Goodbye to summer. Well, it didn’t take long for autumn to settle in around here. There have been entire days without sunshine lately and I’m still waiting to see if it will come out at all today. I’m just glad we were able to take advantage of a few days of nice weather when we got here. Apparently, those will be few and far in between from here on out. I suppose we can use this as further motivation to get on with our Iberian aspirations.

The good weather did last long enough for us to benefit from the Acroches Coeurs our first weekend here. This is an arts festival consisting of street performances and exhibitions as well as other special events throughout the city. As it turns out, the arts are big in Angers, a fact that is no doubt aided by the presence of Universities and their accompanying student populations in this town of 120,000. After that weekend, the weather started to turn pretty lousy. But if the atmospheric conditions around here limit the potential for outdoor activities, there is fortunately no shortage of indoor – and more interestingly: nocturnal – activities to delve into (more on nocturnal life later).

The weekend following the Acroches Coeurs, was designated as the “Days of Patrimony”. During this Saturday and Sunday, all the museums, galleries, monuments, and countless other attractions throughout the republic are open to the public free of charge or at a reduced rate. The aim is to expose folks to the local, regional, and/or national treasures they may otherwise not have access to. Not bad. We took advantage to visit some small out of the way exhibitions in a small town called Bouchmaine. The name literally translates to “mouth of Main” as the town is situated where the Maine River joins the Loire in its final push to the Atlantic. It was a gray day with a slight drizzle later on in the afternoon, but we were able to wander along the small village down-river before the rain came. It always amazes me how the countryside here is dotted with these small villages of several hundred people that have neither shrunk nor expanded very much over the centuries.

As for nocturnal activity, you may recall that I mentioned something about a student population. As it would anywhere else in the world, here this translates to a large variety of bars, pubs, restaurants, cafes, and oh yeah, nightclubs. We just discovered a particular jewel in the form of a good size live music venue in the tradition of HOB or the Varsity. There are several shows coming up that we’re eying including (if we’re still here at the beginning of November) Steel Pulse! This Saturday they’re having their big 10th anniversary celebration with an array of acts throughout the long evening that starts at 6pm and ends around 4am. We’ll be hosting our first dinner party that night so we’ll probably not make it until later on. It’s a hard life and I know it, but a comprehensive survey of urban nocturnal activities demands a certain degree of rigor and discipline. I’ll be reporting on our findings soon thereafter.

One other thing I wanted to mention is that yesterday was “no car day”. This is meant to encourage people to sample alternative means of transportation as a way to introduce them to other modes available that they might make regular use of in the future. While many cities make special provisions to enhance public transportation for the occasion, there are a handful that have permanently made public transportation free of charge to the public. Again, not bad.

As for the status of our transition and job search, there are a few things worth noting. First, it would seem that while the process for acquiring a work permit is a fairly simple and straightforward one, the same cannot be said about validating my degree and license in Spain or signing up for social security coverage while in France. The latter has exposed a labyrinth of red tape befitting the country that invented the word bureaucracy. If you haven’t seen “L’Auberge Espagnole”, check it out I highly recommend it. In it there’s a scene where the main character is doing his paperwork at the university to go on a year’s exchange in Spain. After given the runaround a couple of times, the screen quickly fills up with all the forms, slips, applications, etc. that he has to get signed, stamped, and/or otherwise approved. You get the picture. As for validation of degrees, this involves getting official notarized copies of transcripts and diploma as well as official notarized translations and I’m sure other cute little surprises I can’t yet imagine. Unfortunately, under the existing model of a “global economy” the free movement of labor does not seem to be as high a priority as the movement of goods and capital. But that’s a different discussion.

So anyway, we were commenting the other day on the remarkable similarity the bureaucratic process here shares with doing paperwork in Honduras. It’s nice to have little reminders of home, but clearly some more than others. So if I may digress, I should like to spend some time here writing about the concept of customer service in Honduras and its inextricable link to El Muchacho. “The young man”, as this translates, is a character known throughout Honduras to be ubiquitous by way of his perpetual absence. Whenever there’s a breakdown in service of any kind, you can count on being told something like, “the young man who takes care of that isn’t here right now” or “that’s not my department, but the young man should be back later” or “you should come back when you young man in charge of that is here”. You quickly get a sense of how the functionality of an entire society, not to mention the economy, rests on the shoulders of this fictitious “someone else”. It would be too much to ask for someone to take initiative in solving a customer’s/client’s problem. No, the appropriate response is to pass the responsibility on to someone else. If El Muchacho did not exist, he would have to be invented.

In France, this takes a different twist. While there is regular use of “le monsieur” here, it is more common to be reminded of the limitations of our reality by the expression “c’est pas possible”. Functionaries and employees of all types, when asked to do something that deviates in the slightest from their job description or the standard operating procedure, will quickly smirk and tell you: “I’m sorry, that’s simply not possible”.

And that’s one of the contradictions I was referring to in the previous post. Folks in general seem to be very accommodating in modifying their private lives for a perceived greater good (e.g. using mass transit, recycling, etc.). However, this flexibility is often – albeit not always – absent in the provisions of goods and services (especially in government administrations) and represents a real limiting factor to the dynamism of economic activity. I think a lot of this is because work (and here I have to admit to agree somewhat) is often seen as a necessary evil, not as a calling, a mission, and certainly not a labor of love. The result is that it can often be frustrating to get simple stuff done (like getting a DSL connection in under two weeks!!!), but it does have its positive trade-offs. Sure, the store you need to go to may be closed at lunchtime or on the weekend, but that means that chances are YOU won’t have to work through lunch or on weekends either. I think the trick to avoid the frustration is to just accept that the reality is what it is through the exercise of tolerance. C’est la vie; this is the nature of culture shock. And before embarking on a mission of social change, it may be worthwhile to examine whether or not the alternative is indeed an improvement.

Friday at last! Who would have thought that it could be so much work to not work, but so it is. This week has been a pretty busy one. Primarily due to the multiple trips – often in the same day – to various government ministries, offices, bureaus, etc., I’ve gotten a good taste of old fashioned bureaucracy and red tape. I have to admit though, that despite all the running around, it is a fairly straitforward process considering that I’m trying to get a work permit in a country being a foreign national born in yet a third country. In all, the process is reminiscent of the old walk-through enrollment procedure in college (without the long lines at the PMAC). It remains to be seen how smooth this transfer goes when moving on to Spain, but so far it seems decidedly more pleasant than my dealings with the folks DHS (sorry, but I want to limit the number of times phrases starting with “department” and ending with a word that sounds like “surety” appear on this site).

So anyway, here we are passing our “fin de saison” with trips to the French countryside, strolls downtown, and indulging in wine and all kinds of stuff that’s really really bad for you. I’m determined to put this famous “French Paradox” to the test. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, we’re also busting ass looking for work. Right now we’re working on getting a DSL line installed so we can set up a home network and work simultaneously without tying up the phone line. Ironically enough, this seems to be more of a hassle than arranging for a work permit. Hopefully, we should have it in the next week or so. Until then, it’s dialup as usual.

The other day one of Steph’s cousins dropped by and taught me to play chess, or at least the basics. I figured that if I’m to be a true man of leisure, I need to know how to play. If I’m not careful, I could end up taking up petanque, equestrian sports, and all manner of old-world pastimes. One thing I figured out pretty quickly is that French Paradox or not, I gotta watch the pounds, err, kilos with all cheeses, pates, and other fatty substances about. To that end, I decided I’d start swimming again since I haven’t done so (other than for recreational purposes) since Big D. However, it’s not so simple. You can’t just show up at the gym, pay your way, put on your trunks, and start doing laps. It would seem there are strict guidelines and regulations concerning the type of swimwear permitted in the pool. So I now own (if you can picture this, you have my deep and most sincere apologies) a pair of skintight lycra speedo-esque swimming shorts.

While the thought of that might be amusing at best, that’s not the point. The point is that it’s funny how stringently so many aspects of life are regulated here. For example, last Saturday we were doing some yard work – you know, trimming hedges and the like, as any man of leisure would – and we had to get rid of the leaves and branches and stuff. Now, in the US, you just drop the stuff at the curb and wait, or better yet call, to have the city folks come by and pick it up. In Honduras it gets more interesting. The more popular option would be to burn it right there in your yard (preferably with any other household rubbish you might be hesitant about just tossing in the garbage). Some folks actually go as far as lauding this method for keeping away the mosquitoes. Other options involve tossing it in a nearby empty or unoccupied lot or simply dumping it by the roadside. Here on the other hand you have to carry it, that’s right, carry it to a designated dumpsite. There you are instructed into which of the different bins and dumpsters you are to deposit your cargo.

It all seems like a hassle and you wonder why people bother. But that’s just it; people seem to not mind simple inconveniences (like not having plastic bags at the supermarket) if it’s for a good cause. And around here, it’s hard not to notice that the environment is a very important cause in most people’s minds (yard waste is mulched and re-used by the authorities). What does that have to do with me doing laps in one kind of trunk or another? I don’t know, but it illustrates how willing people can be to make do with small inconveniences for the sake of what is generally perceived, or at least accepted, as the greater good.

This discussion on socialist principles and the role they play in the social organization of post-modern Europe will have to be deferred for a later post when I’ve had more time to observe. In the meantime, I can say that the subject is of particular interest to me and has a strong chance of becoming a major theme. This is even more so because of all the ways in which this relationship manifests itself and the many contradictions, both real and apparent, that surface from within.

It's the first blog from the continent (and using a French keyboqrd) and again, I must offer my apologies for the delay in postings. The last time I wrote we were about to get into a plane and step out of it into a new Old World and a new chapter in our lives. As it turns out, passing through that portal was not as simple a task as one might otherwise expect and it is to that specific process – passing from one chapter to another – that I’ll dedicate the next few paragraphs.

You may recall that last Thursday the southeastern US was bracing itself for the arrival of Hurricane Frances. Those of you in hurricane-prone zones can surely appreciate that the manner in which the local media whip the population into a frenzy is quite a sight to witness. So there we were, with 24/7 coverage of the latest coordinates, wind speed, projected landfalls, etc. However, the most riveting coverage was consisted of images of people who had not hesitated in the least (with a little encouragement to be sure) to hit the panic button. You know what I mean, folks rushing to the Home Depot for plywood, ransacking the supermarkets for water, batteries, and canned food, and of course the long desperate lines at the gas stations. By that point it would only have taken a minimal effort on the part of the media to nudge the masses into full throttle burn-and-loot mode.

Enveloped in this atmospheric, but more so psychological phenomenon, we made our way to the airport where (not surprisingly) just about everyone who could was trying to catch the next plane out as if a marauding army of barbarians was within hours of breaching the city’s defenses. One look at the long lines at MIA that day was enough to tell us that we might be in for some drama. And drama was exactly what we got. I’ll spare you guys the details of this experience, but I’ll just say that after arriving at noon for a 2pm flight, we finally left the airport at around 1am the following morning after rerouting, delays, delays, and more delays.

One thing worth noting is that when they rerouted us, they bumped us up to business class on the 777 to London and in so doing gave us a window into an alternate reality. I have no idea how much those tickets cost, but the experience was a strong and blunt reminder of the thinly veiled caste system in our supposedly egalitarian society. To start off, you get access to the Admiral’s Club, a way to ensure the well-heeled are not forced to rub elbows with the masses and their cruder sensibilities while awaiting their flights. A complimentary cocktail awaits you when you enter this world of plush leather chairs and brash, if not abrasive, businessmen. There are most of the comforts of home, complete with showers and servants to while away the hours.

The ass-kissing continues onboard with chilled champagne in your hand just as soon as you settle yourself in your seat; after all, it wouldn’t do to have to wait empty-handed while they board the folks in coach. It would be, at the very least, irresponsible for me to fail to recognize that compared to the vast majority of people we share the planet with, I have led a privileged life. By that I mean I’ve always had access to clean drinking water and shelter from the elements. Food was not always abundant, but certainly present. But I suppose it is precisely because of this awareness and the experience of growing up in a poor country (not to mention spending the last few months there) that I find such ostentatious displays of wealth to be at the very least vulgar, if not outright violent. But I digress, I’ll just limit myself to saying that it really is impressive the things that access to capital can buy you. Perhaps not happiness, its true, but it sure can make your misery quite comfortable.

So anyway, we finally got to Lutèce in time to get ourselves settled in to Fred’s place before sundown and relax a bit before hitting what someone referred to once as that “main drag” in Paris, or the Champs Élysées. In a lot of ways Paris is a city like any other with its problems and issues. However, regardless of you opinion of the place, nobody can deny that it is indeed beautiful in every possible sense of that word. So I would say yes, it’s a city like any other…only more so. I always look forward to coming here and that was particularly the case on this trip with a one-way ticket to “old Europe”.

The next morning we rented a car and headed south for a wedding in the Massif Central. These are the remnants of a very ancient mountain range that the effects of weathering have given a rounded, less jagged appearance than its younger kin to the east: the Alps. Anyway, it was a great way to start our time on the continent. We got to spend some time with some dear old friends and made new ones as we burned away the night with fury and with out mercy until its last gasps at 5 in the morning. Before going back to our hotel, I took a walk outside the countryside chateau where the reception was being held, past the paddocks and fields where the moonlight was now having a hard time getting through the early morning fog and thought to myself what a simple beauty life can have.

Of course, within a few hours I was cursing its cruelty for having to check out of the hotel by 11! Its all good though, and I can say that we still got it . We can still play as hard as ever when the time comes, that much is true…but the recovery is a bitch! Maybe we need to start thinking about playing smarter, not harder. Fortunately, our recovery was aided by the decompression session French weddings have the following day known simply as « the day after ». It’s a much more laid back occasions to chill, have some hangover remedies of your choice, and of course catch up with folks at a much more leisurely pace. After enjoying a spectacular summer afternoon in the French countryside, we made the drive back to Paris, thoroughly spent, with just enough left for the drive.

The next day we did some sightseeing to take advantage of the rare great weather in Paris. We started off with a visit to the Château de Versailles. This was unfortunately cut short because the bulk of the complex is closed on Mondays. We’ll just have to do it on another occasion. We ended up spending most of the afternoon visiting La Défense, Paris’ business district which is curiously outside of the city itself. This is a perfect example of modernist planning and architecture on the grand scale. Most of it was errected in the 50’s and 60’s. However, the crown jewel was not completed until the 80’s. The Grande Arche de La Défense lies on the same axis as The Louvre, Place de la Concorde, the Champs Élysées, and the Arc de Triumph. It forms a hollowed out cube about 110m on each side and overlooks a large pedestrian plaza. All vehicular traffic is relegated to the area beneath the pedestrian space. Say what you will about modernist architecture, but on the whole the thing seems to work. In no small part, I feel this is the result of its physical positioning with respect to the city, Its limited purpose as a business district without pretense of residential living or entertainment center, and the importance given to the users of the space (building for Man AND people). That evening we went to the Left Bank in search of food and Jazz . I should point out thqt if Paris by day is beautiful, by night its absolutely magical. Anyway, the food was great, but we postponed the musical part of the evening until we could spend more time and not have to wory about driving the next day . All in all, we had a great day there to serve as our welcome.

I have a hard time deciding which Paris I like best. At night there are the contrasts of light and dark and the blending of color and sound that strike you into a dream. However, I would contend that it is only on such pleasant days of sunshine and blue skies (from late Spring to late Summer) that you can truly appreciate the potential for beauty in urban life. Moreover, I feel that this is one of the few places where people live in such numbers and manage to realize this potential. I often wonder if people who live here appreciate that. I know it can be hard when you have to deal with the hassles of daily life in a big city with a tiny car and smaller apartment. However, if Paris demands much from its inhabitants and denies them a large private space, they are no doubt rewarded with monumental public space and spectacular public life.

After leaving the City of Lights we finally made it to Angers, itself no ugly duckling. It was great to be here for several reasons. Not the least of which was at last being in the same place as all our belongings. We wasted no time getting ourselves settled in to what we have yet to decide whether to call our base camp or our staging area. Regardless, we are now occupying two bedrooms of Chez Bourocher with our stuff as well as the two pallets of boxes we shipped from Dallas sitting in the garage. I have to admit that the sight of all this stuff was a bit stunning after living out of a couple of suitcases and the Jimmy for the last few months. Nonetheless, we’re still mobile enough to pick up and go “on moment’s notice” as the song goes.

There hasn’t been too much excitement around here. We’ve just been getting settled in and trying to get over our jet lag. If I might borrow a phrase coined by someone far more eloquent than I, it didn’t help that we partied like the Far East leg of the 1984 Van Halen world tour last weekend. Anyway, the work of going about building a new life (of which not the least task is finding employment) has now begun in earnest. Life is always an adventure and everyday is brand new no matter your location or the duration of your stay. We are fortunate enough to be brought face to face with this – what I consider one of the more pleasing and rewarding aspects of engaging life with curiosity and determination – with the luxury of experiencing new country(ies), languages, foods, customs, and music. You can count on us soaking it all in and I’ll make an effort to document our experiences and observations as best I can.

September. I have no idea whatever happened to August or the summer, but I suppose this blog will help me figure it out. All I know is that within the space of time it takes this beautiful troubled sphere in space to do a half rotation, we’ll have begun a journey that will take us to its other side.

Just a couple of weeks ago we were making our way into San Pedro to do what we had told ourselves all summer long was the unthinkable. In the absence of any solid or decent offers on our amazing life support capsule (the Jimmy) we had resigned ourselves to sell it at a car lot in San Pedro. While not optimal, those guys have the cash on hand and there would be little games involved.

Or so we thought. It would seem GM suffers from quite a substantial image problem in Latin America. While I’d be the last guy to feel pity for the woes of a multinational colossus, the repercussions of their poor quality control and dismal brand management were having a direct impact in our lives. In short, we gambled by pressing on with our “sell at all cost” policy which resulted in roughly four days of intense negotiations that eventually collapsed on our last Friday in Honduras before our flight to the US.

At one point during our high-level talks we were recommended that we should visit someplace known simply as “the hot corner”. This turned out to be not one corner, but instead an area of about three or four blocks in downtown San Pedro where people with lots of cash on hand and others in need of cash congregate and transact in vehicles of uncertain origin. That an informal marketplace of no-questions-asked vehicular transactions has sprouted in that town should have been of no surprise. Still, it was amusing driving around talking to dubious, if not outright shady, characters known only by their colorful nicknames.

In the end we decided to ship the Jimmy to Miami and just sell it online. This turned out to be much cheaper than paying the import duties and leaving it for sale in Honduras. Also, there was a somewhat circular poetry to this option that made for a fitting end to this journey. The only problem was that in order to ship it, I needed about two days of bureaucratic gymnastics in several government agencies to jump through the necessary hoops.

That’s exactly what we did. I managed to get a flight using frequent flyer miles to return to Honduras 6 days after what was supposed to be the end of our time there. An epilog of sorts, as it were. In the space of a dizzying week and a half I managed to return to the US, fly to Dallas for naturalization, get a US passport (in one day), get a Florida driver’s license, fly to Honduras and ship the car, and I may just be able to register to vote before leaving! While frenzied and rather anxiety-ridden, those few days in Honduras were the last of this episode in our lives and I feel compelled to do them justice with at least a few words here.

The trip began (in what I silently hoped was not to be a bad omen) with a typical late summer afternoon thunderstorm hanging over MIA that was directly responsible for our flight taking off over an hour late. The trip went on without incident though, and I was fortunately able to get myself to La Ceiba that same night and avoid spending any more time than I had to in San Pedro. I spent the following 36 reflective and somewhat melancholy hours in La Ceiba bidding her a proper farewell. As if to have divined my mood, Ceibita was generous enough to reward us with a Sunday of stunning beauty. After running a few errands and visiting family that morning, I spent a couple of hours sitting at the bar at ExPat’s sipping on some ice cold Salva Vidas and writing in the blog. From time to time though, I had to stop to soak up the stiff breeze that swept through the open air, rooftop bar. Later, after several bar conversations and sensation of levity had taken over me, I lazed away the rest of the afternoon reading on the back yard hammock. Again, with the requisite pauses to become lucidly aware of the intensely intoxicating nature of beautiful Sunday afternoon.

The next morning I was in and out of San Pedro in less than two hours and drove to Puerto Cortes, Honduras’ and Central America’s main port for container cargo. There I managed to get all my paperwork from the customs broker before lunchtime and had only one thing left to do. Things were looking great and I started to think about checking for late afternoon or early evening flights back to MIA.

Well, sometime shortly after 1, my enthusiasm ran into the reality of hard-core red tape and old school bureaucracy. The customs office in Puerto Cortes is housed in a long narrow room in a two story concrete building just outside one of the main entrances to the docks. The hot stagnant air was accompanied by lots of small wooden desks piled high with forms that to my dismay looked identical to the ones I needed to file. There were a couple of pedestal type standing fans that were making a valiant, albeit futile, effort to struggle against the heat that by that time was determined to make a merciless assault deep into the office.

Despite the rich visual texture in this monument to all that is third world in a third world country, what really made it a site worthy of serious scientific study were its people. Out of the 20 or so employees, there were about four that were actually working. Most were hanging out killing time, chit-chatting about the weekend, and flirting in ways that would surely yield a lucrative lawsuit in the US. Then there were all the customs brokers. These were men and women wearing bright orange vests and hard hats as they constantly run between the port, the customs office, the shippers’ offices, and their own. The combination of their physical stamina to run up and down the hot Puerto Cortes streets and their patience in dealing with the government workers is remarkable.

I don’t think you have to be a clairvoyant to figure out that the process might take a little more than a couple of hours. Indeed, it was about four hours later that I managed to get all my papers filed and the car delivered to the port. I have to admit that I was a bit uneasy about all the dockworkers from the shipping company that received the vehicle checking it out and commenting how nice it was. I can imagine them taking turns doing donuts and racing around the cranes and stacks of containers for kicks during breaks. In any case, I was done. The only thing I needed was to get a stamp on my passport saying the vehicle I entered the country with would be leaving it. As simple as this might seem, the lady who needed to sign and stamp my forms authorizing the passport stamp refused to do it because it was too late. When I showed up again the next morning at 8 as she told me, she wasn’t there! In fact it took us an hour just to convince her assistant to look in her desk for the forms. Increadible! Anyway, I finaly got everything done and managed to take a bus to San Pedro so I could go to the airport and try to get on standby for the next fight out. It was an exhausting marathon of a week, but it was done. I should point out here that an important lesson we learned is that the more stuff you own, the more the stuff owns you.

Anyway, here we are, just a few hours before taking off for the continent and an official end to this chapter in our lives. Whenever making major changes in life, I find it ill-fitting to do so abruptly. While there needs to be a decisive and clean break from one era to another, there should nonetheless be a seamless transition to acclimate to changing realities. That this transition takes place over four months and half the hemisphere is insignificant as long as it is complete and irreversible. I was about to write that from now on, everything would be completely new and unknown territory. However, isn’t that what everyday essentially is? One of the most important lessons I’ve learned from our travels, especially in talking to people who were traveling or had made what many might consider drastic life changes, is the degree to which we have flexibility of choice in how we live our lives. There are always options, not always ideal, but they are there regardless. That’s the funny thing with freedom, if you think you have it then you have an obligation to actively exercise it.