So you're moving to Paris! You're going to love it here :-) For work, for school, rekindling an old flame (it is the city of love, after all!)? Well for whatever reason it is (even if just a longterm vacation), I'd love to share my tips with you to help you get started! Moving to Paris for me was actually a big twist of events, at the time I was based in Milan, Italy completing my masters degree. Toward the end of my program I needed an internship and my intentions were to stay in Italy (where another huge piece of my heart permanently resides, it won't come back to me </3). The job scene in Italy at the end of 2012 was not looking so good and I happened to stumble across an internship opportunity in Paris. I thought to myself, "Paris? Why not?". After a few interviews and some tests I packed up my life in Milan and trained it through the Alps straight into la capitale!
I knew - 1. no French (yes, I am Canadian but did not spend a whole lot of my time in Canada's education system!), 2. I knew nothing about Paris (except I'd been there twice before, once when I was 16 and again when I was 22) and 3. I knew... well, nobody! So, I'm cool with challenges - I had to figure stuff out the hard way, in a foreign language and culture. Parfait!
If I could have only had someone explain to me exactly what I needed to know when arriving, it would have made my life so much easier and so much more efficient! Here is the help I dreamt of. Voici, Intro to Paris 101.
It's safe to stay you'll start with some hurdles -
HURDLE #1: You need a cell phone (and obviously data has to be included), but you don't even know what the phone companies here or how to even begin choosing the best one!
There are a lot of different phone companies (e.g. Bouygues, SFR, Orange, etc) and they are going to require a FRENCH bank account. Don't run away just yet and think you need to open a French bank account, 'cause the French bank will tell you that you need a French phone number first to open the French bank account. Wait what? So how do I...?
Here's how to break this circle of perpetual hopelessness - walk your butt straight to a place called "Free Center" at this address, 8 rue de la Ville l'Évêque, 75008 Paris. When you walk in turn to the left and you'll find a bunch of digital kiosks (like the ones you use to buy your tickets at the movies). Follow the instructions on the kiosk and you'll have an active SIM card in your hand, one of the best phone plans around and a phone number in less than 5 minutes. Aha! Circle of perpetual hopelessness overcome!
HURDLE #2: Now the bank account. You got the phone number, now you need to establish yourself with a French bank account.
Since I have the wonderful liberty of being honest here, I recommend you just forget about all the banks - they are a nightmare and incredibly unorganized and inconsistent with their advice and requirements. If you want to be efficient and get things done, I recommend applying to ING direct. ING is perfectly transparent as to what their requirements are, all you need to do is tick off the requirements of the checklist they provide you with and your MasterCard gold (MasterCard is also a debit card in France) will be at your doorstep in no time. Doorstep? Ok, let's go to hurdle #3.
HURDLE #3: The apartment. The hardest part, and I can only help you to a certain point here because even I still can't get this straight.
When renting an apartment in Paris, the process kind of works like applying for a job. An owner will post that their apartment is available for rent, and they will in turn expect dossiers consisting of your work contract, at least 3 months of paystubs, recommendation letters and French guarantor all neatly organized. Good luck! I guess the impossibility of this dossier is pretty obvious - you just got to Paris and they want 3 paystubs upfront (but you didn't even start work yet...) and how are you supposed to have a French guarantor if you're obviously foreign?
Luckily, there are some ways around it! Subletting is an option, or you might also come across some more lax people (try not to lose too much hope!). One thing that is very necessary to know and understand is that apartment hunting in Paris is a full-time job, be sure you treat it that way or you'll be searching for a very, very long time. Here are some useful sites to get you started:
www.apartager.fr
www.leboncoin.fr
www.pap.fr
Now that you have mastered these three hurdles, you are almost there! To really settle into Paris there are two final very important things you'll still need to take care of - one of them right away, the second in about a year if you're working in France.
HURDLE #4: Social Security - Carte Vitale
I won't go into details about how to navigate it all, but if you're struggling with French I am super pleased to share with you that they have an English hotline where someone will be able to help you. You can access info regarding support in English here.
HURDLE #5: Taxes
I can't go into details here either, my suggestion is to learn French as fast as possible or make friends with French speakers because there's no way to dodge this complex subject. The first year your declaration must be made in person the following years it can be done online - so it's really that first year that is the hurdle.
If you find this info useful, I'll be happy to publish more articles on other useful topics. :)
Saturday, April 21, 2018
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
V for Visa in Vietnam
How do I find renewed inspiration to continue building this blog? 5 weeks working hard and playing hard in Asia might do it!
There's so much I want to share, but I think I'll need to start with the craziest and possibly the scariest of my experiences - getting a VISA FOR VIETNAM.
Apart from the fact that this is a story worth sharing for your amusement, I also strongly believe this a story worth sharing for any poor tourist who shows up to the check-in counter forgetting their visa (for e.g. a dumbo tourist like me!). We all make mistakes I guess :)
General speaking, I like to think that I have a decent track record of a being a responsible adult, and just to support that statement with a relevant example I actually did about 2 weeks of research fully exhausting all my sources to ensure I didn't need a visa for my trip to Thailand.
When I booked Vietnam however, I did so at the last minute which left me with minimal time to plan my trip (my original plan was to watch the cherry blossoms bloom in Kyoto!). So when it came to the day before departure we had only just booked a couple AirBnbs, but still had no solid plans of what we would do! Finally the evening of our departure arrived and I got caught up in a conversation after work, just before having to leave to run and catch my flight. With only 2 hours before departure my friend and I made it to the Hong Kong Airport Express, it's an airport service train station where you can actually perform your check-in outside the airport so that your luggage is taken directly to the airport and you hop on a direct train that permits you to avoid all the traffic.
When we arrived at the train station and approached the check-in counter for Hong Kong Airlines, the woman at the counter immediately asked me for my visa. For a moment I thought she was referring to my Hong Kong visa, seconds after that I realized that actually I don't even have a Hong Kong visa (not necessary) - then it hit me, "you mean a visa for Vietnam right?" I couldn't believe it! How could I have forgotten...
At this point my brain went into emergency mode, "I need a visa, OKAY. How do I get a visa? Tell me how can I get this visa ASAP?" ... Lady at the counter, "Just look online, you can get one there." ... Me: "OK, but when? If this visa arrives tomorrow there is no sense of us even going through this trouble right now." Lady: "There are 1 day services, 5 hour services, even 2 hour and 1 hour services, just google it".
I google, 200+ search results pop up. Hmmm over 200 websites offering visas for Vietnam... I dunno about you, but logic would tell me that for something official like a visa there should be ONLY ONE RELIABLE SOURCE - government website. Logic would also tell me that probably HALF of these websites are scams. That government website I was hoping to find was nowhere to be seen. After challenging this with the lady at Hong Kong Airlines' check-in counter, she confirmed that these random websites were the norm and that probably, many of them could be scams - but she couldn't confirm which ones. The funny thing was, some of these sites offered a 1 hour visa service, while others did not offer the same - lack of consistency... hmmm...
DEEP BREATH, I send my credit card details to this one random site and pray - www.govietnamvisa.com
128 USD LATER, I get a confirmation that my payment has been received. The lady at the counter looks at me and strongly suggests I leave to the airport immediately otherwise I risk missing my plane!
While on the express train to the airport I receive an email from govietnam.com, you can read it below:
I just paid a TON of money for an express 1 hour service, and now they say it won't be ready until tomorrow morning at 10:30am? They want MORE money? At this point I was panicking and pretty much convinced this was a scam. Have you ever watched that episode of Black Mirror where the guy keeps getting texts for instructions on what he must do next, only to be dug deeper and deeper into a mess he can't remove himself from? Well that's what I was afraid I was getting myself into!
Once we got to the airport, we ran over to Hong Kong Airlines customer service desk to see if they could give us some insight as to whether this request for additional payment is legit. In summary, they said they could not confirm whether this site is legit or not - but that many of their passengers have done the express visas in the past with these "agencies", and requests for additional payments is part of a normal procedure. This all still seemed sketchy to me, and I still had no way to rule out whether this site was a scam. I was definitely caught between a rock and hard place, so another DEEP BREATH - send off 70 USD so I can board the plane. Within about 10 mins the visa arrives, the Hong Kong Airlines staff prints the visa and tells me to RUN to the gate.
Once we get to the gate, it's final call. I show them the printed out "visa?" and it's accepted! I was almost surprised they actually let me board with this paper? All good, I thought I was all set now... UNTIL... I receive another email, see below.
So... I am instructed to DESTROY this visa, not to talk to any authorities, pay MORE money and bring photos - and if I make any mistakes I'll be sent back on the next plane to Hong Kong. Let's just say the whole plane ride I was incredibly nervous and had no idea if I was involved in something illegal now and I'd go to jail! Haha Sometimes I can be pretty dramatic, but honestly here I just had no idea and I was pretty SCARED.
Once we landed in Hanoi I opened up the email again and read the instructions CAREFULLY. Someone was supposed to be waiting for me with my name on a piece of paper and was expecting another 25 USD in cash. As I entered the airport I saw my name right away on a small clipboard at a small desk away from the customs counter. The guy asked me for my passport, the 25 USD + photos - all I had was my passport. How am I supposed to have USD in cash??? The guy directed me to an ATM where I could take out Vietnamese Dong + some extra money for the photos I obviously didn't have on hand.
After waiting for a bit, a REAL visa got stickered into my passport. I went to customs and I was cleared - no questions asked.
What the hell was that all about, 250 USD later? Well it seems to me that the visa itself actually costed only 25 euros, and the remainder of the costs were service fees + most very likely some facilitation payments. Quite the first experience for me!
Moral of the story is - remember to research in advance whether you need a visa! If you forget to get a visa, you can do it in as little as 1 hour for a PRETTY price. It's a bit of sketchy process, but at least you can now better understand how it works and what to expect. When I was going through this, unfortunately I could not find any blogs or info about this process. So I hope I can help out some other poor travellers like me!
Was all of this money and anxiety worth it? YES - Vietnam really impressed me and exceeded many of my expectations!
There's so much I want to share, but I think I'll need to start with the craziest and possibly the scariest of my experiences - getting a VISA FOR VIETNAM.
Apart from the fact that this is a story worth sharing for your amusement, I also strongly believe this a story worth sharing for any poor tourist who shows up to the check-in counter forgetting their visa (for e.g. a dumbo tourist like me!). We all make mistakes I guess :)
General speaking, I like to think that I have a decent track record of a being a responsible adult, and just to support that statement with a relevant example I actually did about 2 weeks of research fully exhausting all my sources to ensure I didn't need a visa for my trip to Thailand.
When I booked Vietnam however, I did so at the last minute which left me with minimal time to plan my trip (my original plan was to watch the cherry blossoms bloom in Kyoto!). So when it came to the day before departure we had only just booked a couple AirBnbs, but still had no solid plans of what we would do! Finally the evening of our departure arrived and I got caught up in a conversation after work, just before having to leave to run and catch my flight. With only 2 hours before departure my friend and I made it to the Hong Kong Airport Express, it's an airport service train station where you can actually perform your check-in outside the airport so that your luggage is taken directly to the airport and you hop on a direct train that permits you to avoid all the traffic.
When we arrived at the train station and approached the check-in counter for Hong Kong Airlines, the woman at the counter immediately asked me for my visa. For a moment I thought she was referring to my Hong Kong visa, seconds after that I realized that actually I don't even have a Hong Kong visa (not necessary) - then it hit me, "you mean a visa for Vietnam right?" I couldn't believe it! How could I have forgotten...
At this point my brain went into emergency mode, "I need a visa, OKAY. How do I get a visa? Tell me how can I get this visa ASAP?" ... Lady at the counter, "Just look online, you can get one there." ... Me: "OK, but when? If this visa arrives tomorrow there is no sense of us even going through this trouble right now." Lady: "There are 1 day services, 5 hour services, even 2 hour and 1 hour services, just google it".
I google, 200+ search results pop up. Hmmm over 200 websites offering visas for Vietnam... I dunno about you, but logic would tell me that for something official like a visa there should be ONLY ONE RELIABLE SOURCE - government website. Logic would also tell me that probably HALF of these websites are scams. That government website I was hoping to find was nowhere to be seen. After challenging this with the lady at Hong Kong Airlines' check-in counter, she confirmed that these random websites were the norm and that probably, many of them could be scams - but she couldn't confirm which ones. The funny thing was, some of these sites offered a 1 hour visa service, while others did not offer the same - lack of consistency... hmmm...
DEEP BREATH, I send my credit card details to this one random site and pray - www.govietnamvisa.com
128 USD LATER, I get a confirmation that my payment has been received. The lady at the counter looks at me and strongly suggests I leave to the airport immediately otherwise I risk missing my plane!
While on the express train to the airport I receive an email from govietnam.com, you can read it below:
I just paid a TON of money for an express 1 hour service, and now they say it won't be ready until tomorrow morning at 10:30am? They want MORE money? At this point I was panicking and pretty much convinced this was a scam. Have you ever watched that episode of Black Mirror where the guy keeps getting texts for instructions on what he must do next, only to be dug deeper and deeper into a mess he can't remove himself from? Well that's what I was afraid I was getting myself into!
Once we got to the airport, we ran over to Hong Kong Airlines customer service desk to see if they could give us some insight as to whether this request for additional payment is legit. In summary, they said they could not confirm whether this site is legit or not - but that many of their passengers have done the express visas in the past with these "agencies", and requests for additional payments is part of a normal procedure. This all still seemed sketchy to me, and I still had no way to rule out whether this site was a scam. I was definitely caught between a rock and hard place, so another DEEP BREATH - send off 70 USD so I can board the plane. Within about 10 mins the visa arrives, the Hong Kong Airlines staff prints the visa and tells me to RUN to the gate.
Once we get to the gate, it's final call. I show them the printed out "visa?" and it's accepted! I was almost surprised they actually let me board with this paper? All good, I thought I was all set now... UNTIL... I receive another email, see below.
So... I am instructed to DESTROY this visa, not to talk to any authorities, pay MORE money and bring photos - and if I make any mistakes I'll be sent back on the next plane to Hong Kong. Let's just say the whole plane ride I was incredibly nervous and had no idea if I was involved in something illegal now and I'd go to jail! Haha Sometimes I can be pretty dramatic, but honestly here I just had no idea and I was pretty SCARED.
Once we landed in Hanoi I opened up the email again and read the instructions CAREFULLY. Someone was supposed to be waiting for me with my name on a piece of paper and was expecting another 25 USD in cash. As I entered the airport I saw my name right away on a small clipboard at a small desk away from the customs counter. The guy asked me for my passport, the 25 USD + photos - all I had was my passport. How am I supposed to have USD in cash??? The guy directed me to an ATM where I could take out Vietnamese Dong + some extra money for the photos I obviously didn't have on hand.
After waiting for a bit, a REAL visa got stickered into my passport. I went to customs and I was cleared - no questions asked.
What the hell was that all about, 250 USD later? Well it seems to me that the visa itself actually costed only 25 euros, and the remainder of the costs were service fees + most very likely some facilitation payments. Quite the first experience for me!
Moral of the story is - remember to research in advance whether you need a visa! If you forget to get a visa, you can do it in as little as 1 hour for a PRETTY price. It's a bit of sketchy process, but at least you can now better understand how it works and what to expect. When I was going through this, unfortunately I could not find any blogs or info about this process. So I hope I can help out some other poor travellers like me!
Was all of this money and anxiety worth it? YES - Vietnam really impressed me and exceeded many of my expectations!
Sunday, March 6, 2016
Welcome!
 |
| The view from my first apartment in Paris |
My very first blog post! Honestly I find this kind of scary, it's sort of terrifying sharing my personal thoughts with the outside world (especially since, I am often one to keep to myself)... I hope you'll enjoy and thanks for reading!
Ever since officially moving back to Europe almost 4 and a half years ago, I had people shocked to know that I was not documenting any of it (besides some photos and memories). It made me wonder if I should feel as scandalized as them (is this... like, really a bad thing?). So 1 year in I finally signed-up for Instagram to 'up' my documentation game, and only recently I started feeling motivated to take it a little further and make it something more. At the beginning of every new year I choose a word, in place of a specific resolution, which will define the focus of my personal growth for the year to come. 3 years ago my word was ADVENTURE, last year was CULTURE and this year is REFLECTION.
I came to know that 2016 was the year of reflection sometime in late November 2015 when I suddenly felt compelled to create an interactive, layered map of all my favorite places in Paris, including a layer dedicated purely to touristic points of interest I could easily share with visitors. It felt unbelievably relieving to finally get all my favorite spots out of my head and 'on paper', rather than frantically trying to dig them up every time I wanted to recommend a place. As an unexpected consequence, I eventually found the map to be useful to base my plans off of - the ability to spatially see where I've already been allowed me to have a better idea of new places I needed and wanted to explore.
After sharing the map with others for the first time I was so pleased to receive so much positive feedback! It comes as a natural joy to share and help others discover all the treasures of this marvellous city, and it brings me so much satisfaction witnessing their awe and excitement when they do. If I can stay dedicated to maintaining this blog (*crossing fingers*), I hope that sharing Paris with you will generate a similar, positive response and inspire you to come and explore yourself. Enjoy :-)
À toute!
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