live in france Archives - Ashwin Travel

Assimilating into Parisian Life

Our first 2 weeks in Paris has been full of excitement and surprises

Sacre Coeur
Exactly 2 weeks ago, our lives changed forever.

Our plane touched down into Paris about an hour early, and the rest of the day went much more smoothly than we expected. The gentlemen from Eelway Paris were waiting at the baggage claim as promised and collected our checked baggage. They also agreed to take our carry on luggage for a small additional fee and so we were luggage-free for the rest of the day until our 2pm rendezvous with our new landlord to move into our new apartment. The luggage would be delivered later that evening. By the time we got out of the airport it must have been 10:30am, so we decided to Uber straight to the Eiffel Tower. It was a crisp, sunny day and it felt like Paris was welcoming us with gorgeous weather. After grabbing an unimpressive Pasta Bolognese and Croque Monsieur sandwich at a nearby bistro, we took a few photos in front of the tower and headed to our appointment. We didn’t have to time to go up to the top, but hey, we live here now. Surely we will go back in the next few days right? (2 weeks and we haven’t gone back)

The apartment was a little disappointing at first. The photos in the website made it look so bright and brand new, but in reality it doesn’t get much light at all and needs some work. But now that we have settled in and Sina has worked her magic, it works quite well for us. The only thing we feel like we miss is a clothes dryer. My theory is that these buildings were not designed with exhaust systems for dryers and so we have to get used to crunchy clothes for a while.

The neighborhood, Bonne Nouvelle, is perfect. The streets are filled with lively cafes and shops and it is mostly a local crowd. It’s amazing though how one or two streets can make such a big difference in this city. 2 blocks to the left is prostitute-central with Chinese women walking around Strasbourg St. Denis. The laws have changed in Paris around prostitution and the women are not allowed to call after you, or just stand around waiting. They have to be walking around. Who comes up with this stuff? At one point we were actually considering an apartment literally right in the center of hooker-ville. Of course we had no idea! Thank goodness we decided on this one instead.

We are right in the middle of a two week holiday from school here in Paris. Last week we signed Luka and Taj up for an arts and crafts camp here in the city. We figured it would be a good way to start immersing them into the French language before they start school on November 5th and everything is in French. Unfortunately, they found the one or two kids that spoke some English and befriended them so they could avoid having to learn any French. The teachers also seemed to be excited by the prospect of practicing their English with the girls, so our plan was totally botched. Tomorrow they start French lessons instead of arts and crafts camp. Let’s see how that goes. Sina is worried that the girls will leave Paris without learning French. Being the optimist in the family, I’m not convinced yet.

So far, I am really loving life in Paris and have decided to really dive into a new life. I joined a gym around the corner which is full of Technogym equipment from Italy, and my plan is to go each morning, 6 times per week. So far, so good! I have also been going crazy taking photos all over the city (photography is a hobby of mine), and took a photography class one morning here in the city. An old industry friend of mine took me to an authentic French Bistro for lunch one day and we had an equally authentic 2 hour French lunch! I’ve always said that I don’t like living in big cities but being in Paris has re-energized me.

Paris Day 1 One of the amazing things about this city is that the entire city is beautiful. In most cities, one can find little pockets of cool, charming neighborhoods. In Paris it feels like the entire city is one endless cool charming neighborhood. Every single building looks like something out of a story book and every single street is lined with local shops, cafes, restaurants and pastry shops.

Living here does have its challenges, and everything requires several trips and several conversations to figure out how it works. 2 weeks later and we still haven’t figured out how to get a prepaid sim card for our phones. Sina has already mastered the art of “Amazoning” in Paris though. The local mail man already knows us and has been duly warned that he will be making many visits to our apartment door. Returns seem to be equally painless as they are in the US, so Amazon will not miss us at all over the next year it seems.

The neighbor from upstairs came downstairs one day to let us know he had received a piece of mail for us. We chatted politely in the doorway for a few minutes but then it became painfully obvious that he was not going to leave anytime soon, so we invited him in to sit down for a few moments. 2 hours later, Sina and I were making faces at each other as if to say “Is this for real?” or “How do we get rid of this guy?” Nice of him to stop by and all, but we had a long list of things to do to get settled in. We certainly felt like the rude foreigners that didn’t want to adapt to the French social norms but man, this guy really liked to talk!

I have to say that so far in general, most people have been very nice here in Paris. Of course once in a while we have come across someone rude but I think that’s true in any city. The only problem is I wish people didn’t speak so much English, and surprisingly there are many people who also speak Spanish! It makes learning the language more difficult. But I for one am determined to learn it. I am going to continue Rosetta Stone (I’m about half-way through now), and then there happens to be a language school one block away from here. I am hoping that Sina and I can become proficient enough that we can start introducing it at home and help the girls along.

Working on European time has both advantages and disadvantages. I don’t feel rushed in the mornings and after the gym I have a few hours to work without many interruptions before the US and Canada starts to wake up and things get busy. It’s nice to have that time in the morning to do something personally fulfilling and to work more productively. The downside is that there are emails and phone calls until I start ignoring them around 11pm, but I have been taking at least an hour or two in the evenings to have dinner with the family and read to the kids. I haven’t taken any business trips yet, but that will start back up after next week.

It’s hard to believe we have only been here for two weeks. It feels like at least a month has gone by! My parents were here over this last week which was a nice surprise for us and the kids. They are heading back to Miami tomorrow and it’s back to work in the morning. We are missing our dogs and cats back home, but we installed a webcam so we can at least see our dogs asleep in their room each day. We certainly don’t miss having to clean up all the pet hair everyday, but they are part of our family and it’s hard to be away from them. I think we haven’t even begun to scrape the surface of the impact life in Paris is going to have on us, and I am excited to see what’s to come.

Paris – ETA October 14, 2018

It has been a roller-coaster 48 hours. First, the elementary school with which we had a Skype interview at 5am EST accepted our girls! We didn’t think that the interview went so well because at the end of the interview, they suddenly weren’t sure if they had 2 spots available. This school was our first choice, because we really liked the person that interviewed us, and although it is bilingual, most of the classes are in French only.

Next, LODGIS (the real estate agency we are using) confirmed that the apartment we wanted was available! We had read that finding an apartment in Paris was difficult, and until now it had been quite a frustrating experience. The agency had requested copies of our passports, paychecks, tax returns, and more. Before sending all of this sensitive information I read plenty of reviews about the agency and they all sounded good, so we proceeded. Although the apartment is a little more expensive than what we had budgeted, it is within five minutes walking distance from the girls’ new school.

Last, the girls’ current school informed us that they weren’t going to make us pay the penalty for taking the girls out of school early. What a relief! They didn’t have to do that and we really appreciated their kind gesture since our kids have been there for 5 years.

The only problem is that the apartment isn’t available until October 14th. So now what do we do? We have tickets to leave on October 1st, should we change them? On one hand, the girls would miss 2 weeks of school in Paris if we were to go later. I feel like the sooner we get there the better, so they don’t get too far left behind. On the other hand, we would have to rent an AirBnB from the 2nd to the 14th, when our apartment becomes available. That’s a pretty major expense.

Not to mention… we don’t exactly travel light. Sina’s passion for fashion means that we will be taking full advantage of our elite status on United which allows us to take 3 bags per person and up to 70 lbs each bag! This factor must always be taken into consideration in our travel plans. Leaving on the 1st means getting all 12 bags to another apartment somewhere just outside the city (there is nothing available within our price range in the city center), and then moving all 12 bags to the apartment again once it becomes available.

Traveling with 12 large bags can also put a crimp in our summer plans. What if we plan to spend July and August in Italy or Greece? We certainly can’t take the bags with us. Maybe we will have to find a storage unit in Paris and come back for them before returning to the US in August. Most people would think we’re insane for traveling with so many bags but it is a burden we have accepted as part of our lives. We absolutely love dressing up as a family, and so traveling with 12 bags it is.

I wonder what the future holds for us after this year. It was a struggle to come back to Charlottesville after spending three months in Spain this summer. Imagine how we will feel coming back after a year in Paris! It gives us a bit of an uneasy feeling that we have a house in Charlottesville with our menagerie of pets that we love so much, and that we really don’t know where we will want to be as of August 2019. Hopefully we will have some kind of epiphany before then and the future will become clear.

For the moment, we have decided to change our ticket to leave Saturday October 13th. Even though the school in Paris will be less expensive than our school in Charlottesville, we will be spending significantly more money over the next year, so we need to save wherever possible. Spending thousands of dollars to go 2 weeks earlier just doesn’t make sense. So we have one more month to go to get our lives in order before we head to Paris. Today I spent the morning running around from store to store, stocking up on a year of cat food (for our 6 cats) tick and flea medicine, air conditioning filters, batteries, light bulbs, and other supplies so that the house-sitters can easily take care of the house while we are gone.

It’s amazing. 2 weeks ago we had no idea we were going anywhere. Now we have 4 tickets to Paris, a school, an apartment and house-sitters, and we can’t wait to get there!

Paris – It’s about to get real

It was about 2 weeks ago now that Sina and I started toying with the idea of living in Paris for a year. We had just spent the summer in Mallorca and found ourselves longing to spend some more time in Europe. The stars all seemed to align very quickly. The house sitters from the summer are able to stay and take care of our pets while we are gone. It works out quite positively professionally and I was able to get the green light from the powers that be to go. We now have plane tickets for early October and are in the process of finding a school for our 2 girls and a place to live. Not so easy…

AiBnB’s options are extremely limited given the last minute nature of our move. We have been dealing with one agency called LODGIS which has some good reviews in Tripadvisor but so far they seem extremely busy and it is difficult to get someone on the phone. We were finally able to submit an application today for an apartment. There is another agency called VINGT in Paris which has some pretty scary reviews. This morning I spoke briefly with the owner Susie Hollands and her curt demeanor matched the reviews. She literally said “I am not in a position to spend any more time on the phone with you.” I’m thinking maybe she should not be having conversations with customers. A few moments later though I received a call from Tycen in their office and he was extremely nice and helpful.

We have narrowed it down to 2 schools, but the idea of sending our girls to a school without seeing it, without meeting the teachers and knowing how we will get to school everyday from our apartment is just a little too much risk for my level of tolerance. So today I booked a ticket to head to Paris on Sunday. Luckily United Airlines had a ticket available using miles that wasn’t terrible. Finding a place to stay was a bit more challenging. The hotels are quite pricey and I did not want to spend over $1,000 for a hotel room for 5 nights. I found a decent apartment in AirBnB for $60 per night but as I was booking it someone snatched it out from under me! So I had to spring for an apartment for $109 per night. About $600 for the 5 nights.

I’ll arrive early Monday morning and have the week to visit the schools, meet the teachers, look at neighborhoods and hopefully secure an apartment. Given that we are going until next summer, I don’t feel confident signing contracts for schools and apartments without seeing them first.

Stay tuned for more updates next week, where I will be on location in Paris scoping out our life for the next year.

Paris Update – September 10, 2018

It was only about a week ago that Sina and I started toying with the idea of moving to Paris. Since then, we have organized house sitters, I’ve gotten the green light from work, and we have done a ton of research. There was a period of about 3 hours where I was trying to convince Sina that perhaps we should choose Lyon or Marseille over Paris, to get a more authentic French experience and not be surrounded by English speakers. I lived in Paris for about 6 months in 2002 during my Masters program at the Cornell Hotel School. They had a sister program at IMHI which is part of the ESSEC business school in Cergy Pontoise, about an hour outside of Paris. But I had landed an internship with Sol Melia Hotels & Resorts and I offered to work for free in exchange for a room in a city center hotel, which gave me the privilege of living in Paris during my time there. I remember distinctly that when I would make an attempt to speak French to people in Paris, they would get easily frustrated with my lack of proficiency and switch to English, making it quite difficult to practice and learn the language. I lost the argument with Sina pretty quickly. Paris, being one of the fashion centers of Europe and its allure of romance has too much going for it to be shadowed by Lyon or Marseille.

This morning, we woke Luka and Taj at around 4am, got them dressed and fed, and sat at the kitchen counter for a 5am Skype Interview with a Montessori school in Paris. Over a year ago we had a similar interview with a Montessori school in Mallorca when we were considering a potential move there. We hadn’t prepared the girls, and during the interview they behaved like monkeys. I can’t really say they behaved badly, they were just being kids… we made the mistake of sitting on the floor and so they were climbing all over us and giggling throughout the interview. Suddenly, the school didn’t have enough space for them. This time, we were not going to make the same mistake. So we prepared the girls and on two separate occasions discussed how they would ‘keep their bodies still’ and speak politely and with confidence. Well, at least this time they weren’t climbing on our heads, but the interview did last for about 30 minutes and they did start to get silly in the middle of it. Sometimes I wonder if the person interviewing us is more interested in the children’s behavior, or how we handle it. Nevertheless, by the end of the interview suddenly the interviewer wasn’t sure if they had 2 spots available and said she would have to check and get back to us. After we put the girls back to sleep to catch another 2 hours of sleep before going to school, we debated whether we had just experienced yet another rejection based on the girls (or maybe our) performance, or if the interviewer really wasn’t sure if she had the space.

Luckily, we had another option. Later that morning I called another school, and this time I spoke to them myself. She asked why we had chosen a Montessori education for our girls. I explained that my wife and I are a bit eccentric in the sense that we typically don’t fit in. We are unique individuals and we are proud of that fact. We wanted our girls to grow up being proud of their differences and to have the confidence to be who they are without feeling the pressure to conform to be part of a group. Furthermore I strongly believe that everyone should do what they love, and that if you are passionate about something or talented in a certain area you can be successful even if you’re not great at math or science. The Montessori philosophy focuses on each child’s individual strength even if that is art or creativity. This is why we love the philosophy. The discussion was great and it appears that we have now found a school for our two girls. Check another box on the list!

We still do not have a place to live, and I think this is going to be a challenge. There are very few options on AirBnB and maybe that’s because we are making such a last minute decision. It says there are only 1% of listings still available but I really don’t believe that. While there are other sites that have longer term rentals available, the selection is quite limited in the neighborhoods we prefer, and we are worried that nobody is going to get back to us. I have a feeling we are going to have to just pick something for October that is slightly outside the city and organize an apartment after we arrive.

Luckily, Sina and the girls have European passports so we don’t have any legal issues when it comes to staying there for more than 3 months. I will be traveling in and out for work so I shouldn’t have any issues either.

We started to look at plane tickets. I will never understand airline pricing. If I buy a ticket to Paris leaving October 1st and returning in August 2019, the price is $2,000. If I leave October 1st and come back in 2 weeks it’s $500?? So I’m better off buying the 2 week ticket and just not using the return trip. In the end I think we will end up using frequent flyer miles on United. Sadly they want 60,000 miles per person! Ouch… But right now I would rather not spend the cash, and we really don’t know when we will come back so we need to have the flexibility to change that return date without paying $800 in change fees for 4 tickets.

There is so much to think about, not to mention a LOT going on at work so keeping up with both is challenging. But we are starting to download French music on Spotify and I will soon download Babbel so I can start learning French. I have forgotten what little I had learned 16 years ago. I tried Rosetta Stone for German and I got about half way through it. I have heard good things about Babbel so I will give it a try.

I started researching tax implications today as well. If I stay in France for 6 months or more, then I have to pay tax in France on my full income for the year! So we may need to modify our plan and spend July and August somewhere else. Italy maybe? Greece? We shall see. There is also apparently a tax credit if you are outside the US for a certain period of time but there are plenty of rules around that, so I have written to my accountant to learn more.

As of now I would say there is a 90% chance we are moving to Paris! There are still some details to work out but right now everything appears to be falling into place quite nicely. The universe appears to be telling us to go. Who are we to refuse?

Next Stop: Paris?

After spending the summer in Mallorca, coming back to the United States was not easy. While we missed the comfort of being in our own home and of course we missed all of our pets, we suddenly found ourselves feeling like we no longer belong in Charlottesville. During a conversation with Sina last week, I mentioned that Peter (the founder of Kognitiv) and Mergim (a friend within my company) are both moving to London and she said “Maybe we should be moving to London too.” I don’t know how serious she was, but it stuck with me. Maybe we SHOULD be moving to London. Why the hell not?

We started to seriously think about the possibility of moving to London. We looked for Montessori schools and there were a few options. The first problem was that almost every school had a uniform. What gives? Is that just a British thing? Montessori is all about celebrating individuality. How can you have a school uniform? Given our family’s love of fashion, that just wasn’t going to happen. Neither Sina nor I have ever been excited about the prospect of living in London. Both of us believe that our happiness has a direct correlation to the amount of sunlight exposure we have, and Sina correctly pointed out that constant rain puts a damper (pardon the pun) on one’s wardrobe options. Most importantly, as we are focused on exposing Luka and Taj to new cultures and languages, London probably isn’t the best option. It is a very diverse, multi-cultural city, but the girls would not learn a new language.

Maybe we should go to Paris? It’s a 2 hour train ride from London, so I could easily go meet with Peter and Mergim… It’s quite central and I can easily get anywhere in Europe for work, we could all learn French, and well, it’s PARIS. As we started to think more about it, the uneasy feeling that we both had about London quickly disappeared and was replaced with a feeling of excitement. For the last several days we have been writing to Montessori schools and AirBnB renters to check out our options.

As luck would have it, the house sitters that took care of our house and pets over the summer while we were in Mallorca fell in love with Charlottesville and decided to move there! They do not have a place to live yet, and after speaking with them it appears they would be more than happy to stay in our house for a year.

This week in Toronto I ran the idea by Peter and one or two others to ensure there were no objections, and it appears I have the green light from work. So all of the pieces now appear to be falling into place. The only concern that remains now is a financial one. We really cannot afford to pay our mortgage in Charlottesville and rent an apartment in Paris at the same time. Not to mention, it is a given that we will spend more money, on clothes, food, traveling, etc. Plus, we would lose 40% of the tuition on the girls’ current school. It’s going to add up fast.

But the girls are not getting any younger and it has always been our dream to take them and live in different countries, and learn new languages. If we put it off, it will never happen. After selling my company 2 years ago, it feels like it’s time to start achieving more of our personal goals. Best of all, we can do that while still making significant contributions to the company and growing professionally. As of now, I think it’s a gamble worth taking. Sina and I are going to discuss it this weekend and hopefully we will have a decision by Monday.