The Fun of Being Immigrants

The entrance to hell

Ok, we've been really bad about writing the past couple of weeks, but we're going to blame it on the French and their tendency to throw in vacations all year. Yes, it was the fall break, so we got a chance to pack our bags and do a little traveling ourselves. More to come on that later, but for today's episode, we're going to reflect on the annoyances of being the immigrant.

For the most part, our US passport is gold, GOLD to the rest of the world. It really is amazing how easy access is for us to go place to place without question. That is, though, until you start living in that other place. And looking back on all the country hopping we've done, it's only been the UK and American Airlines who's seems throw a fit. My god, there wasn't even people working the border control in Greece. Greece of all places?! Anyways, going home last spring, Adam and I were questioned to death about our visa from AA. We're thinking, seriously? We're American, why do you care so much? We're going home. Then, I had the worst heckling of my life trying to hop the train from Paris to London to go meet my parents for a few days (no, Adam could not make this trip). It felt like eternity as I was asked a million questions at border control about my stay, intentions, when I'm returning... trying to avoid having to pull out my expired visa (my problem? not at all. When making my appointment two months before the expiration, the earliest the french could get me in was about 3 months AFTER it had expired. Super) And btw, no one except AA has EVER asked about my visa...The conversation went a bit like this:

Purpose of trip?
 - Vacation
How Long?
 - 4 days
Then where are you going?
 - To Marseille
Do you have that documentation?
 - No, my parents have the reservation for that trip
How long will you be in Marseille?
 - We'll be traveling in Provence for a week
And then?
 - I come back to Paris
When did you actually arrive in Europe?
 - Uhh, mid September
So this is actually NOT the beginning of your holiday then, is it?
 - Well, yes?
But it's been a month after you've arrived.
 - Yes
Do you know how long you are allowed to stay in the Schengen zone?
 - Yes, 3 months
And do you have you plans to go back to the states?
 - No, not yet
Really....pause pause
- I do live here, did you want to see my visa?
Ah ha, there we go now, of course
- (shit...shuffling to find the damn receipt for my renewal appointment, which btw, isn't even the 'legal' piece of info you're supposed to have to use in a situation like this. What the french want you to so is take that receipt, then make another appointment, so they can give you a similar piece of paper saying you actually have an appointment. wtf, right?)

............

Ok, so Mr. UK was fine with all that and I explained to him that yes, this technically was the start of my holiday (didn't think it was appropriate to say that I've actually been on holiday from life the past year... details) And then, I was through. Wow, I could never be one of those people sneaking across borders with a false identity, I'd just blow it.

Coming back into France made me just as nervous because THEY are the people who are supposed to care. And as luck would have it, the French do what they do best, they don't give a shit. STAMP, right on through, mercie. No questions, no cares, no nothing. Sometimes I hate the French for being so French, and other times I love it.

Now, Adam's STILL waiting to get a visa, as here I am about to renew mine. We have another trip to the UK for Thanksgiving, and at first we thought this would be no big deal, we'll just play the American tourists. After the incident I just endured, though, I sent Adam a shaky text about what had happened and that we better check up on his visa soon.

And again, ANOTHER 'fun' trip to the Prefecture (or police station). Luckily the wait wasn't as horrendous as we'd expected, but we had to laugh at the waiting room 'art' (or color copies) of random pics they had of Paris on the wall....some pretty buildings, the Seine, and the Prefecture. Why the hell do they think we want to be reminded we're here? God... (mind you, this was probably the 4th trip to the station on top of my horrible visit to the OFII office, sheesh). When Adam told the gal he's been waiting for 11 months for a response (and by the way, that's 11 months after we realized last winter that the Chicago office had actually given him the wrong kind of temporary visa, and he had to reapply all over again) she looked at him like, what, are you serious? She asked what he was applying for, and honestly he didn't exactly know considering it was a special-case visa (not a simple work visa), and no one had actually confirmed with Adam exactly what it was (since after the mix-up, the school started doing all the communicating with the visa office). So that made us look a little foolish, but luckily they did have his file, and the boss came out almost apologizing and mumbled something like they had been waiting for another office of labor to confirm something about his file before it could be processed.....or in other words, it wasn't their problem, so they weren't going to do their jobs. Supposedly now they are going to push it through so Adam can get his titre de sejour (residents card) AND get him his récépissé (that document I dreaded not having at the UK border control) so that we can all travel and live happily ever after.

And knowing how it goes, we'll probably have no questions about visas after having jumped through yet more hoops just to be legal. We shall see in two weeks.....

And We're Back

Les Deux Magots Cafe

Hey fellow readers....and we're back. Yes, along with us, our blog has had a bit of a vacation itself, but it's time to start chapter 2 of Hoop Dreams  with year 2 abroad (uh, yeah, I think we totally slacked on trying to even think of a new title after all this time. any thoughts?).

In a nutshell the past 4 months have been a serious blur full of the known medical fun, wedding planning, moving back to France, touring the country, heading back to the Mayo for more tests (all's well!) then off to Greece for two weeks with a group of 6 of my super fantastic friends. Adam was unable to make it to the land of Gyros, worry beads, and Frappes (sad face), but instead stayed in Paris to fire up a new year at the school. I was able to join on a recent field trip to Lille and got a great impression of the students. I think it's going to be a good year.

On top of all that fun, for the past two weeks our apartment has been run like a hotel. We've had two rounds of visitors so far, and are about to host number three....adam's parents. And in the middle of all that, a long lost girlfriend from high school just got married and came through Paris, willing to meet up with Adam and I for drinks on the first night of the honeymoon. We felt honored ; ) and had a great time showing them around, feeling like we actually knew something about this city. Nothing beats a beautiful night out sipping a glass of Pouilly Fumé (a great white you all must try!) at the famous Les Deux Magots followed by swanky 1920s cocktails at our fave, Curior Parlor, the only place you'll find a stuffed raccoon by an unlit shady entrance, a peacock, and a stuffed fox with a bow tie above the bar. Ah, we love visitors as it gives us the excuse to splurge a bit : )

More to come soon, I promise, but for now, need to prepare for playing hostess for round 3!

My Lourdes!

Heading back north, I prodded Adam into making one last stop, Lourdes. A family member of mine had been there a number of times with her nursing students and highly recommended it, and after further reading about the hype around this place, I was intrigued.

Back in the 1850s, an young girl, Bernadette, saw 18 apparitions of Mary in the town's local grotto.  Even if a crowd was standing with her, she was the only one who could see and hear this beautiful lady. On one such account the spirit asked her to go and drink from a fountain within the grotto which at that time, did not exist. At that same moment, though, water came gushing from the rocks, and it is this water source that has attributed to 1000s of miraculous healings. One source tells me the church has only officially recognized around 67 as real miracles (with many more under investigation), but there have been over 8000 cases reported of healing of some sort. As you can imagine, it took the church a few years and some skepticism to officiate Bernadette's sightings, but in the end, they officiated the sighting and followed one of Mary's requests and built a church over the grotto. Once the first miracles started occurring, 1000s of pilgrims began flocking to this sight to get a look at the grotto and hope to be healed as well by it's powerful waters.

A garden of rosaries (St. Bernadette pictured)

As the guidebooks say, this sight will put any believer or non-believer in awe. It is said that this town receives around 5 millions of visitors each year (to a town of only 15,000) from all over the world, and is one of the most visited pilgrimage sites in Europe (hard to believe, I think, next to Rome, but whatever). As Adam and I tried to snake our way through town, stuck in traffic, and surrounded by store after store after store of religious nicknacks, we started getting prematurely annoyed by the whole idea. Ahhh, just another tourist trap!

Once we parked, though, and started towards the church, I couldn't believe my eyes; there was a nonstop stream of wheelchairs, all with their own lane on the sidewalk, going to and from the church. Holy crap, this is for real! People really are coming here to be healed! I don't thing I've ever seen such a diverse group of sick, disabled, crippled group of people, all speaking different languages all together at once. Maybe this place really does have some magic?

Filling up on some magic drink

The church that was built over the grotto was absolutely gorgeous. And I've seen a lot of churches (which all seem to look the same after awhile), but this had a certain fairytale castle look to it. I loved it. Below the church was the line to fill up your water jugs with the healing waters as well as the line for the grotto. People will fill filling everything from tiny 1 oz jars to 3 gallon jugs. We simply refilled my water bottle and chugged away. Healing or not healing, it at least saved us from dehydration on a hot day. (but let's hope it had some healing powers to it!) But this whole idea of miracles still had me mystified. Next, we shuffled into the line for the grotto. In actuality, this is simply a small cave on the side of the cliff, but it was incredible how smooth the stones felt after years of millions of people running their hands over them, saying a prayer. I was most impressed by this 'tourist spot', for everyone around treated it with such respect. The crowd was in a reflective silence, and it was quite emotional seeing the line of cripple and sick in their wheel chairs coming up to get a glimpse, seeing their families in tears. wow.

Basilica of the Rosary, built over the grotto

A marvelous church built over a grotto

Plaques along the side of the church in about 20 different languages
reading "Come and drink at the spring, and wash yourself there"

All us pilgrims

Prayer candles

We thought that was it, but continuing along the cliff, we came across stand after stand of prayer candles.  Ah ha! so THAT's what all the stores were selling. There must have been 1000s of candles in all sizes from tiny tea lights to human sized giants. We even saw a sign saying that you could purchase these online and have them lit here. Ah, the idea of online pilgrims! Genius. The Catholic Church does it again. Beyond that, we saw another crowd of people split into guys and girls, and realized this was where you could bath yourselves in the spring. We couldn't really see how this happened since it was all behind closed doors, but I read somewhere that some 400,000 people come bathe themselves each year here (though not all of the miracles have happened because of the bathing...you should read about the scientific banter about all this)

In the end, Adam and I both agreed it was a great stop to make, if anything, just to see what the power of belief does to a town and to its visitors. In addition, it also gave me the chance to understand a bit more about the difference between our two religions, as I took for granted the idea of Saints and pilgrimages, and the rosary, all that stuff really is a Catholic thing.  Good thing, I suppose,  that someone had a Catholic along for the ride to shed some light on all this : )

Basking in the Basque

From the Dunes, we navigated down the coast and immediately got slammed right in the middle of a traffic jam. The French traffic really is insane over the summer, and it really is true that the entire country goes on holiday all at once, flocking like sheep to the south. On our way to Lauzerte about a month ago, the rest stops were ALL madhouses. In the states, these places are usually creepy places to avoid, whereas here, they're necessary mental breaks from the insanity on the highway. People were parking three deep in semi's parking spaces, every inch of grass was taken up by a picnicker.

We seriously did not have time for this crap for we had a beach to get to! (just like everyone else) Our next stop was St. Jean de Luz  near the border of Spain. I had been told it has an amazing beach, and by the looks of google satellite, it looked like quite the spot to fulfill some beach time need. Once we finally got to town, it was already getting late and we didn't have anywhere to sleep yet. The campgrounds in town were about as expensive as cheap hotels, so we said screw that. We drove further and further from town being rejected at each campground we stopped. It's sad when you start to recognize the same cars going place to place with you and also being rejected. The campgrounds, like the rest stops were all just bursting at the seams with vacationers. It was all really insane. Even FURTHER from the beach, we finally found a place that was able to take us for the night. Exhale. By the time we got changed, sat in traffic for over an hour to get BACK into town, it was already almost 6pm. Thankfully the sun stays out here until about 10pm, so we got a couple of good hours relaxing and people watching.

The beach really was something like out of the movies. SOOO packed, and colorful, and full of activity. Full of cabanas and striped umbrellas, and people half dressed or not dressed at all...and that guy walking through selling roasted nuts as if we were at a baseball game. No longer were we in the world of the scrawny/pale Parisians; here we had a whole rainbow of body types, all feeling carefree in the sun. Ah, so here's where all the 'normal' people are ; )

Trying to get that big catch

The Harbor

St. Jean de Luz is located in the upper left blue region.
The rest of our road trip took us through the remaining
blue regions through the Pyrenees.

We packed up shop after a bit of sun, then went for a stroll around town. Quite a cute town, indeed, with it's French/Basque architecture, culture, and food. The streets were packed with people and shops, but you didn't get that sense of over kitschiness. It was nice.

So as I mentioned, we were now in Basque region, an area that stretches through northern Spain and covers this little corner of southwestern France. Reading a bit about these guys, their history is fascinating. They have maintained their own language, Euskara...which looks totally greek to me with all its X'z and Y's and Zs...culture, and geographic position for 1000s of years and are in constant protest both peaceful (more of the French side) and hostile (more of the Spanish side) to break away and be recognized as their own country. Since their language seems to predate any influence of european dialect and none of their mythical stories include any accounts of 'the big move' (like most cultures experience sometime in their existence), evidence points to the Basque having been settled on this same ground, for a very very VERY long time. It is believed they are actually direct descendants of cro-magnon man! With as niche as their language seems to be, I was surprised to see it as an option in Google Translate! The tend to be the opposite of Parisians, big, thick, and strong, and apparently consider winning games of strength a form of honor...tug of war. cart lifting....we saw a sign for a festival with log chopping. Awesome. And every town, all adorned in the Basque colors of green and red, will have a pelota court (see here for a video about the sport!) and hopefully a bakery with their famous almond custard cake, Gateau de Basque.

YUM

Traditional wear

The Basque make some amazing cheeses

At the Musee du Beret

Unfortunately, we didn't get to see anyone in their traditional garb like these guys (thanks google search!), but we did see an abundant amount of berets. Little did we know, these funny little hats, originally designed in France for the local peasants and Basque sheep herders, were actually invented and produced in the tiny southern town of Nay, the beret capitol of the world! (mind you, a handful of other countries do the beret thing as well, so you can't quite call it exclusively French) It's said that the only remaining 2 factories of France are located near this town. Though we didn't have time to go through the entire museum, we had to make a stop for photo's sake. Man, the sun was bright that day.

Following our introduction to French beach-going and a bit of Basquism, we continued east into the Pyrenees to see what all the hype is about....secluded Basque towns, sheep, breathtaking views, shear mountain cliffs, lush landscape...it's an area that is blanketed in mystery and awe, superstitions and success stories (this strip of mountains thoughout the ages has provided the perfect secret access across borders for vagabonds, thieves, the persecuted (such as the Jews in WWII), or anyone else trying to escape one country and start anew in another. It was time to take off the swim suits and put on the hiking gear.

The Land 'O Ire: Part IV

Ok, it's about time to wrap up all this Ireland stuff, but we have just a few more highlights to share....

Putting a close to the Burren, we made our way north along the coast until we hit Galway. Galway's a huge university town and packed with tons of cafes, restaurants, pubs, and music venues, and despite it being the third largest city in the country, we thankfully found it not overwhelmed with chain establishments and kitch tourist shops. The downtown felt relatively small and hometown with a good, lively vibe. Being day 6 of traveling and touring, we weren't feeling quite as lively; aimlessly wandering and doing not too much sounded a-okay to both of us. After a lunch of clam chowder, brown bread, and an irish coffee, Adam I meandered the streets and found ourselves at a bookshop buying some reads about Celtic legends and folklore. Yeah, that guy in Doolin certainly pricked our ears; we were fascinated with the history of all this stuff. Holing up in, first, a cafe, then a pub, we lost ourselves within our ghost stories and mythology, coffee, then guinness (Cider for me, of course ; ) It was great to have some solid chill time, but then you're instantly snapped out of this dreamy reading daze when the pub starts playing Garth Brooks. Wha?!

On the River Walk-view to Galway Cathedral

Galway Cathedral

The following day we hopped back in the car to check out the ever-so talked about Connemerra National Park just a few hours out of town. Instantly, the coastal landscape turned into rocky scruff that lead up to Connemerra's vast mountain peaks. Seriously, we had probably seen every possible landscape on this trip! Of course, being down-season, most things were closed (even the visitor's center?!), but we were able to stop for a few hours at the acclaimed Kylemore Abbey. We were expecting more monastic ruins, but this, in fact, was actually some rich guy's fairytale retreat, that after years of abandonment and disrepair, was finally taken over by the nuns, turned into a school, and restored for tours. It was said that this rich fella was on honeymoon with his wife sometime back in the 1800s, and they simply fell in love with the area. They bought the property, tore down the original lodge, then built and elaborate mansion and garden. After the wife's death, he then had a mini cathedral built on site in her memory. Absolutely gorgeous (yes, this all seemed like a perfect place for a wedding...but probably a bit outa the question ; )

 View across lake

View from the Abbey to the lake

Boating seemed to be a favorite pastime here. 

Numerous docks in ruins were found scattered about the lake (left)

A small slice of the gardens...JUST beginning to bloom (right)

 One of only a few of the numerous surviving greenhouses 

(these are the places that all the ladies would come hang out in 

during the winter for some sun)

 Garden Shed

 Miniature Cathedral

The following day we made our way back to Dublin hitting up ONE last tourist site, the ruins at Clonmacnoise. Now this stuff was SUPER old (we're talking back to the 6th Century) with a bit more religious history compared to our fairytale abbey. And crazy enough, the sun stayed out just long enough for us to wander the grounds photograph the place, but as we headed for the car and decided we'd had enough of site seeing for one trip, it started to rain, and we hopped back in the car. It still amazes me that the total time from coast to coast takes about the same time as a trip from Chicago to Champaign. 

 Clonmacnoise Ruins

Structures dating back to the 10th Century

Landscape on our drive back

Our last night in Dublin turned out to be a pleasantly chill evening as we met up with one of Adam's old co-workers who recently moved to Dublin for a project he's engineering. We were sad to hear that we were missing his wife's arrival by a mere couple days as it would have been nice to have her in the conversation about moving abroad, the comparison of our lives, and what the future held for us all. Guess it was just comforting to know that not too far off, there's another couple out there just like us experiencing this crazy transition. 

The Land 'O Ire: Part III

We pulled into Doolin as the sun was setting (yes, see the craziness of signs this navigator had to deal with along our entire trip, try figuring these out in the dark!) and checked in to one of the quaintest hostels I've ever been in. Situated akin to the Aille River, we were informed by a local living there that he'd helped out with the renovation and that this cottage was over 300 years old with the bridge leading to it, an extra 500yrs. This land had some serious history with a lot of overly superstitious folk as well. "The Irish," our friend told us, "especially the uneducated country folk, believed in a lot of spirits, fairies and things of the like to explain the unknown. For instance, if a house fell down, it was probably because you'd built it along a fairy path, and they didn't like it being there (try using THAT excuse, fellow archies, ha). Or, for the longest time, little boys would be dressed in girls' clothes until the age of 6 so that it would trick the fairies from stealing them. After age 6, boys were too old for the fairies to want them (or was this just a way for poor mothers to reuse clothing?)...or have you ever heard about the banshee....? " Our friend didn't seem to believe too heavily in ghosts, but he told us a creepy account of taking his dogs out for a walk near a graveyard and them stopping dead in their tracks, tail between their legs. "It was really weird," he said, "and when we got back to the house, they acted all skittish the rest of the night. I looked out the window to see what the hell they were growling about, and there was this dark figure just hanging out down the path. Then it was gone. The next day, my sister-in-law's father died of a heart attack...."  This guy was such a great storyteller, and as we sat by the fire in our little hostel he sucked us into a world of supernatural beliefs, pagan history, and the celtic demise. We could have listened for hours to that heavy accent.

Aille River Hostel: View fm our room & the 800 Year Old Bridge

Photoshoot: Adam vs. Cat

Doolin has only a couple pubs, and both that we tried are noted for their traditional music and awesome food. The first night we hit up O'Connors ready to finally hear some of the real stuff. Waiting for the show to begin, we had a chance to relax across from a warm fire with a pint and had fun watching the accordion player get hammered in the corner with friends. And dinner was all it had been talked up to be; we had some of the best smoked salmon and guinness beef stew we'd ever eaten. Around 9:30, the rest of the band entered the restaurant and plopped down at a corner table and started to play. Oh no, there's no standing around for these guys, because they're there ALL NIGHT. The bar got hopping, and everyone kept asking if we were in town for the music fest. HUH? Yeah, apparently we had JUST missed one of the largest trad festivals in Irland, Micho Russell Festival a music fest in Memorial M.Russell, a famed trad music artist who died on this very weekend (end of feb) back in 1994. Hmmm, who woulda known? But there were plenty back in the bar who'd been there the night before, up until 4am, just jigging away. An older white-haired bearded man walked in the bar and a gal we met from LA leaned over and said, "oh yeah, and that's the match-maker of the town..." just before the drunk accordion player came over to our table and yelled something at us completely incomprehensible. Sounded something along the lines of him dragging a case of wine somewhere, then he went over the a group of French sitting in the corner and called them a bunch of *&%!ers. It was definitely a WTF kind of moment : )

The next day we bundled up and headed out on a 6 hour hike up Blackhead Rock. Again, some of the craziest landscape I've ever been in with the land covered in stone walls, cows, and miles and miles of barren grikey rocks. Ringforts and cairns would pop up out of nowhere along the way and we would sit and ponder just how many 100s if not 1000s of years old this stuff was. Mind boggling. Reaching the top of the peak you would look out and see nothing but a barren wasteland of stone. This was the point that you really did feel alone; we never saw a single soul the entire day. At this point, we hadn't heard all the stories of the land from our friend at the hostel, but looking back now, I think I preferred it that way. He had mentioned that fairies were believed to live under old ring forts and any sort of odd land formation(dips, bumps, whatever...the landscape was nothing BUT these) and that there had been noted disappearances of individuals who sat in them. And where did we plop down for an icy lunch, trying to escape the nonstop wind blowing into our faces?... but a small ring fort located in a dip of the mountain. We were in serious fairy territory, indeed, and had no idea. Ignorance is bliss, ha. "Ah, the wind was a blowin at ya the entire time?" our friend said. "Ya know, people who are out alone in that for long periods tend to go mad. They start hearin' stuff. A friend o mine even though he heard the banshee screamin'." Great.

Ancient Ring Fort

Ancient Road (left) & Property Boundaries (right)

Grikey Landscape

Photoshoot: Adam vs. Cow (left)

End of the Hike Sunshine (right)

The following morning, we drug our exhausted bodies out of bed and hit the road to head up to Galway. Before leaving the beautiful Burren, we made one more stop to Fanore Beach. Again, God was on our side as He brought out the sun once again. And who says it rains all the time in Ireland ?

Boardwalk (left)

Granite Rock formations on the Beach (right)

Ahhh, beach to ourselves

Sand Dunes at Fanore (probably home of fairies, too ; )