For Richer and for Poorer

Unlike Paris or Manhattan, London is a very mixed city. I can just hear some of you protest that Manhattan is indeed quite diverse, and that it is home to millions of people from all over the world. But the truth is that the poor can no longer really afford to live in Manhattan, as even areas like Spanish Harlem and Hell’s Kitchen are turned into yuppie condo enclaves. And let’s not forget that in Paris, it is the poor minorities that are relegated to an existence in the suburbs, while the affluent get to live in the central parts of town.

London, however, is different. Here you can have a street in a historical preservation neighborhood (like ours!) lined with charming Georgian homes interspersed with council estates (low-income housing). Sure, some neighborhoods are very, very posh and only the richest can afford to live in them. But as far as the majority of London areas are concerned, the poor and the not-so-poor tend to live in mixed company.

This phenomenon is due, in part, to the fact that London did not use to be a city with its own central government. Rather, it was made up of different boroughs, and each borough had to find a way to provide for its own poor. Now that London is more centralized, this means that low-income housing can be found throughout the city, rather than being concentrated in one area of the city.

This perhaps explains the public service announcements that appear in many streets and buses, like this one, warning against “benefits fraud.”



In our neighborhood, one resident, concerned with the government’s efforts to crack down on benefits fraud while letting other types of fraud go unchallenged, decided to add his own message to the public service announcement.



In case you can’t see it clearly in the picture, the message reads, “List Below Your Favourite Fraudsters.” The handwritten list, started by the original concerned resident and continued by other concerned residents, states:

1. British Aerospace £ 200m
2. Chairmen of Banks £ 900m
3. Ministry of Defence (£ xm) (perhaps the number is too difficult to calculate?)
4. People who you think love you (I think you can tell where the original poster left off!)
5. My phoney parents
6. Tony Blair £ 12m
7. The queen with more than £ 2 tax per hour for my job
8.
9.
10. Ordinary people – nothing

Alas, no one was able to fill in slots 8 and 9 as the friendly council folk took down the list. But stay tuned in case we see further public service announcements by Camberwell’s concerned residents.

Living in Victorian Times

We’ve now been in London for about two months and are still disconnected from the outside world. I thought that our inability to get phone and internet installed sooner was related to the fact that we decided to use a cable-based service from Virgin Media. Last week, however, we went out for drinks with a couple of friends and learned that it also took them about two months to get the phone connected, despite choosing British Telecom as their provider. Even in France, where such things take much longer than in the US, we were connected to the outside world sooner than this.

I suppose it should not surprise me. The UK is oddly behind the times in some ways. For example, our plumbing is quite Victorian. We have a water tank in the kitchen, which is basically a big, plastic box with water stored in it. According to Diego, every building has some contraption to catch the water on the roof, and then somehow the water gets sent to each of the individual apartments.

While I don’t particularly care what type of plumbing system we use, I do care that we have rather weak water pressure. I learned this is because water pressure is based on gravity here. I think this means that once the water is collected on the roof, the water pressure is dictated by how fast it comes down the pipes to our first-floor shower. Bizarre!

I also remember that when Diego used to live here, he seemed to have constant issues with the boiler in his apartment breaking. I’m not too sure what a boiler is, but I do know that it heats up the water. I always assumed that it was just Diego’s apartment that had this problem, but when we first moved in, we learned that our neighbor’s boiler had broken. We’ve also heard of a couple of friends who have had to deal with broken boilers in the last few weeks. Seems to me that the hot water gods over here should rethink the whole boiler system.

Getting added onto Diego’s bank account has also been an ordeal. Even though I did manage to get added onto his existing bank account in early October, it took about another month to get the debit card. And while I’ve had a debit card for a couple of weeks now, I did not get the pin code for it until this past weekend. It’s pretty embarrassing to have to ask your husband for money every week, so you can imagine that I am relishing my newfound debit card freedom.

Mind you, I don’t think that everything should always be done in the most advanced, modern way. I think some things, like bread and certain wine-making methods, should not be modernized. But when it comes to plumbing and banking, I am a modern woman.

Settling In

Diego and I are finally moved into our new apartment here in London. By a strange twist of fate, we are now living on the same street that Diego used to live in when he was in London. In the process of narrowing down neighborhoods, we visited Diego’s old stomping grounds, including the local pub he used to frequent back in the day. And, much to his surprise, one of his old friends from the neighborhood was also at the pub, seated on the same stool he always used to sit on when Diego first lived here about five years ago. It was then that we decided to stay in this area, and part of the nostalgia we both have about this neighborhood made us chose the apartment that happened to be located on his old street. I like to think that no matter how far our travels take us, we can find home just about anywhere.

So, last Friday, after spending a month in a hotel, the movers came and unloaded all our things at the new place. We still don’t have telephone or internet (not until December 12 anyway), but at least we have an address.

Those of you that know us personally have likely figured out that Diego and I seem to like making big life changes all in one go. Life would be so boring otherwise, don’t you think? Last year, for example, we got married and moved to Paris all within the span of two months. Every time I hear a bride-to-be complain about the logistics of wedding planning, I feel a smug sense of superiority, imagining that this not the sort of woman who could plan a cross-Atlantic move at the same time as she picked out what font to use on an invitation.

True to our pattern, we have now embarked on our second international move, this time with a little kiddie-to-be in tow. That’s right...I’m pregnant! We won’t know the gender until next month, but really, all we both care about now is that we have a healthy baby.

Luckily for us, we live in a country that, despite all the misconceptions Americans have about socialized health care, has great prenatal care, regardless of the mother-to-be’s economic or legal status. The first time I went to the doctor here, I could not provide the proof of address needed to register for the UK’s National Health Service. But, the doctor’s office found a way around that technicality by simply registering me as a temporary patient until I could provide proof of address (they did not even ask to see my visa). This meant that, even though we were still living in a hotel, I was still able to see a doctor and get referred to the prenatal clinic and midwives’ office at the local hospital. Throughout the entire process, no one asked to see any proof of NHS registration or of even my legal right to be in this country.

I love America, but health care is one area where it lags behind even third-world countries. Most people here simply cannot believe that there is no guaranteed health care coverage for Americans, and many ask me if the stories they hear about health care in the US are indeed true. Sad to say, they are true...and quite incomprehensible considering taxes for those earning a middle-class income in the UK are not that much higher than in the US. That said, I am hopeful that things will change in the near future, as we finally have a President that does not misunderestimate the concerns of the average American (and for those wondering, yes, we both voted, although Diego had to try about three times before he was able to do so...but I guess it’s not really all that surprising when you consider that we vote in Florida, where dead people’s votes count more than the votes of the living). Until that moment comes, I’ll just sit tight right where I am, drink my tea and have a crumpet. Cheers, mate.

Welcome to the crunch

It's been a while since we've posted but that's because things have been very busy for us and our lives have been very unstable.

I started my new job in banking in the City of London on the 8th of September. Maki came and joined me a few weeks later. I went back to Paris the first few weekends (in spite of the fire in the channel tunnel: that's another story) to help with our move out. We finally moved out of our place in Paris at the end of September, after I had to disassemble and get rid of all the kitchen cabinets I bought when we moved in. All our stuff is now in storage until we move into our new place in London, which we won't be able to move into until the 28th of this month. In the meantime, we're staying in temporary accommodation.

2008 has been quite a roller-coaster of a year for us, as those of you who know us will be aware. Trust me to start a job in the banking sector the very week that global financial markets go into meltdown. It's been...interesting to say the least! Every day I'm hooked on the bloomberg watching everything crash and burn and wondering how much longer I'll still have a job.

On the upside, "the crunch" has brought with it all sorts of bargains. All the shops near my office are practically giving the nice men's suits away. Even the restaurants are now offering special "crunch lunches" as seen below.



I'm amazed that 6.50 is considered a bargain for lunch. Some crunch this is! I'm sticking to the 2.99 chickpea curry they sell at the place right inside Moorgate tube.

In tough times, however, not all consumption goes down. People will tend to spend more on the things that give them comfort. I'm happy to know that my street offers vice at a discount price. Now this really is crunch friendly:

A Nomadic Life

It’s been a couple of weeks since we’ve posted on le blog, but it’s because we’ve been busy with preparing for our move to London. Diego already started his job there, and I’ve stayed behind in Paris to tie up some loose ends (read: do all the things I never got to do when I was a law firm drone). As I type this, the movers are taking out the last piece of furniture out of the apartment and into storage until we find an apartment in London.

You might wonder how people manage to move large furniture in and out of itty bitty Parisian apartments and buildings that often do not have elevators (and even when they do have elevators, they are barely big enough to fit two adults, let alone furniture). They do it by using a contraption like this one:


The movers place the elevator where it will reach a big window or door (in our case, the French doors on our balcony), and then load all the furniture and boxes onto it. The elevator then takes everything down to street level, and from there it gets loaded onto the moving truck.

Moving out meant we (hereinafter in this paragraph defined as Diego) had to undo a lot of the work we did when moving in, such as taking down the kitchen cabinets, curtain rods, and overhead lighting. Here is an action shot:


It’s strange to think that five men managed to wrap up our lives into 102 boxes in about eight hours. Although I feel like we have too many things, all the movers that came to survey our apartment seemed to think we do not have that much. I suppose that a lack of clutter is one advantage of moving frequently. Despite the advantage of a less cluttered life, however, I do not want to have to go through this again for quite a few years. Whatever its drawbacks might be, we’re staying put in London for a while (mind you, that’s what we said about Paris too!)

5 frenchies à Miami

Diego went off to London last weekend and sadly cannot return this weekend because trains have been cancelled as a result of a fire in the Eurotunnel. This means that I spend my evenings watching TV, or, to be more specific, French TV.

If I was in the US or UK, an evening watching TV perhaps would not be so terrible (though even in the US, I often had the so-many-channels-so-little-to-watch feeling). But I have a very hard time following American or English programs that have been dubbed into French, so I am left watching original French productions. And original French programs can be quite bad. Some of them are so bad they are actually amusing.

One example of one of these bad-but-amusing shows is 5 frenchies à Miami, where five single men are sent to Miami - land of beautiful women and luxurious cars, according to the show - for 3 ½ days to see which one is worthy of the title le French lover de l’été. Why they use Frenglish is beyond me, but I assume that there is no French phrase that has the same connotation as the English phrase “French lover.” The contestant that manages to accumulate the most french kisses (also said in English with a French accent) is the winner.

To make this into more than just a hooking up contest, there’s an additional difficulty. The contestants do not have any money and must earn it at the rate of $5 per kiss. This means that they end up sleeping and showering on the beach and do not have access to basic toiletries like toothpaste and deodorant (which of course makes it harder to hook up with women) unless they earn money.

The contestants are also occasionally given certain challenges where the loser gets eliminated and/or the winner gets a prize, such as a toiletry item or a night in a hotel. The challenges involve things like pull-up contests on the beach, trying to kiss as many women as possible while wearing a Borat-style banana hammock, and having as many passersby as possible spank them on the street.

Since I am all alone and feeling a wee bit homesick (probably because we are rather rootless at the moment, what with being in between countries and all), it was a lot of fun to see five French people whose English is as bad a my French trying to navigate familiar places in Miami.

Here’s the promotional clip for the show as well as a clip of the banana hammock challenge, featuring the two finalists. Enjoy!

Licensed to drive: the saga continues

Right as I am about to permanently leave France, the French bureaucracy has decided to give me one last gift of a humorous anecdote. Consider it the French state's contribution to this blog: it delays my having to come up with British-related humorous content.

You may recall my driver's license saga from a post on this blog back in April. If not, here is the link.

When I left you last time, I had been sent away to return with a high-school transcript proving that I was a resident of the State of Florida on an arbitrary date that I made up as being the date my first driving license was issued.

Fast forward a couple of months until sometime in June when I take yet another morning off work to go back to the "prefecture" with my transcript and five payslips proving I've been living in France for at least six months. The young lady looked through my documents and says "congratulations, you've been approved for a license but first you must go to a medical examination". She wanted to schedule me for an appointment in October, but I knew I'd have left by then so I come up with some story about how I'm going travelling for business for three months bla, bla, bla. Luckily, she had availability for Thursday the 4th of September (day before yesterday) early in the morning. She told me that as soon as I had the medical "ok" I could come straight back to her office and get my license.

On the 4th, I take the whole day off of work (mind you this was the day before my last day of work) so that I can go take care of this. I go in the morning to the medical office where I'm asked to strip down to my underwear and shoes and then walk into the doctors' office where there are various doctors and nurses of both genders hanging around. Quite intimidating. I get my medical certificate and hightail it back to the Prefecture to make the most of this day. As soon as I arrive at the driving license office I show the receptionist my medical certificate and he asks me : "why did you get a medical certificate? You don't need one of those." I tell him that I had been required to get one last time I was there and he looked puzzled. This was at 10:45 in the morning. He gives me a number and four hours pass before my number is called. In the meantime I strike up a conversation with a couple from Michigan who is there, like me, to exchange their license for a French one under reciprocity laws. It's their first visit. I tell them all my horror stories trying to convince them that they'll be sent home in search of their great-grandfather's death certificate. They seem all chipper and confident; and don't speak a word of French. I'm rubbing my palms together waiting for them to be fed to the sharks, but they get called before me, spend a few minutes at the counter, and walk off with a shiny new French driving license. As they leave, the guy gives me a thumbs up and says "I think they just don't like you here." A sensible conclusion!

But anyway, way past my lunchtime I finally get called to the desk. I see the man start preparing my license, putting it through the printer and attaching my photograph to it. As he's doing this he asks me for my passport. I give him my EU member state passport and he says "don't you have an American passport?" "Oh, no, here it comes!" thinks I. I explain that I do have one but not on me as I only brought the one that proves my legal right to work in France. He tells me that the reciprocity agreement only applies to citizens of the countries in question and he therefore cannot give me a license unless I prove that I am a US citizen. Mind you, at no point during any of my previous three visits did ANYBODY tell me that I had to be a US citizen nor did I ever show them, nor did they ever ask me to show them a US passport. I desperately dig through my documents trying to see what I can come up with. I find a Miami-Dade county voter's registration card. "Look!" I say "You can't vote in America if you aren't a citizen. It's even written in Haitian Creole which is almost like French so you can understand it!" "Sorry, only a passport will do."

At this point, I decide to do away with all the British stiff upper lip that I'd been working on developing and get a little South American on his ass. Roots, yo! My voice raises a few decibels and I start running through the whole sad saga from day one about how many visits I'd already made, how many hours I'd waited and how I didn't understand why nobody had bothered to inform me of this requirement. The man looked frightened. I thought he was about to press a button to call security. Instead he asks "Why are you yelling at me? You're leaving here with your license." "What? I am? So what's the problem, then?" "Oh, there is no problem I assure you, go to desk G and wait until you are called."

By now I'm convinced that this is all a ruse and that desk G is where the goon squad is going to come get me to eject me from the premises. But no, soon enough my name is called and I'm given this:





Success!! That phone call to Mr. Sakho really did pay off, I guess. Mind you, the document is so sloppy and amateurishly done (my details are filled in with a dot-matrix printer of the sort I haven't seen around since 1984) that I could easily have saved myself the trouble and made it at home with my ink jet. The most amusing part is that it states that this license was issued in substitution for Florida driver's license number XXX issued on the 29th of January, 1989. Yup, that's the date I made up off the top of my head.

Lessons to be learned from this:

1) The employees of the French DMV make up the rules as they go along. If you're refused the first time, come back again and speak to somebody else. The requirements will probably be completely different and you might just get lucky.

2) Based on the experience of the couple from Michigan: don't speak French. Ironically, and despite anything you may have heard, being a non-French speaker is actually an asset when dealing with French bureaucrats. I think they just get tired of having to deal with you so they just stamp you right through.