It may says March on the calendar, and we’re a mere week away from official start of spring. However, the weather is anything but that. Between yesterday and today, the temperature plunged to sub-zero level, and in Paris, the snowfall easily measured a good few inches. Not as severe as the northern part of the country, where some places received over 60cm of snow!
As the buses were not running this morning and trying to take the métro would only complicate things for me – there’d be unnecessary distance to travel before changing line and the two lines, which are already normally among the busiest in Paris, would be completely crazy on a day like this when service was reduced and there were even more demand than usual. Besides, it was not a terribly long walk, and I got rewarded with pretty winter scenes to photograph.
Without further ado, snowy Paris in March over two-day period :) (Hover over images for caption)
As my friend Anne put it, we are immersed in pleine tempête sibérienne today. Despite it being mid-March, we woke up in the morning to snowfall and it has been non-stop since. Public transport system is thrown in a loop, flights were cancelled, many northern France-bound train services (including Eurostar) had been halted.
Yet, it was mere 3 days ago when we had a wonderful spring day (yes, sadly, just one day). The sun was out, the mercury recorded some 18°C, we were out cycling, walking in the park (no coat, no scarf!) – how wonderful! When we arrived home, I made a passing remark to F: “je suis chaude” to which he raised his eyebrows and started laughing at the same time.
Ah, yes, welcome to my amusing world of French faux pas. Again.
This has been a week of small victories. Getting my carte vitale, progressing positively with my project at work, celebrating the anniversary of my move to Paris, semi-plotting meet-ups with friends who live elsewhere (including Malaysia and Australia!) and pencilling in diary the dates to host them. I love it when things run smoothly. Only one big last administration hurdle for the year looms big – I’m heading to the Préfécture in a few days. Fingers crossed, all will be well.
* * *
4 Mar: One of the busiest day yet. It really was home -> work -> home kind of day, without any time for detour. Luckily F offered to cook dinner and deal with all the washing up. And so you are stucked with a photo from Sunday actually. We took advantage of the free monument visit Sunday and went to the Arc de Triomphe. On our way down, I couldn’t resist taking a pause to grab a couple of photos. Since it was relatively dark, I needed longer exposure time, resulting in the ghost-like moving feet as other visitors walked past me to descend the monument.
I woke up in the morning with things strewn all over my soon-to-be-former bedroom floor. I was supposed to have put everything I wanted to keep into boxes and nicely stacked in the conservatory (to be pillaged every time I go back to Dublin, of course, so I can bring more things over), set aside books and clothes that I planned to give away to charity (with my cousin assigned the duty to bring them over to the charity shop), threw everything else into the normal and recycling bins accordingly (mostly recycling), and the top priority of all – pack my suitcase!
Oh yes, the elusive green and gold card is finally here!
After a mere 21 months of paperwork wrangling and waiting, the victory is, at last, mine. I came home on Monday evening to find a letter from Assurance Maladie with the carte vitale attached, hurrah hurrah! If only I didn’t have work to do that evening, I would have uncorked a bottle of champers and celebrate. *Happy dance*
You need a social security number too?
If you are new in France and you’re not working for an employer with dedicated HR personnel who would deal with the sécu on your behalf, then you’re probably in a similar situation as I was. You will need to get yourself registered for a numéro de sécurité sociale. Information in English language is quite scattered and many sites simply say “apply for your card through your local CPAM (Caisse Primaire d’Assurance Maladie)” and the likes – not very useful.
I hope this post would be of help to anyone who’s trying to obtain French social security number and carte vitale, but know that I am writing based on my personal experience. The information is current as of early 2013 but liable to change. Be prepared for things to be sidetracked. I thought I was quite dilligent and yet things went off-tangent before they finally became right.
Another gear has kicked in at work and the next two months will be full-throttle busy. I’m not yet sure how it will affect this project, but don’t be surprised if the photos are shot mostly between places I pass between home and lab instead of other Parisian neighbourhoods. The blame for lack of leisure reading now sits squarely on work too. I’m doing so much project-related reading that I have little wish to read more while at home…
* * *
25 Feb: It snowed overnight so first thing I did upon arriving at work this morning was to head straight for the top floor of the building. As it was still snowing at that time, the view was not as crisp and clear as I’d like. You could just about make out where the Eiffel Tower and the dome of the Invalides are in the shot. Oh how I wish I have an office on this floor of the building…
A couple of animated short films came to my attention in the last few days, and they have been nominated for the Oscars 2013. Without a single spoken word, both of them – Paperman and Head Over Heels – made me smile and teary at the same time. The former tells the story of the whimsical side of falling in love, of fate and what’s meant to be. The latter shows how love may yet bring people together after drifting away in separate yet intricately linked worlds for many years.
Paperman went on to win the category but Head Over Heels had me reflecting more on the issue of love in a relationship. Love for the sake of love does not sustain a healthy relationship. It requires nurture and effort, a lot of give and take, but most importantly never to be complacent and assume that love will always be there.
There will be times of disagreement and hurt, disappointment and anger, but there will also be times of consideration and care, small (yet significant) gesture and joy. The path which the relationship takes depends on us to steer it in the right direction. The hope is for continued banking of love, no matter how little, because it will all matter.
I am not saying I’ve got it all figure out (far from it!) but I have learned how easily one can take things for granted, and inevitably resentment will follow when things go pear-shaped. And perhaps at time like this, it is even more important to remember why one love in the first place, and find his/her way back towards the guiding light.
This winter has been the bane of my health and I am really tired of it. It seems I’m falling ill nearly every month, and this week has been the worse yet. The irony is that I’ve had a restful week last week and was preparing for a solid week of work and planning etc, only to be thwarted suddenly by a crippling flu. I had to stay put for a couple of days at home. Boo.
* * *
18 Feb: Seeing cherry blossoms makes me happy. It just does, and I can’t explain why. Maybe it’s the imminent arrival of spring (never mind that the weather forecast for the rest of the week would be coooooold). Maybe it’s the wispy splash of soft pink. Maybe it’s its association with Chinese New Year. Maybe it’s the reminder of the beautiful view I used to get from my studio in Cité U.
The running joke is, if something’s not on Facebook, it didn’t happen. After F and I got PACSed, I made an announcement – first time ever that’s related to my relationship status – along with a photo of us together. Congratulatory messages poured in (thanks again everyone for the well wishes), along with a good deal of confusion of the following variety:
– What is PACS?
– Are you engaged?
– Did you get married?
Early this month, Frédéric and I were back in his hometown in (historical) Brittany and taking advantage of the opportunity to see another part of the region which I don’t know, I suggested an afternoon visit to Le Croisic. Situated at the tip of the Guérande peninsula (just a little further down from Le Pouliguen and Batz-sur-Mer), it is a beautiful small town but a little on the quiet side during the winter – the visitors won’t be coming in until warmer summer months.
But first, we made a pit stop at Plage Valentin of Batz-sur-Mer, which we didn’t visit previously. It is not named after St Valentin (sorry to burst some romance bubble there) but rather, it was introduced by a certain Monsieur Killian who was nicknamed Valentin to be a small “bathing therapy” resort. It gained popularity and the venture took off. Today though, it is favoured by families for beach holiday, given the relative calm of water in this bay in comparison to the other beaches along the coast.
