Bienvenue à Paris!

Bienvenue à Paris! Welcome to Paris. I finally did it, I moved to Paris, France. I got a "Carte Compètences et Talents" aka a Skills and Talents visa. It is for 3 years and is renewable once for a total of up to 6 years. I don't know how long i'm staying yet. "You may be granted this card if you are likely to make a significant or lasting contribution, through your skills or talents, to France’s economic development or to its intellectual, scientific, cultural, humanitarian or athletic prestige, and directly or indirectly, to that of your own country." I went through a lot to get this visa. I had to get police reports from China, Japan, the American FBI and the State of New York. That means i had to get fingerprinted 4 times. There was a bunch of other legwork and then a ton of paperwork to gather. I had to show my professional credentials and make an appealing proposal. Overall I probably spend $2-300 to get this visa which is pretty damn good compared to the thousands of dollars people in other countries have to spend to get visas and lawyers. Looking back on it now it didn't seem that hard to get this visa. I waited a little over a week for an answer after they accepted my proposal package. There are tons of minute but annoying details like the french consulate only accepting you between the hours of 9-12 am, etc... but i won't get into that because there is red tape with every process like this. I wanted it bad enough and i worked hard for it and now I get to live in Paris! Join me on my new life in Paris.

short side street near my house.

i think this is on avenue des gobelins.  double take?  no it's not like little goblins, its named after the Gobelin family.

the seine via boulevard de l'hopital

"look francoise, the beauty in the way the sun hits his urine in the 6pm sun is hard to capture" 

sunbathers along the seine.

will be lots of girls on bikes photos.

Chez Julien in the Marais somewhere.

wait, are these glasses hipster or french?  or both?  i'm gonna have to adjust my vocabulary maybe.

this is what repair trucks look like here.

Centre Pompidou 

Centre Pompidou

area outside centre pompidou is filled with performers and people lazing about.  that's the theme here.

boudin,  blood sausage.  its big here.  it's good

Kyungwon from Korea happened to be visiting his sister Heyyoung on the day i arrived so i met them for dinner and drinks.  funny that that's the first person i met in Paris.