Exile: Working On My Visa

Some magic castle or something.

Exile: Too many weeks
Aloha from the island of Oahu!

My friends, it has been too long since I’ve last written about my adventures. Honestly, this site could have been a travel blog in which I tell you about my adventures from wherever they may be, but my heart is in Paris. Since leaving there, I’ve been in Toronto, New York, Orlando, Saskatoon, and I’m currently in Honolulu.

I will be applying for a “Long Stay Visitor” visa rather than a work visa, since I can work from my computer. I’ll make the application in Vancouver in two weeks and will then make my move to Paris two weeks after that. If all goes well, I expect to be in Paris for quite a long time, since I can renew my visitor visa indefinitely (so long as I meet the requirements). What are the requirements?

1. One must have proof of income. You need either a bank statement, pay stubs or some proof that you will not starve to death during your stay.

2. One must have health insurance. For some reason, the French government does not want to pay for the health care of a non-citizen.

3. One must have a place to live. This can be a lease or a letter from a friend or family member who will put you up. I can tell you that renting a permanent apartment in Paris from abroad is nearly as difficult as getting a visa. I have decided to find an apartment after I arrive (hopefully in Le Marais… hopefully with 2 bedrooms and a parking spot!)

4. Last, one must write a heart-felt letter of why you want to be in Paris at all, perhaps with promises that you will not violate the spirit of your visa by taking a job.

I expect to be successful with my petition, but this as with all things, time will tell.

Here are some random observations that I have made during my exile.

Orlando:
1. I never saw the city of Orlando and cannot verify if there even is one. Disney related shuttles and taxis took me from the airport to the resort to the park and back. I only ever saw highways and Disney related venues. If the city of Orlando is giving Disney any tax breaks, they should stop.

2. I complained a lot about being the fattest man in all of Paris. I would say that I was rather the skinniest man in Orlando. Disney rewards fat morbid obesity by letting super-fat people jump the lines in their electric scooters. Just seeing these horribly disfigured fatties is enough to put one off food forever.

Saskatoon:
1. Saskatoon got back to normal the day I arrived by heralding me with 30cm (about a foot) of snow. Temperatures dipped below -30C and with the wind-chill factor calculated in they got into the -45C range.

My very unhappy car waits for news about Paris.

2. There is a Dairy Queen on 8th Street in Saskatoon that stays open well into the winter. It was still open in December. Some Dairy Queen locations sell hamburgers and fries and such, but not this one. It only sells ice cream and patrons must line up outside in the -30C weather to wait for their ice cream. Only in Canada, eh?

3. Ladies, pay attention. For those of you from Victoria or Honolulu or some town where you are convinced that the number of single women greatly outnumber the single men, you will not find this to be the case in Saskatoon. Honesely, get to Saskatoon as soon as you can and have a look. You’ll be surrounded by a throng of Saskatonian men before you can say Rumplestiltskin.

Honolulu:
1. I suppose I brought the cold weather with me, but Honolulu has been uncharacteristically cold this December. I’ve been computing with a little blanket on many days. For those of you that don’t know this, there is no way to warm up in a Honolulu household, since the homes don’t have heaters or furnaces of any sort.

2. During my short time here, I have enjoyed what I call the “celebrity of absence” in that I have been invited to a great many outings, having not been seen by anyone for several months. This has all but worn off now, so I will have one large party to say goodbye and will depart soon, hopefully to return one day to the same celebrity. Thank you, my friends!

3. I’ve found a source for crème de Camembert here. Life is not so bad. Of course it is impossible to get good bread. Bread in America is sold underbaked or unbaked and like most Americans I had become accustomed to eating raw bread dough with a brownish crust. Paris cured me of this habit, but there is nowhere in Hawaii to buy bread that is fully baked. A toaster is required.

4. I drink more wine in Honolulu than anywhere else in the world. I expect that this is because I am blessed with so many friends here.

Sharing photos, stories and laughs with friends in Honolulu.

I suppose that is all I shall write for now. For everyone I haven’t seen yet in Hawaii, I hope to see you very soon and to all my friends in Paris… I shall be returning shortly.

Love and Aloha,
Robyn

Exile: The First Week - Toronto and New York

Toronto's CN Tower
The tallest cell-phone tower in the world.

A Canadian in Exile from Paris: Week One

Greetings my friends!

It is a few days into my state-imposed exile from Paris.  For those of you that haven’t already surmised from my writings, I intend to make a grand return to Paris… permanently if possible.  More often than not I agree with the aphorisms of Friedrich Nietzsche, who once wrote, "An artist has no home in Europe except in Paris."  Of course you can guess that I’m in complete agreement with this one and would go so far as to expand the word Europe to include the rest of the western world.  Since leaving Paris, I’ve landed in Toronto, the cultural and business capital of Canada and moved along quickly to New York, the… well I’ll let you look up New York on your own.  Here is what I have noticed.

1.  I don’t understand English any longer.  The accents in Toronto and New York are so widely varied, that I can’t understand anything at first.  My brain is still listening for French and hoping to have a chance at translating as many of the words as possible.  It then gets heavily accented English and the translator garbles and dies.  I have to say, “Pardon me” twenty times a day.

2.  I’m going through crème de camembert withdrawal.  The symptoms for this are a constant feeling of hunger even after eating, the shakes and staring into a full fridge endlessly while seeing nothing to eat.  I managed to go to a NYC supermarket, only to discover that they had no food that would be suitable for anything other than pets.

3.  Restaurants are not what I remembered.  I know it has only been three months, but the first restaurant that I sat down in had about two dozen selections, each looking more disgusting than the last.  Would I like this greasy fried up piece of rubbery mystery meat or that piece of greasy fried up piece of rubbery mystery meat?  This was a question that I could not answer without feeling nausea.  I see now why restaurants provide catsup at the table.  It is about the only sauce that is strong enough to mask the taste of the terrible food that you will be served.  OMG!?!?!  Have I become a food snob?

Toronto

4.  This was my first time in the streets of Toronto, and I found the city to be pleasant and a little cleaner than I expected.  The ethnic mix was somewhat similar to Paris, as near as I could tell, but I could not tell if the coupling and groups of friends were as mixed as in Paris. 

5.  For my first time in Toronto, I had some pretty important business.  I went to pitch a business idea to a pair of venture capitalists.  There was every chance that I could have left the city with a large bag of money, but alas it didn’t seem like my idea and the investors were a very good match.  I do get the privilege of being able to boast about my battle with the barons of Bay Street (Toronto’s financial district) and I may have even come out with a consulting job.  I can sell a consulting job with a wink… so watch out if I’m winking at you.  :)

6.  I got to see Toronto’s famous Younge Street, the world’s longest street.  In the time I had I saw about 10 blocks of it, all lined with shops.  About 5 blocks up from Bay Street, I came across what I believe to be the Welfare or Social Assistance office and I swear on my life that a guy came out of the office holding a cheque and wearing a top hat. I think out of principle, the government should not give any quantity of money to anyone wearing a top hat. 

7.  Toronto’s subway system is very clean and very homogenous.  Every station looks the same and every station is tiled, looking like a scene from The Matrix.  I could totally see myself kung-fuing an agent across the tracks into a wall and sending shards of tile flying everywhere.  Unfortunately, I had a plane to catch and no time to try my kung fu.

New York

8.  There are short little flights over from Toronto, with a total flight time of about an hour or so.  The airport experience is considerably longer than the flight.  Like Vancouver, you go through customs while still in Canada, which is convenient if you look too muslimy, you don’t have to fly back to Canada to change into something less muslimy.

9.  I don’t know if this always happens on short flights between big cities, but through sheer circumstance I got into a spirited debate with the person sitting next to me about how many consultants would be needed to perform certain tasks.  I thought he was on the high side, but after things were done he agreed to show me the job he was on when I made it back to Toronto.  As it happens, he turned out to be the CEO of the largest consulting firm on the planet.  It was a good contact to make, I’m tempted to think.

10.  There are vampires in New York, but from what I can tell they are all loners or keep to small groups.  There don't seem to be any rules here according to a local vampire hunter who was surprised by my reports from Paris.  New York vampires often suffer illness or even death from drinking contaminated blood and this keeps their numbers from exploding.

11.  I have a cousin in NYC, who had my Halloween plans all sorted before I arrived.  I honestly can’t tell if my experience here represents a typical visitor’s experience.  Everyone I saw had a costume and every nook and cranny for miles had a place where one could comfortably carry on in costume.  I suspect, however, that if someone were to continue to wear their costume for the rest of the year, they could do this largely unnoticed.

Manhattan Island as seen from Weehawken N.J.

12.  That's officially how many pounds I lost.  I finally got to a scale in NYC and it looks like I lost a pound a week in Paris, just to get into those cool shirts.  Hopefully I can lose just a few more and get a cool Parisian suit when I get back.  I'll patent this diet soon!

Well my friends, I’ll have a few more observations once I get into the city over the next few days.  Hopefully I’ll get some great shots from downtown.

Missing you all and see you soon!

Robyn