreigners) long enough to know that throwing a fit gets you nowhere, and generally just confirms stereotypes. I’m not about confirming stereotypes, as far as I’m able. So I left with the others. Vendredi? Vendredi.

I did also have that sheet he stamped five times, which contained all the same information as the student card would, so maybe I could procure internet with just that. Our group returned to our Arsenal accommodation and asked about internet. Apparently it wasn’t so much that the student card was the magical item as that the numbers on it became our login username and password details. But the accommodation internet was not, as we’d believed, wi-fi; we would need ethernet cables to connect. Joy. Another thing to buy.

We went shopping. In addition to Monoprix, we’d also found an electronics place yesterday where we were able to by power adaptors (after all my trying to think of how to ask where they were in the shop, the word turned out to be the same in French as in English. Recollections of Japanese…) so we returned there and some of the others bought ethernet cables. I decided to wait until I had my full funding – the soap, shampoo, toothpaste, towel, duvet, and duvet cover that I also bought today nearly cleaned me out. In fact I had to borrow money from my American friend when he and I went food shopping afterward. Not ideal.

[This next bit I wrote this afternoon, whereas the rest I’m writing this evening – or later days and changing the ‘date published’ on WordPress, but never mind – so it is representative merely of my state at that time, not my current state or general state in relation to being in France. It is a comparison of my financial situations in successive study/work experiences.]

The first time around, the only challenge was finding an ATM – there was one in the commuters’ lounge, but it was often out of cash, and the next nearest one was at Wawa’s, about a twenty minute walk away. So I found myself withdrawing large amounts of cash when I was in downtown Philadelphia – two things unlikely to be found together in the same sentence outside of a crime report – to take back to campus. But I’d already had the account, and it already had savings in it.

The following year was a piece of cake as I was earning money and withdrawing from the same account. The most complicated bit was creating that account in Japanese, and that wasn’t that hard – world’s best customer service, for the win. Plus, it being Japan, there was no need to think twice about carrying around large amounts of cash in my wallet.

The second time around (third time, yes, but second uni) was more complicated – I took a lot of pounds with me and deposited them in an account once I’d made one – which wasn’t overly difficult and everything was set up and running, including my debit card, that same day – and that was that until it ran out. There were a few days of panic, but then my parents and I discovered that it was super easy to do a bank transfer from Japan to a Lloyds TSB account in the UK, and I was set for the next year and a half.

This time, the third uni, I’m close to pulling my hair out, in a quiet, internal sort of way. Maybe it’s just that I’m in the middle of it. I thought I’d be receiving my ERASMUS grant almost immediately after arriving. How naive of me – I now know not to expect anything to happen immediately in France [this is the outburst I asked you to take with a grain of salt in yesterday’s post]. As of now I have forty pounds in my UK account. I have plenty of money in my US account, but it doesn’t have a chip so I don’t think I can use it in ATMs! I just need to find something that works and stick with that – or borrow money from friends till the grant comes through.

I can’t help but feel that I am living in an interim period. The globalisation of banking is still playing catch-up to the globalisation of travel. Or maybe I’m just stupid and don’t know where to look. I hear Citibank is good. They call themselves the world’s first global bank. I’m not really in a position to switch everything over to them at the moment, however.

I admit it, I’m stressed out. It’s not consuming me, but sometimes it feels like it could if I let it. It’s not like there are concrete things that are seriously bad, I’m just out of my comfort zone. And this summer I got used to being sat firmly on the couch in the centre of my comfort zone. This is good for me. This is good for me, I keep telling myself. Doesn’t stop me from wanting to scream sometimes. Why am I doing this again? Is there something at the end of the tunnel that makes this worth it? French mastery? What use will the language be if I hate the people and policies by the end of it?

Hah, I won’t hate them. I might just need a long break from them.

[Okay, now that the minor breakdown with brief philosophical interlude to reflect on globalisation is done with, let’s carry on with the account of the day’s events.]

That evening, our group (myself and the two I came from Bradford with, the three Americans, and the other two English girls we met) went out for dinner. We walked through the area called Saint-Pierre, where a lot of bars and some clubs and hordes and hordes of students are; carried on along the river, where we saw even more students doing something – either a freshers initiation or some sort of protest – and found a nice quiet place a bit farther along. As we were all trying to save money, I wouldn’t call it the height of the French dining experience – hopefully that is yet to come – but it was good food, and a good time.

It’s going to be a good year – I’m going to enjoy it. Perhaps I didn’t spend enough time during the summer anticipating this year, as I did before I came to England. It’s important for me to make up my mind that I’m going to love a place, because if I get caught off-guard (as I have, somewhat) it’s easy to descend into bitterness, but I don’t want to live like that. I will enjoy my wine and my cheese, everyone that I meet, and every bumbling mistake and crucified pronunciation on the path to fluency.

Oh, and I should mention – seeing as it’s probably the true cause of my improved mood – that I was able to use my US credit card to withdraw euros from an ATM on our way to the restaurant. That was such a relief. Didn’t need a chip after all, the dreadfully outdated swipe bar sufficed. Thank goodness I changed the PIN when I was able to something I can remember so we don’t have a repeat performance of Turkey! They’ll probably whack me with a massive overseas charge, and since I don’t yet have internet I haven’t seen yet what that charge is, but at least I won’t be out on the street starving. That is unless they cut off my access because it’s coming from a new overseas location. But this should get my by until the ERASMUS funds come in, which will hopefully be by the end of this week.

So today turned out to be another productive day, though no student card. I at least have a full set of bedding, which is probably the most key to my current physical and emotional well-being. That and money. Does that say something about me I don’t want to be said?