My Last Thursday in the United States

Lordy, lordy. One week left. In 7 days I will be on my way to JFK International Airport, and off to Paris! I finally got a 2GB memory card for my camera (I decided against dropping $150-200 on a new camera... my little Pentax has served me just fine up 'till now) so I can take plenty of full-sized pictures to post here, and now I just have to buy an international electricity adapter (I say as if I fully understand what kind I need... in fact I really just hope the people at Home Depot know what to get) and PACK. 

But now, of course, I'm getting all nostalgic, and making special breakfasts for my parents on an even more regular basis. On Tuesday it was strawberry-blueberry-banana-oatmeal pancakes, last week it was currant scones and blueberry-oatmeal pancakes, and this morning I went to buy eggs to make my Mom's favorite breakfast; eggs-in-a-basket. Simple, but lovely. Here's a picture of a recent breakfast, with the addition of kiwis. Fruit always makes a plate look better:

Oh man, I'm going to miss making breakfast for my parents. My French family will just have to get used to being fed in the morning. Even though they're not big on breakfast in France. I hope they don't mind. Also, I hope they have a dog. 

Adventures With The French Consulate, Part Deux

My oh my. I'll preface this post with the fact that I do now FINALLY have my French student visa. Also, no fathers or daughters were seriously harmed in the making of this day-long adventure. 

OK, so I get home at 2am on Monday August 24th, thinking that somehow I will go to the consulate on Tuesday, regardless of the fact that my receipt from the last visit reads clearly "August 24th 9-11am." Once I get home and start to discuss getting there with my Dad (he's a night-owl, what can I say?), I become increasingly sure that it would be a much better idea to go on the 24th instead of after. And so it begins. Will we drive into Manhattan, during rush hour, only to have me step into the consulate on the Upper East Side and wait god knows how long to get my visa, while Dad drives around aimlessly because it cots a zillion dollars to park in Manhattan? I think not. I think we should take the train. I log on to Amtrak.com, only to find that a same-day one-way trip just into Penn Station from Hartford will set us back $98. Shit. So no way we can do round-trip, but maybe a Greyhound back to Hartford? Yes, I reserve it. Non-refundable, mind you. This will be relevant later. 

So I get no sleep, my Dad gets an hour, and we leave by 5:30am. Wait, that's a lie. We should have left by 5:30am to catch the train leaving from Hartford at 6:26am. Instead, we leave at 6am. My Dad's pretty good at getting to Hartford quickly. We should have been a half hour late for the train. We were six minutes late for the train. Also, we missed the exit to the train station by a couple feet, and my Dad backs up on the freeway in the breakdown lane. We didn't die. I can't imagine not dying if I had been in the car with anyone else. So, in the train station, we're told that the best we can do is drive to New Haven and catch the train there. We do so. We find the parking garage almost entirely full and have to drive all the way up to the 4th floor. It is 7:19. The train will get in at 7:30. We park and race down the stairs and into the station. Dad says "did you lock the car?" I proceed to worry about my lovely little Honda for the rest of the day. We get to the desk and I beg the guy to tell me the train hasn't left yet. He says "why don't you just take Metro-North? It'll save you a bunch of money." OK, so he refunds the $98 and we buy round-trip tickets from New Haven to Grand Central Station (see, the car won't be in Hartford, so the Greyhound is out. There goes 44 bucks.) for, get this, $65. We saved 30 bucks! 60 bucks if we compare it to the price of an Amtrak round trip, right? Right. Missing the train saved us money, if it also cost my Dad a couple years off his life. Score.

So, the Metro-North train takes us right into Grand Central, from which we only have to take one subway, the 6 train, to the 77th street station, from which we follow the same zig-zag I ran with Mom on the 11th, although this time we're not late (we got to the consulate by 10am!) so we can actually walk. They let me in at 10 East 74th St. and we wait. And we wait. We are packed into the bathroom-sized waiting room with a ton of other people. And not a big bathroom, either. A truck-stop bathroom. Standing-room only. We wait for almost 2 hours as people filter in and out, shuffle their visa applications, twirl their hair, and eat bananas. Actually only one girl ate a banana, but I thought it was worth mentioning. She was pretty cute, too. FINALLY the little French man with longish salt-and-pepper hair (the one who tried to locate my mother last time) calls "Madeleen Hennessey" and makes sure that I'm aware that my last name is that of a fine cognac. Boy do I love the French. After a brief reminder that we all have to register with the French authorities upon arrival, our visas are stamped and signed. And now I have a visa. Thank God. 

So Dad and I find our way easily back to the 77th St. station and get on the subway back to Grand Central, where we find that the next train back to New Haven leaves in about 40 minutes, giving us enough time to get coffee (I downed a large iced coffee in about fourteen seconds. I needed that coffee.), a bagel for Dad (those New Yorkers really have bagels down, despite the $1.50 cost of cream cheese), and a peanut butter cookie for Mom (it was enormous!). Before we know it, we're on the train back to New Haven, and it's 2pm. 12 hours, a harrowing drive, and a visa later, we're pretty much done with the whole process. 

Also, on the train, I played Dad "Queen Bee" by Taj Mahal and "Fix You" by Coldplay, two of "our songs," on my iPod and, I hope, made up for the horrible ordeal I had just put him through. I love my Daddy, I really do, and I am going to miss him like crazy when I'm in France. In eight days. Oh God. 

The drive back from New Haven was punctuated by The White Stripes, Tom Petty, The Doors,  and the Rolling Stones, and Dad even filled my tank with gas. What did I do to deserve this man as my father?

So what else can I say? I've got my visa, and one week in the US until I set off on a much greater adventure. I imagine my blog posts will become vastly more interesting posthaste, but I certainly hope they will be less hectic and stressful. Needless to say, it was worth it. 

Imani In The Belly

I remember a book my parents read to me when I was younger called Imani In The Belly. They read it to me before bed while we were at the beach, during the two weeks we used to spend each summer in a beach house with my Grandparents on Old Lyme Shores. I can still picture in my mind the old, pink bedroom I used to sleep in, and the knobby white glass wall light next to the bed. The book had beautiful, vividly colored illustrations, so jagged and primitive that they almost hummed or moved on the page. The story was about an African woman who is swallowed by a lion, and must find a way to escape and get back to her children. She lights a fire inside the lion's belly and the smoke makes him sneeze her right back out. Or at least I'm pretty sure that's how it goes. I also remember that at some point Imani is walking with her daughter, and her daughter begs her for a piece of orange. I didn't understand what was so special about an orange, and my mother had to explain to me that in other countries oranges were much harder to come by, that they were a special treat. I wish an orange could make me as happy as it made the little girl in that book. 

I haven't the slightest idea why this story surfaced in my memory just now, but it does every now and then, and I supposed I would note it, on this day a mere three weeks from my departure from America all the way to Paris. The familiar becomes all the more precious when we are about to leave it behind, and I would give just about anything for another two weeks in that beach house, eating fresh doughnuts and my Grandmother's scrambled eggs. Now that the visa application is no longer standing between me and France, even as excited as I am to go abrod and experience a whole other world, I'm getting a not-entirely-pleasant feeling in my stomach, and I'm starting to fear that the big, strange city might swallow me up. I begin to wonder whether I am Imani or the lion. 

Adventures With The French Consulate

What an epic day in NYC. 

See, I'm going abroad next semester, and I will be in Paris from September 3rd to December 18th. This period of time is longer than 90 days, thus I require a long-stay French student visa. And so the fun begins. Anyone wishing to acquire such a visa must bring a big pile of documents IN PERSON to the visa section of their state's French Consulate (mine happened to be 10 East 74th St. in Manhattan) on a set appointment at least two weeks before their departure for France, since the consulate has recently increased the processing time. You will notice that today is August 11th, and with my departure on September 3rd, I was cutting it a bit close. Rescheduling, in the case of my neglecting any document or simply not having a document that the consulate (as I was warned) might randomly choose to request, would really not be possible. In other words, nothing could go wrong. Or else.

So I spent this week gathering documents, copying documents, filling out forms, and figuring out how to get from Penn Station, where our train from Hartford would leave us at 9:20 am, to 10 East 74th St. for my appointment at 10:30 am. This morning, I woke up at 4 am and did a wee double-check that I had everything I needed. Au contraire. I had overlooked a notarized financial guarantee promising that my parents would provide me with a $200 monthly allowance in addition to my college's fully-paid tuition, room, and board. Yes, not just a form, but a notarized form. Mind you, my bank does notarizations for free with almost no wait-time, and probably could have done so yesterday afternoon. But they certainly would not do so at 4 am this morning. Painful. OK then, I print a list of notaries in New York City, and I begin calling them all immediately. I find that several of these notaries provide 24-hour on-site "mobile notary" services. A mobile notary? Almost too good to be true. Almost. 

Meanwhile, Mom and I drive into Hartford, park in an all-day lot, and get on an Amtrak train to NYC. Three hours on a train, most of which time I'm repeatedly calling some various notaries. First, I leave messages. Then, a few pick up. No way they can meet me at the consulate at 10 am this morning. Now I'm starting to shit bricks. Finally, one guy calls me back, Mike. He can meet me at the consulate at 10:15 am. $45. Crap. Forty five bucks for a service I could have gotten for free. Goddamnit. Oh well, at least I have a notary, which really is a miracle all by itself. But here's the kicker: A few more of the notaries start to call back. Same-day mobile notary service rates: $60-$80. The way I see it, I saved $35. 

Back on the train, Mom and I get into Penn Station. We're ten minutes late, so we can't take the exact subway schedule I had printed out, but the same trains leave almost constantly, so we figure we can pull it off. A VERY kind man directs us to Herald Square Station, where we have to walk before we can take our first subway train. We take the R train to Lexington-59th, from which we take the 6 train (which I was convinced we would miss since we appeared to be on the wrong side of the tracks...) to the 77th St. station, from which we take a ridiculous and very rapid zig-zagging path to East 74th St. After momentary confusion between 7 and 11, I realize that 10 is across the street. And who is there waiting for me? Mike, the miracle mobile notary. I have never been happier to see a mousy man in glasses with a black shoulder-bag. Time? 10:19 am. The form and a copy are signed, notarized, and stamped. A personal check for $47 is written and accepted ($2 extra for the copy). Time? 10:26 am. My appointment? 10:30 am. Harrowing. 

This story is nowhere near over. A guard comes out to accept all the people with 10:30 appointments. Once inside, there is quite a line. So I wait, talk to a nice woman who works for the UN and is flying to Paris at 10 pm tonight (I suppose she's in the air now, if all went well), shuffle nervously through my documents for the millionth time, and inch towards the front of the line. Finally, I'm next in line. The woman in front of me takes out cash. Shit. Application fee. Luckily, a nice man has come out to make sure we have our passports ready, and I ask him if he might call my mother in from outside to pay the fee. He snatches my passport and zips down the stairs. Moments later, he re-emerges with my passport, only to say that my mother is not, in fact, outside the door. Oh God. Now I zip down the stairs and out the door to find my mother nowhere in sight. I call her cell phone, and she's down at Central Park. Needless to say, she hurries back, and we are allowed back inside. Now I've lost my place in line and have to wait again, but eventually we get up there, and Mom doesn't want to pay cash (we don't have much for a day in the city) and tries to use my father's credit card (she had recently lost hers somewhere in her room, admittedly because I bought something online and then left it on her bedside table... insignificant detail), which has both his picture and his name on it. He lent it to us for the day and provided us with a written note, signed, with permission to use it. The French woman behind the window does not care. She is in fact rather irritated by our attempt to use my Dad's card, and also by the fact that my mother seems not to have her own credit card. This, I suppose, is the unfriendly consulate employee about which I had been warned. After filling out some useless form, which the woman proceeded to tear in half, we paid the $70 in cash. Thank God Michael took a personal check. Money and passport taken, fingerprints scanned, photograph snapped, I was instructed to sit down and wait for my interview. Meanwhile, I met a UConn student going through the same process, and we ended up being called to our "interviews" simultaneously. The interview consisted of handing over various copies of documents to a MUCH NICER woman behind a window, having those documents stamped, and being told to return on August 24th to pick up my visa. What? Pick up my visa? This endeavor, over which I have been having a week-long anxiety attack, has actually been successful? What a relief. 

[INSERT MASSIVE SIGH OF RELIEF] 

Now my Mom and I had an afternoon to kill in NYC. Sounds like fun to me. But first, I was starving. All that anxiety and subway-navigating and speed-walking in 90-degree weather will make anyone hungry. Also, I had to find some sunglasses. I had forgotten my Ray-Ban knockoffs and simply had to find another pair. I found one just like mine for five bucks, with 400 UV protection to boot. Now I felt much better. Then we found a nice cheap sandwich shop (after passing up the pricey pizza place we'd found in a AAA guidebook), got some delicious sandwiches, and returned to Central Park. We sat on the grass in the shade, there was a lovely breeze, and my visa application was DONE! Also, I love when fresh basil and mozzarella are actually fresh basil and mozzarella. Even the rolls were good. Plus, the nice woman from the consulate was apparently on her lunch break, since she and a few friends (not including the unpleasant woman from earlier, I noticed) sat down to a little picnic behind us in the park. At this point, I would have almost been happy just to take a nap there in the grass. 

Then we pulled out our handy-dandy New Yorker Magazine to locate an interesting art exhibit nearby. The Met looked good, but we wouldn't have more than two hours, so it seemed like kind of a waste of money. Instead, we walked about 10 blocks up to look for a "Bodies Revealed" exhibit at the American Academy museum. We found it just past the Guggenheim, walked in, and found it closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. We loitered in the open and air-conditioned gift shop and debated whether we should just go back to Penn Station since we didn't want to shell out for the Met. We were then informed by the two guards at the museum that the $20 admission fee at the Met is in fact just a suggested donation, and that you can donate as little as a dollar and still get in. And so that is just what we did. We saw some beautiful stained glass done by Tiffany (really, it was amazing, massive wall-sized stuff), as well as some lovely sculptures in the New American Wing, and some alarmingly blue porcelain from the 19th century. Alas, soon it was time to get back out on the street and catch a bus back to the station. As we walked back to the bus stop, I spotted a lovely five-dollar red pashmina, and simply had to buy it. Moving on, we got the bus, got on for 50 cents because the driver took pity on my attempt to pay him in cash (they only take quarters, all you hicks from Connecticut), and found our way back to Penn Station, where we bought some delicious muffins from Krispy Kreme, a delicious smoothie, and what turned out to be a delicious salad. It's never hard to find something good to eat in a train station these days. 

Though the train was fifteen minutes late, we got home without a hitch, and now I just have to go back one more time before I'm finally ready to go to PARIS!!! I daresay I will have more to blog about then. If a bit less time in which to blog. It's a trade I'm willing to make.