Deck the Halls

Decorating the tree outside my room 

A realllly good pâtisserie in Toulouse

Bûches de Noël

One of my  favorite bars

Our house

Ho Ho Ho

'Tis the season to eat eat eat.

I'll be staying in Toulouse for Christmas this year, and I'm not embarassed so say that one of the things I'm most excited for is the food.

Standard fare for the holidays includes champagne, oysters, foie gras, and assorted pastries. Mmm.

The kick-off began on the last day of classes at the school cafeteria for the repas de Noël. I had missed this last year since I was flying home for the holidays. As this is an establishment that regularly serves artisanal unpasteurized cheeses at lunch and had been generating a significant amount of buzz in the teachers lounge in the weeks leading up, I figured it was worth coming in for on Friday even though I don't normally work that day.

I was not disappointed. Indeed there was a feuilletée de canard as an appetizer, filet mignon or fish for the main dish, and 3 choices of desserts. In room where the teachers eat there were heaping plates of roquefort being passed around (eat your heart our FDA), and the red table wine that usually accompanies school lunches (yes you read that right) was flowing more than usual.

Friday night I went to a colleagues house for a champagne and foie gras apéro with some of her ex-colleagues from the previous schools he worked at. They were talking about how they unfortunately missed their school's meal this year and were especially disappointed as they had heard through the grapevine that the school opened several choice bottles of wine from their cave. Excuse me? Apparently it's not uncommon for schools – yes public high schools – to have personal wine cellars. Incredible.

Yesterday Gisèle and I decorated our tiny Charlie Brown-esque tree and swapped Christmas traditions. I introduced her to the Jackson 5 christmas album and told her how my parents, brother and I always left out milk and cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve up until an embarassingly old age, and she told me that in France they leave out a glass of wine for Santa. Why of course, she explained, Santa is old enough to drink isn't he? Vive la France.

A bientôt!

Elusive Visa

I'm back to rant and wail.  For the record I try not to bombard you with too many stories of nonsensical bureaucoracy, however this time I feel I have good reason.

You'll remember that I mentioned how for some mysterious reason the Office of Immigration had mailed back all my paperwork saying they couldnt validate my visa, and how, per their instructions, had waited 5 hours at the Prefecture to find out that I need to apply for a different kind of visa. Keeping in mind that I am the only assistant I know of (first or second year) who has been asked to follow these steps, I contacted the woman who is responsible for the English assistants at yet another office. After over a week of completely contradictory emails, she finished by telling me point blank that she didn't understand my file. She left me with the phone number for another woman, at yet another office. This woman, though very nice and patient, wasn't much help either. When I asked her if she had a more direct number for the Office of Immigration who I'd been trying to get a hold of for some time then (read: had called 30 times and been disconneceted each time), she made a very French sounding and impressive sigh and said that if I managed to get a hold of them to tell her and that they have big problems with their phone system (read: general management??). Okay.

It seems the more I search to do right (read: legally) and iron this thing out the more difficult it gets. Interesting system right?

I resigned myself to tackling the laundry list of documents required for my appointment for this "new" visa. Included was a piece of paper I didn't posess nor had ever heard of. I called the appropriate office and was assured that my work contract replaced it. Okay. Next I need proof that I passed the medical visit at OFII last year which is a number they assign and stamp in your passport after you see the doctor. Well, last year after I got the number stamped in my passport I got a follow up letter from my friends saying they had made a mistake and issued me a new number on an 8.5x11 piece of paper I was supposed to keep with me anytime I traveled for the rest of my life, which I promptly lost.

After tearing significant amounts of my hair out, I decided to take a more direct approach and go straight to the source.  The woman at the Prefecture did not know why I needed a different kind of visa, neither did the woman at the Rectorat or the Direccte, so the solution must lie at the Office of Immigration, where this whole sordid affair began. Since it was more than clear at that point that I wasn't getting through using any modern methods of communication such as phone or email, I decided to make a personal appearance.

The things I would like to do to that place are probably best not posted on the internet. I arrive and go straight to the information where the woman is cool as a cucumber which to me seemed curious given the amount of phone traffic I imagined had to go through that place to cause them to have to disconnect incoming calls upwards of 30 times. I imagined a secret back room somewhere stocked with secretaries frantically answering and (dis)connecting calls as fast as humanly possible. Think Mad Men. To make a long story short she did not tell me anything new nor give me a satisfactory answer as to why I am the only assistant obliged to perform these acrobatics but they did reissue me my medical number.

I went to my appointment on Thursday and now have the visa I need to stay here. Apparently according to them it isn't strange that I have to get this new visa but that all the other assistants don't as it's requisite for people returning for a second stay. Effective.

The kicker: upon returning home from my appointment I get an email that the missing paper I had originally called about (the one they assured me I didn't need) was ready to be picked up in case i needed it for my appointment that day. Thanks.

So glad all that's over.

A bientôt!
Linz

Fête des Lumières

This past weekend I went East to Lyon for their annual Fête des Lumières or Festival of Lights, no relation to Moses. I stayed with my friend Sarah who I visited last year in Lyon for a weekend as well. This year she insisted I come to see this particular festival.

Basically it consists of upwards of one hundred light installations all over the city - in 3 nights of roaming the city from when it got dark around 6pm until it ended at 2am I still didn't see it all. It is funded by the city with the help of some private sponsoring and the installations are mainly Lyonnais artists.

 The exhibits took on all different forms as the goal is just to use light in creative ways. A lot of the time this took the form of projecting light shows onto the facades of important buildings accompanied by instrumental music - cathedrals, theaters, town hall, etc. This was one of the most popular at the Place des Terreaux where there is a large fountain of 4 horses and a woman - the show essentially animated the story of the fountain. Then there was this one that turned the Théatre de Célestins into a giant pinball machine. There were tons of other kinds set up in different places in the city - parks, fountains, trees, etc. this was one of my favorites.


I felt like I was in Harry Potter walking the narrow cobblestone streets of the old city center with all kinds of whimsical light shows visible from everywhere and people selling hot wine every few meters, it was a very cool experience.

As touristy as it was in the sense that between 3 and 4 million people descend on Lyon for this weekend, I felt like it hadn't become a touristy attraction.I really liked how the installations changed depending on the neighborhood you were in to kind of highlight the spirit of the different areas of the city, and how featured the local artists were. They also had many exhibits that were designed by school kids and realised by aritsts. One evening Sarah and I had wandered around the packed center, and the climbed up to Croix-Rousse, the hippier younger neighborhood to see what they had going on. We stumbled upon a guy with a microphone infront of a bed sheet strung up between 2 tree telling a story to a crowd seated on the ground in front of him. Behind him, shadow puppets animated what he said. All around him in the trees were illuminated animals made from paper mâché. You could tell it was the last show of the night as his comrads behind him often took of into their own rendition of the story and he frequently had to pause to put them back on track. The fact that there was pot of steaming hot wine within reach I'm sure didn't help. It was very amusing.