Anyone American who banks in France knows how ass-backwards the entire system is. From the Stone Age implementation of online banking to the obsession with sending you “secret codes” via snail mail it’s a wonder anything gets done.

A couple of days ago I received a call from BNP telling me that we needed to come meet our “counselor” so he could clear up a few matters concerning a wire transfer to our new bank in London. So today we trekked in the blistering cold all the way to Neuilly, prepared to simply show our IDs and sign a few more documents.

To our surprise, we were notified that the original counselor who opened our account nearly three years ago never actually had us sign the required papers to open the account, and yet an account was in fact opened and we’ve been using it without trouble ever since. No one at the bank understood why this happened, but in French fashion, there were shrugs all around.

To clear it all up, and hence allow our wire transfer to go through, we filled out all the papers to officially “open” our account. After that we told them we were moving to London and might not be in touch ever again. Super, he said as he handed us a folder filled with BNP paraphernalia entitled “Bienvenue à BNP”.

You really don’t have to make up funny shit about France. The comedy writes itself.

After a seemingly endless wait and a long trip to the U.S. the movers finally picked up our stuff to ship to London. It was only a day and a half since we returned from L.A. More than anything else thus far I’ve been anticipating the day when I get a visit from my very own lift truck.

A familiar sight throughout Paris, lift trucks are simply lifts mounted on the back of small trucks, and they’re used to move stuff up and down from walk-up apartments, through the window.

As a New Yorker, the lift trucks are mystical creatures, at the same time a wonder of French ingenuity and an impressive disregard for public safety. The New Yorker says wow, these are incredibly useful…I can’t believe they don’t have them in NY but then in the next breath says but seriously…look how precarious they are…the NYPD would never in a million years allow such a thing!

Our movers arrived to pack up our flat around 9am and by noon I was nervously pacing around, not worrying about how well they were packing our glass and electronics, but where was the magic lift that would make it all disappear? To compound my neuroses there was no parking spot available in front of our place. For sure the driver of the lift truck would show up, not see a spot, and decide to go home. This would result in the move being postponed, and cause a cascade of bad things to happen, ending in my not getting my visa to start working in London. Rion thinks I worry too much.

Thankfully my fears were ungrounded. We were lucky that there are garages across the street, so no cars could park on that side of the narrow road. The lift truck driver decided to double park and raise the lift over the parked cars in front of our house. Cue visions of NYPD officer yelling “hey boss, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Parisian police don’t seem to sweat the small stuff, like a couch possibly falling five stories onto the roof of a car, or a passing stroller. A person’s got to déménage, and after all, if you get crushed by an armoire, then you should have been walking across the street in the first place, right?

The moving truck, on the other hand, needed to be parked in the marked “livraisons” (deliveries) spot down the block. The spot is barely big enough for a UPS truck, so in another display of ingenuity and outright brazenness (the spot is across the street from a police station) the moving guys lifted up the backs and pushed two cars forward so that the moving truck could fit better. Sheer awesomeness.

And in just about 45 minutes, everything was sent down the lift — not even strapped on, but simply stacked — and carted off to the truck. Off they went, towards Calias and the Chunnel. Then, I lined up our four dining room chairs which we are giving away, and laid down and napped. The awful west-to-east jetlag was setting in.

Here in Paris, a few friends who know our story have said my photo posts about Paris have become a bit melancholy and reflective. Back home, other friends have read the news, seen the corks pop, and wondered what would be next for us.

Perhaps we’ve been quiet about our upcoming move because our Paris life has been so lovely and so short that we weren’t quite ready to leave it. Also, of course, we’ve been busy with work and baby and our dear friends, that we were able to keep our Parisian bubble intact up to what is now becoming the end of an era for us…

But with a great new job opportunity, a continued foot in Europe, new lingo to learn, and another country to explore, we will be heading to London in 2009.

For the past few years, I’ve lived in Paris with very little random conversation on the streets. Maybe I’d given directions once. Or said “no, merci” to someone giving out fliers, but other than that? Rien… on purpose… because my French is atrocious.

But then we had Dante.

I’ve never had to speak as much French out on the streets unexpectedly as I’ve had to since Dante was born. Why? do you ask?

Answer: the older French ladies love to coo at little babies.

When he was very small, French women — 60-somethings or older — would stop me in the street to get a look at his little squishy face. And their French came in three easy questions that always came in the same order:

– Une petite fille ou un petit garçon?
– Combien de mois?
– Comment il s’appele?

This was usually followed by, “Il est très mignon!” And since that’s all pretty easy French, I would thank them and be on my way, feeling quite proud of having passed an easy pop quiz.

And then evidently I advanced to the second lesson: continue…

If we’ve learned anything from the French, it’s how to have an educational festival about anything.

In our neighborhood alone, we’ve seen a honey bee exhibition, a velo (bicycle) festival, countless book fairs, an Earth Day exhibition, a math expo (mathletes!), and a science expo — where kids were competing with the launch heights of their pressurized soda bottle rockets, shooting them way up in the air. Exciting stuff! We’ve even seen an Alsace Region fest packed with amazing foods, and “Helsinki à Saint Sulpice” celebrating Finnish design.

They’re all really interesting events with tents of displays and goods to buy and eat, but they just aren’t really topics you’d usually find with a dedicated educational expo in a major city in the States. These French fests seem too specific and happily nerdy to have much success there. So we felt like we’d really seen it all…

That is, until this weekend when we saw kids getting free balloons in the Jardin du Luxembourg…

As we got closer to the balloons, we saw a logo that said, “Fous de pommes de terre”… translation? “Crazy for potatoes.”

So that’s it. People learning all about potatoes smack dab in the middle of Paris. Now we’ve seen it all.

Up in the middle of the night in Paris to watch history being made in Denver.

I will always love Paris in August. The Parisians leave for pretty much the entire month and those who stay behind get to own the place… well, we own whatever is left open. But it’s still pretty great. So quiet. — In the 6th arrondissement, where we live, the streets become a beautifully empty movie backlot in which to stroll around.

And it lasts just long enough for you to start peering ahead toward la rentrée in September, awaiting the city to bustle again.

Related photography: http://rion.nu/v5/archive/001434.php

Also: Like a bear in a cave, but with sun and Welcome Back. (Slap) Day 230.

After moving away from New York City more than two years ago to live in Paris and enjoy the unique local details of what this city had to offer, I still didn’t feel too far away from the kinds of things we enjoyed in the States because we still considered ourselves citizens of the internet.

Even if my snailmail had changed, my access to most stateside Favorite Things could still be mixed in… downloaded tv shows, some online shopping, local-NYC blogs, etc.

Sure, we’d need a visiting friend or parent to pack a few extras (found cheaper stateside) for us when they visited, but we’d still have access — real access — to all of the modern conveniences via the Web.

Or so I thought.

Here’s just a few of the sites that don’t like the fact that I live overseas. continue…