Becoming a French Citizen and Fitting in Overseas With Jay Swanson of Paris in My Pocket

Sneak Peek:

Jay:    00:00:00    It's those things you can't get just from traveling for one. But also I think it's that thing of it helps a lot to have talked about it with people that we did that with. And I'm very fortunate because of who I am and like my job, but also just where I found myself that I had a lot of these conversations with people who were able to put some context around it. It's really important to make sure that wherever you're at in the world, whether you're doing something extreme or not, being able to connect with people who have similar experiences, shared experiences and different perspectives really makes a a really, really big difference for making sure that you're taking care of yourself.  

Introduction: Welcome to Badass Digital Nomads, where we're pushing the boundaries of remote work and travel, all while staying grounded with a little bit of old school philosophy, self-development, and business advice from our guests.

Kristin:    00:00:52    Hey there, Kristin from Traveling with Kristin here and welcome to episode 266 of the podcast. My guest today is Jay Swanson, who you might have seen in YouTube if you've ever searched anything about traveling to Paris or living in Paris, he is a US expat who recently got his dual French citizenship and has been living in the country for more than seven years now. I thought that this conversation was going to start out in the direction of Paris and stay in that direction as it comes to travel tips and things like that. But we really took a detour and talked a lot about culture and just generally living abroad and fitting in in different places and also the challenges of leaving your home country, learning a new place and even what expats are running from or digital nomads. If anything. What are the things that give all of us the desire to travel the world and see the world and is there a dark side to that?  

Kristin:    00:01:59    Don't fear though because we get to the Paris tips and the lightning round at the end with a lot of advice about French culture woven into that. But I think that regardless of where you are right now, where you're thinking of moving, where you're thinking of traveling, this conversation should help you think really deeply about your reasons and your why for doing that. And also hopefully offer some advice that can help you find your path and stay the course. We also touch on mental health in this episode, so if you are looking for support with that, then you can check our link for BetterHelp in the description below. That's my refer a friend link and you can get two free weeks of therapy by using my link in the show notes. Sit back, relax and enjoy my conversation with Jay. And at the end of the show we'll share a special discount code with you to get 15% off his Paris In Your Pocket Guide. Welcome Jay Swanson to the podcast. Thanks for joining us from Paris. Is that where you are right now? I'm assuming? 

Podcast Interview: 

Jay:    00:03:06    Yeah. That's where I am right now. Yeah, thank you.  

Kristin:    00:03:07    Are you drinking coffee right now? I know you love coffee, but is it late over there <laugh>?  

Jay:    00:03:12    No, it's three o'clock three in the afternoon. Oh, okay. This is like the limit for me. I made it 30 minutes ago so I, I'm definitely within my usual limits of not drinking coffee too late  

Kristin:    00:03:20    Having spent so much time in Costa Rica. I'm very familiar with the afternoon coffee break, but it's kind of a global thing. Coffee or tea?  

Jay:    00:03:29    Yeah, I do coffee after dinner here too very consistently, which I don't do. That's a step too far for me. So yeah,  

Kristin:    00:03:35    Like the Italians as well.  

Jay:    00:03:37    Yeah, I don't know how much of an impact it would have. I haven't tried a shot of espresso before bed, so one of these days when I feel like finding out scientifically i'll, I'll let you know how it pans out.  

Kristin:    00:03:46    I used to be a lot more laissez-faire about my caffeine consumption, but I have had espressos after dinner because everyone else at the table was doing it and I was somehow still able to sleep. But I think it could have been because I was much younger and it's kind of like your tolerance with drinking alcohol, like you don't get as hungover. But I think as you get older that you can be a little bit more sensitive to that <laugh>.  

Jay:    00:04:09    Maybe it's, it's a lot of old French people drinking coffee late though, so I don't know. They're managing it somehow.  

Kristin:    00:04:15    For people who haven't come across your YouTube channel, can you just tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do, and also where you're from? Because I think that Paris has this image, you know it's one of the number one travel and tourism destinations in the world, but it can also be a little bit intimidating. So you are a bit of an unlikely Parisian expert and I love that kind of goes in the face of all stereotypes, although you do walk around Paris with your adorable dog so that fits in well. But yeah, just give everyone a bit of summary there.  

Jay:    00:04:46    He is always with me. I'm actually really curious to hear your take on your view of me being so non-ST stereotypical because I definitely am, but always up for an outsider's perspective on Yeah, I'm weird. I think we could go into a long conversation about Paris, what people expect, how they approach it and how I think that they end up missing out as a result. I think a lot of people miss out because the city is actually very rich and very deep, but the average tourist experience and the average person coming to visit because of that and because of those expectations set by, I don't know, 1920s illustrations or Emily in Paris, whatever it is, like I think that there's a variety of things, there's a lot of wonderful things to get from both of those inspirations but unfortunately they also often end up falling fairly flat.  

Jay:    00:05:28    And I do think Paris is just very textured in ways that would be unexpected. But I originally came from the northwest in the United States, so I'm from Washington state, a little town called Pullman and it is also, yeah very unexpected that I would've ended up in Paris, but I just always wanted to come to France for some reason. I don't know why I can't answer that. There was just something calling me to get outta my little town and go somewhere else and France was always there and I always wanted to learn French. I refused to learn Spanish, which was a huge mistake but hey, you know, we all make them along the way and I learned French over the course of my education and came here and when I landed I actually came to Nice first and was just like, what have I done? I don't know if this is for me, it's good for my language, but I was like, ah, I don't, I don't really like this.  

Jay:    00:06:09    And then on my way back out I passed through Paris and I was like, oh, this is what I always wanted. This is the place that I belong. And so as an American it's hard to get visas obviously. Now Visa was a teaching visa that only lasted 10 months. I managed to get back on another one in Paris this time I was teaching just outside of the city, but I managed to get back in like 2012 for that school year. And again got kicked out at the end and was like, I never want that to happen again. And so I was on my that goal to come back and stay. And so when I managed to get a better visa, completely lucky it was a visa nobody had ever heard of. It wasn't even the visa I applied for the border agent when I crossed the border, looked at me like I was trying to sneak in.  

Jay:    00:06:47    There was a lot of stuff that was like off about it and I spent an entire year not even knowing what I was allowed to do. Was it legal? Was I allowed to work? How long was it good for? Nothing. I knew nothing and just got abused by the system for a year. But even before I crossed the board again, my goal was I'm going to get citizenship so they can never kick me out again. And I'm fortunate enough that I've built a life here, I've built a business community, friendships, everything. My tiny little dog like he said and just recently actually found out that I got citizenship just like 10 days ago.  

Kristin:    00:07:17    Oh wow. Congratulations.  

Jay:    00:07:19    Thank you. So they can't get rid of me. So that's a bit of the background on how I ended up here. Now they're stuck with me. So how  

Kristin:    00:07:25    Many years did it take to get citizenship from your first long-term visa?  

Jay:    00:07:30    So technically you have to be here for five years. Your visa status has to remain contiguous. You have to pay taxes for five consecutive years, don't get caught doing anything illegal. And then the process after that takes another, it's probably safe to expect it to take up to a year and a half. So I've been here for over seven years before I actually got my citizenship.  

Kristin:    00:07:51    Oh great. Well we're gonna definitely get into some of the tips and nuances of Parisian culture and French culture and how you've been fitting in. Another thing that can be really intimidating for people, and I'll never forget getting to France the first time with my mom. I actually think we were in nice, we came from Barcelona. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> flew into nice. And I was standing in a cafe as you do a coffee shop in the morning trying to order my croissant and everything in French. And my high school French failed me <laugh>. And I just remember the girl at the cash register staring at me like, are you kidding <laugh>? And she just started speaking English 'cause it was that bad. But how did you originally learn French? Was this something that you started just in school in Washington? How did you learn it before 2012?  

Jay:    00:08:39    I studied it in high school. So I, I took four years in high school. Which same, I mean four years of high school, French isn't gonna get you terribly far. But the thing is that I try to remind people is that like that education is your foundation and a good education or even maybe a middling education. I don't know know how strong my education really was, but like I went on to get a French major totally by accident. I went for film school and then quit film school 'cause I hated it and got a French major. But honestly, by the time I was done with like seven years of formal schooling in French, I'd plateaued years before and I took two years of German as a minor. And by the end of two years of studying German, I felt like my German had practically caught up.  

Jay:    00:09:18    I wasn't reading the same level of literature, but like it was good enough. And if I'd gone either way to Germany or France, I feel like my language would've gotten there. People often beat themselves up a lot for like playing Duolingo for six months and then not being able to carry a conversation that is not your fault. I have yet to meet anybody who's like, oh yeah, I use Duolingo and now I'm fluent. Like that's never happened. Everybody's like, I've been on Duolingo for 10 years and now I know how to say the word orange. You know, <laugh> language learning really requires a level of immersion to stick and it requires a willingness to grow and to stretch yourself and you have to put yourself in, it's an uncomfortable position. But the cool thing is like if you do that consistently, it comes, it just takes some effort.  

Jay:    00:09:57    And on the other side, like the nice, obviously nice is infamous for, they have a very strong love hate relationship with tourists. And so like you're not gonna get a good necessarily experience in the service industry and nice. That's just kind of the way it goes. Paris is changing in that way a lot. And what I try to encourage people is definitely try like the most important word you can know is <inaudible>. Which sounds almost pedantic, but it's really true. Every time you walk into a bar, a restaurant, a shop, you are walking into someone's home in French culture. And so you really want to make sure that you announce yourself and the polite way, the expected way to do that is to say bon or <inaudible> if it's late enough. But you can always say bonjour. And in doing so you, you begin the ritual that gets you rolling in the direction you want to go and there's a good chance when you say bonjour, they're gonna hear how you say it and they're gonna be like, they're gonna say it back to you, but then they're gonna be like, where would you like to sit or whatever.  

Jay:    00:10:45    Yeah. And I think my follow up piece would be if anybody listening this can walk away with this, try not to take that as an ego hit. Because in reality it's a huge win for all of us overall that the French have put so much effort into learning English and trying to slowly catch up. And a lot of times it may feel you're stressed, you walk in and you're like, oh no, I'm gonna have to speak French, I'm gonna try my hardest ha. And then they speak English to you and you feel like you've failed. But the reality is that there's a good chance that they're busy, they're working fast, they're not there to teach you French. That's not their job. Like they're there to serve you food or to get you where you're trying to go or to do whatever it is. So if they're patient and they have some extra time, maybe they'll engage with you in that and that's really cool.  

Jay:    00:11:21    But the reality is that they're not a French teacher. Just like if somebody who doesn't speak English walks into wherever you work and is like hello, but in a way that you barely understand and then they can't speak English, you're probably not gonna wanna spend 15 minutes practicing English with them. You're probably gonna want them seated and ordering so you can get to your next customer. So there's a little bit of a frame of reference that can change there. Take the wins when you get 'em and if you, you get what feels like an L, don't worry about it. We all accumulate a whole bunch of those and someday the great satisfaction will happen where you walk into a situation, nobody switches to English and you walk out of it and you're like, oh my gosh, that whole thing just happened in French. And that is a moment that you have to earn, but it is so, so worth it. So  

Kristin:    00:12:02    Yeah, I think even trusting yourself and your brain that if you expose yourself to this language for long enough, you will naturally learn it because that's how you learned your native language. Yep. And sometimes we forget, we think we have to try so hard, but that's putting a timeline and a deadline on how fast we want to learn. And even after I did my immersion in Costa Rica and moved back the next year or two years later, I remember being on the phone with people like customer service and I had to write out a script of what I was going to say because it sounds especially on the phone, like they talk so fast. Yeah. But you know, by the end of the year I was doing that no problem. Like it just kind of happens organically. But you do have to put in the work as you say, <laugh> Yeah. At the beginning and go through that awkward duckling phase of, yeah, not pronouncing bonjour correctly, but that's great that that's the best word. 'cause that's my favorite word. And it's one of the few <laugh> French words that I know  

Jay:    00:12:59    It's the most important. And I think kind of to your point too, like it's good to reset expectations and to remember that like you don't expect a 4-year-old to string a very profound sentence together. I mean occasionally obviously they throw stuff at you that you're like, whoa, where did that come from? But generally speaking, like we give kids years and years and years and lots of education and like the reading levels aren't the same and the form of expression, whatever else. So we put a lot of expectation on ourselves because we already know how to speak one language because we're already in a certain place and we forget that we, we need not as much time. We have a lot of tools in the chest, we know how to use language from experience. We know so much more than like a 2-year-old does. It's not the same thing as being bilingual. Right. So like just to give yourself some grace and to give it a try and to remember that you know you're here for a lot more of the experience than just the language.  

Kristin:    00:13:45    Yeah. When you're a kid, I mean you have from basically zero to 10 when you're still developing your language skills, your reading and writing skills. And actually even far beyond that, I mean in college people are still learning and beyond sometimes our language skills get worse. Yeah. Do you ever find actually that your English gets worse?  

Jay:    00:14:04    My life is very bilingual. So like my daily life out and about in the city is very French. And like I have to do business in French. I have to, same as you're talking about like on the phone with the government, with all kinds of people, lots and lots of French. But all my production is in English. My team, we all speak English together and a lot of my closest friends are still in English. So there's always a mix. Okay. I will intentionally never lose my English 'cause it's too important to me and to what I do. As much as I've integrated and assimilated to life in France, French will always be second to me just because it has to be as much as anything. So.  

Kristin:    00:14:36    Well I wanna circle back to something that you said at the beginning that you had this desire to go to France. I've been helping people relocate around the world for almost half of my life now. And something that everybody has in common is that they have this inner desire to want to live in other countries. How would you describe that and how young were you when you had this interest or curiosity in learning French and going to France and where does that come from?  

Jay:    00:15:07    I mean, it's been there forever. I remember being furious in sixth grade when they interrupted art for an experimental Spanish class. So like, hey, we're gonna start trying to teach you guys earlier. And I was like, this is my time for art. And I knew that I was gonna learn French in high school and even before that I wonder, you know, like I know they're problematic but like I am actually drinking from a cup from the Tintin series and there's something about like the Tintin series as a kid, the adventure of it, the exploration, getting out, like seeing all these different places in the world and obviously I don't really wanna get hit over the head, knocked out and dragged into some like ancient Egyptian tomb. That's not really what I'm up for. But there were a lot of elements of that where it's like you got to see and learn about so much of the world through books, through TV shows and stuff like that as well.  

Jay:    00:15:49    But I really couldn't tell you what specifically planted the seed in me to get out there and to explore. I know that I wanted to leave, you know, my family life was pretty, I didn't know how rough it was as a kid. I had to learn that later as an adult. Hooray. But there were a lot of elements like that with home life and where I grew up and so many things like that that also were pushing me out. So I think it was kind of like a combination of a desire to see the world and to experience what was out there. But also there was an inner push where it was like I didn't want to be what I would be if I stayed and I wanted to learn and grow. And as far as I'm aware, we only get one life and I wanted to make sure that whatever I did with it ended up making a good story.  

Kristin:    00:16:29    Well maybe in a past life you were French, who knows we, I don't know how this all works. You're  

Jay:    00:16:34    Possible in this life. I am so <laugh>  

Kristin:    00:16:36    <laugh>. Yeah, definitely. Dual citizen. Well I know that you've done a lot of different things as far as work and different jobs. So what kind of path were you on growing up in Washington in your family life? What was the direction that you were headed in and then what was your first avenue to divert to living in France? Like what was your method of being able to get there?  

Jay:    00:17:02    I think I was always headed here. I think I didn't know how I was gonna get here or when I didn't have any resources. I never traveled internationally when I was a kid. There was no real aspiration within my family to travel. So for me, in a way, like I was always destined to get here. Like I was on this direction. It was more that I deviated away from coming to France. Like in college I managed to get to Italy for six weeks over the summer only because it was the closest I could get to France. And I thought, okay, I'm at least getting somewhere. And so I think it's interesting 'cause at every step along the way, like especially even looking up to the point that I finally got the visa that I'm on now, it wasn't that I wasn't coming back to France or that I didn't want to be here or that I wasn't headed here.  

Jay:    00:17:42    It's that the deviations are actually away from it. Where I felt like I didn't have the ability, I didn't have the visa, I didn't have the money, I didn't have whatever I needed to make it happen. And so then I would kind of put a stop gap in where I'd be like, okay, well then I need to work for a while. I need to figure this out. And until I get that thing sorted out, then France is unfortunately on the back burner and then it would come back in a way that was kind of unexpected often. So it's kind of the inverse. It's like I was always, I was always headed this way, but I would have to put it on hold as I went.  

Kristin:    00:18:11    It's interesting how we put up blocks and challenges in front of the thing that we want the most. It's like we think that it's not the right time yet or we don't deserve it or we have to have such and such done before we can do this. I find myself doing that even now with life. I'm like, why don't I just set everything aside and spend this day to doing this thing that I say I wanna do? That's part of the mystery of the human experience and that's why the inner work is so important. But you did have a lot of deviations. I heard that you worked on Mercy Ships for three years and you also mentioned that you went to film school. So how did you switch from film school to, you know, I think I'm going to go, were you getting paid to go on these Mercy Ships or were you volunteering?  

Jay:    00:18:56    Yeah, I was a volunteer. That's a long conversation of its own, but I've always loved making videos. So ever since I was a kid I made videos. I have stories that I want to tell. I didn't know entirely what those were, but they've always been developing since I was in middle school and high school. And there's just a lot to go into there. But the point of gonna film school is like, okay, well I want to make movies like one of these days these stories are going to need to be turned into something cinematic. And in my mind they always were, the way that my mind functions is I guess you could say kind of cinematic. But I also was ready to write books and whatever else and just kind of however they need to exist. These stories need to exist. So when I got to film school, it was just a really toxic environment and I got yelled at the first and second time I met the director of the program.  

Jay:    00:19:41    In their mind they, you know, they thought like, oh well we need to abuse these kids because they're gonna get abused in the real world. So we'll just start that now was kind of the justification. But I think in reality half of the staff were just jerks and then the other half weren't like, they didn't yell at you. They were stern but different. So after a little bit of that experience, I was like, maybe not for me. And that was also partially because I was scared to be totally honest. Like I was really scared to go after my dreams, like you're saying. I was really scared to commit, really scared to fail at the things that I thought were very much identifiably my core. And so that was a major deviation. 'cause even though film school may not have been the right path, maybe even college wasn't the right path, I definitely put my real dreams on the back burner to do other things. And the reason I ended up picking up French was I needed a minor. So I had a French minor already that I was working on and I was like, well this is easy to make into a major. It's not like the language is, I mean, French is hard, don't get me wrong. Not the easiest language. Language classes aren't hard. Like I can focus on other stuff, I can focus on relationships, I can do, you know, just have a good time because this is also pre-recession, like right before the recession.  

Kristin:    00:20:43    Oh before the real estate crash. Mm-Hmm, of oh eight.

Jay:    00:20:46    Yeah. And I grew up in a college town so everybody just worshiped getting your degree and then you figure it out from there. There was no pressure, didn't work out. But then when I ended up joining Mercy Ships was partially because of the recession because of opportunities that dried up. I had a job waiting for me in my alma mater when I came back from France the first time and was being groomed for that and prepared. And then with the recession they put on a hiring freeze. My boss opted not to move, he couldn't move to the job that he was slated for. So then he couldn't give me his job and I found myself out in the cold and hunting for temporary work and struggling for a couple of years. And so Mercy Ships came up partially because I wanted to use my French and I wanted to get back out of where I was at the time.  

Jay:    00:21:27    I wanted to see the world. There's a part of me that always felt like I needed to spend some time in Africa as I would've put it at the time. Which before I really had my more precise ideas of where I would end up. And when I found out about Mercy Ships in its mission, it's a surgery ship for those that have never heard of it before. They operate the world's largest and now larger, largest charity hospital ships in the world. So they're the largest private charity hospital ships. They do exclusively surgery. Uh, some incredible stuff, incredible results. And when you see it for the first time, if that speaks to you like it needs no sales, it's just an amazing visual and an amazing looking experience. And so I jumped at the opportunity, it seemed like it would be great because I was desperate to get out of the situation that I was in as much as anything I volunteered consistently my whole life.  

Jay:    00:22:13    And I was like, well this is another way of doing that and carrying on. And so I raised support for that and managed to get enough to cover my way. And then at the end of 2010, moved to South Africa and then bounced around mostly Sub-Saharan and Central Africa for the next three and a half, four years. And it was a wild experience and very formative. I don't know that I would recommend anybody do what I did. And if you're looking into Mercy Ships, I'd definitely give it a taste before you jump in with both feet like I did. 'cause I committed to two years outta the gate. I wouldn't recommend that, but it definitely had a massive impact on who I am today and also taught me a lot about who I already was. Sometimes there's no way to find out who you really are until you find yourself in some extreme circumstances and then you really come to know yourself better than you would otherwise.  

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Jay:    00:24:44    I started in South Africa, lived in Sierra Leone for 10 months, spent a month in Ghana between that and Togo where we did a field service for five months. The Canary Islands just briefly before I ended up in France. So the second time I lived in France for some in Paris, was working for the global office here on a teaching visa. And then I returned to the ship in the Congo. So back to the Canaries, which is technically Spain obviously, but sailed down to the Congo and was in Point noir for another five or six months I think before I burned out so hard that I basically I ended it on for medical reasons and then went back to the states.  

Kristin:    00:25:19    How was your burnout? How did you physically experience that or what triggered it?

Jay:    00:25:23     What triggered it was that I ended up in my dream job for the organization at the time, which was also a nonstop job. So it was the media liaison position. So I was working with any media teams that came to the ship. I mean really I had relationships with everyone on the ship at this point so I could get them anywhere. And my job was just to make sure both sides of that equation stayed happy, which is not always easy. And also keep them outta jail when we're in country and they want to do things that they shouldn't be doing. Film things and say things they maybe in a dictatorship you wanna be careful about this or that. So I basically worked from 6:00 AM 6:30 AM until 10:00 PM every day nonstop for months. And when I went into the job, I'd seen people burn out in it before and I told them I would accept it if they promised to actually give me time off.  

Jay:    00:26:06    Like I was like I will need time to rest. And this is one of the reasons I would say be cautious with an organization like Mercy Ships jumping in, I think a lot of charities suffer from this where they just work their people to the bone and there was a lot of talk about like yeah, yeah, yeah, we've got like space for you out here. They also kinda looked at like, Hey, why are you asking for time off? You haven't even started working was kind of the half and half of that conversation. And every time they'd be like, okay in two weeks we've got like a few days set aside for you. By the time we got there they would've booked another team in. And it got to the point that I was hosting multiple teams at the same time. Occasionally I would be waiting at the airport, I'd drop one team off at the airport and be waiting for the next one on the flight that was coming in, you know, a half hour later.  

Jay:    00:26:42    And yeah, so worked you know, 15 hour days for four months I think when I finally went on a vacation after I burned out so badly that like I got medicated by the crew physician, he is like, you need to sleep. And he gave me pills, which I initially refused and then the next day something else happened that just completely crushed me and I was like, all right, yeah, I'll take it. And got signed out, I slept for like 13 hours a day for a week and then got shipped back to the States for Christmas, whatever. And I figured that that 30 day window that I went back didn't make up for the weekends that I had missed just in days missed, not even like hours. I remember that math, at least they realized how serious it was and they kind of settled things down but I was like, I don't trust you guys anymore.  

Jay:    00:27:19    Like I'm done. And so I handed the job off to the next person and left and then went right hard into the next thing and didn't really ever give myself the time to properly recover. So that was a long road if you ever burn out and you're able to, I wasn't able to. I needed to go make money obviously, but because I've been a volunteer for three years, I had no money. I was actually somehow deeper in debt than when I went into it. I would recommend, take the time you need to recover. It's a slow painful process and it doesn't help anybody to kick that can down the road.  

Kristin:    00:27:46    Yeah, it almost sounds like you got honorably discharged from the military or a war zone. I mean it sounds so intense.  

Jay:    00:27:53    The Congo was intense for a lot more cultural reasons than anything. Like every country that you go to is very different, right? And in Congo, like they were very, very engaged with us in a way that a lot of other countries weren't, which is a great thing. But that also created a lot more demand than we were used to handling for media in particular. So the first time I ever went like full French on any media, I did a radio show and a TV show in the same day fully in French. And it was cool, it was super intense. My French wasn't as good then as it is now. They would've had a lot of opportunities for us like that and we weren't set up for it. I was already fully worked with just the people, the foreigners that were coming in and giving them access to the ship.  

Jay:    00:28:29    And so there was that side of it. But like in Freetown, in Sierra Leone, that was more the environment that we lived in. There was much more like actually like tense, intense. And we had a couple guys that were former special forces from two different generations. One was Cold War and one was like modern like Iraq and they both talked about it, like they took it very, very seriously and they said that the stress levels we were living under were very much combat conditions and they were like, we're living in the green zone here. And they like, they mapped it out like whereas far as like they saw the security but they're like this is our green zone. And like when you go out there it is the level of stress is not dissimilar to what we've experienced elsewhere. And so that's kinda what I mean too.  

Jay:    00:29:04    Like some of these experiences that I've had so many great stories obviously, but also a lot of crazy and traumatic things. It's those things you can't get just from traveling for one. But also I think it's that thing of it helps a lot to have talked about it with people that we did that with. And I'm very fortunate because of who I am and like my job but also just where I found myself that I had a lot of these conversations with people who were able to put some context around it. 'cause I know that I've had conversations with other mercy shippers later who didn't get the same levels of context and you can see that it was harder for them to process certain things as a result. So a lot of times to your point with the inner work, it's really important to make sure that wherever you're at in the world, whether you're doing something extreme or not, wherever you are talking about what you're going through is really important. And being able to connect with people who have similar experiences, shared experiences and different perspectives really makes a a really, really big difference for making sure that you're taking care of yourself.  

Kristin:    00:29:59    Yeah, that sounds very intense. It almost sounds like a combination of combat with the Peace Corps but then all of the nuances in your personal life of living in a country, in a culture, in a scenario that's so much different from where you're from and the Pacific Northwest and as you were talking it, it made me think about kind of the similarities of having the expat bubble on the ship. Yeah. Where this is your green zone, this is your safety zone. And that happening in other facets of an international lifestyle. Whether it's people that are living as digital nomads or temporarily relocating to another country or permanently immigrating to another country. How do you see the expat bubble? Because a lot of people say I don't wanna hang out with other foreigners or tourists, I just wanna be friends with the locals. But having lived abroad for so many years, I feel like you need that common ground with other people who might not necessarily be from your same country but who are also in the same position of living outside of their home country. So how do you see that and then how do you balance that in your current community in France?  

Jay:    00:31:12    It's funny 'cause I think of very specific people when this question comes up. 'cause I used to say that myself and it was worth it in a way. Like when I moved to Nice, I made a real effort to not hang out with English speakers. I was like, I want to speak French, that's why I'm here. And I arrived with a wave of other English assistants who came from much more prestigious schools who spoke the language far better than I did. And by the time I left I felt like I spoke much better than most of them 'cause they just partied and hung out together. There's real value in that. I think it depends on what your goals are and how long you're gonna be in a place and what you're hoping to get outta something. And everybody has their own individual needs and experiences with that.  

Jay:    00:31:50    I will say though, with a few more trips around the world under my belt and having lived in everything from very calm to very crazy situations, what's really important is to always have people that you can rely on emotionally. You'll find that there are a lot of people that you can connect with, especially over the novelty of being a foreigner who speaks the local language. Like as an American, being an American who speaks French gives me an automatic pass for so many things because people are just like surprised that I'm even able to put my shirt on facing the right direction. They're like, wow, an American who speaks another language, this is crazy. And so then they engage a lot and you might find some energy from that and and really engage with that. But over time, at least in my experience, you come to realize a lot of those people like that is all you have to connect over is that shared curiosity.  

Jay:    00:32:36    And you might spend months with those people without building any real foundation for friendship. So what I would say is that it depends on where you're at in your life and if you know yourself, if you're struggling with loneliness already, if you're coming into a new situation and you're not feeling like emotionally your best self, I would say that it's probably best to be honest with yourself about it for starters. But then to just make sure that you find some people that come from where you come from who are having a very similar experience, who you can rally with and complain about the local bureaucracy and find help for the things you need and literally cry on each other's shoulders if you need it. Because no one is gonna understand what you're going through as well as those people are gonna understand it. And once you have a solid base or if you're coming into it feeling like rip roaring ready to go and you don't need any shoulders to cry on, you're just here to have a good time, that's when like you put some more effort into branching out and like finding your local friend group.  

Jay:    00:33:33    The other thing that I would challenge on that again long term is the idea of like, who are you going to connect with? Because like in the same way that I may never connect fully, fully on a deep intimate level, I have my community, I know my local florist, I know you know the baristas at the coffee shop, I know a lot of people in the area, a lot of French people who've never left. And we have nice chats and I love them 'cause they're part of my community. There's a limit to how deep that's probably going to go. I think if we're being totally honest. And so similarly, like if I moved back to the town I came from, I don't think I would find it easy to be friends with Americans who had never left and who'd never had other experiences and who hadn't, you know, been challenged in the same ways or whatever.  

Jay:    00:34:12    Like shared experience I think is a really important part of friendship. So in that context, I do think it's important to keep that in mind. For me, my friends, I have a lot of French friends, but they're friends mostly who have lived abroad elsewhere or who became French who've been naturalized. And where most of my close friends then end up starting to look more like, you know, creative types or expats or whatever. And we're not in a bubble, I wouldn't say as far as like we all speak French very well. We all know the city very well. We all are very well connected and you know, get out and live our French lives. When we gather around together, we're also able to complain about the same stuff and moan and and whinge about the French and the Americans and the Australians and the, you know, whoever like we're able to kind of make fun of everything we need to in a way to process the wild weirdness that is your daily life.  

Jay:    00:35:02    And if you don't have that shared language, it does make it harder. And I think that ultimately relationships and intimacy is about seeing and being seen. And ultimately I would say there's nothing wrong with going and making the most locally local friends you can and going as far with that as you possibly can and finding your people in that way. But I wouldn't poo p the idea of having your expat circle at the same time because it may not sound cool and it may not sound adventurous, but as somebody who's gone out on a lot of solo adventures, it's way easier and more pleasant to have partners in the adventure than to do it alone.  

Kristin:    00:35:35    Yes, I agree. It is hard to, to strike that balance, but, but it is really important and I find that people kind of end on one extreme or the other. Like they either don't get to meet the locals at all or they completely isolate themselves from the expat community and they just want to be a local and not so much middle ground. But I have found myself in certain countries, like in Costa Rica, I spent so much of my life there and when I really counted all of my friends, they were all from different countries. Now maybe they were from other Latin countries like Venezuela, Chile, Argentina. But I once asked myself like, why don't I have any close Costa Rican friends? I have so many Costa Rican acquaintances. Even my ex-boyfriend was Costa Rican, but I didn't really feel like I was a part of the Costa Rican community. Like I didn't feel fully included in Costa Rica, but I definitely fit in with Venezuelans who were living in Costa Rica or Swiss people or Canadians or Californians or whatever. So do you also feel like, to what degree do you feel accepted in your French community?  

Jay:    00:36:47    Well I think if you were to go to Venezuela you'd make a lot of Costa Rican friends. <laugh>.  

Kristin:    00:36:52    Yes, exactly.  

Jay:    00:36:53    Again, this comes to shared experience like the Costa Ricans that stayed mm-hmm <affirmative>, they're living their daily life, right? They're going to work, they're gonna go see grandma for dinner, they're gonna go home. They've got like their triangles that they plot out every day. And there's not a lot of room in that for like random gringo who just walks through and wants to practice her Espanol. So like mm-hmm <affirmative>, there's the same thing here. And in Paris it's also interesting. The French can be very welcoming. They're lovely. They get a really bad rap. 'cause I think the French are lovely, but Paris is like New York. Like nobody cares, right? I've seen a million Americans come through, you're not special. Get outta my way. I'm trying to buy food. You know, whatever it is. There's a lot of the same mentality here at least. And you have to show up and stay for a long time before people realize, oh you're for real. We had the same thing in Mercy Ships, right? You had long-termers and short-termers and people would ask very early in conversations like, how long are you here for?  

Kristin:    00:37:44    Sizing you up? 

Jay:    00:37:45     And if you didn't say at least a year, they'd be like, all right, have fun <laugh>. Like I'm gonna go back to like hanging out with people who actually live here. And it's an emotional protection, right? We need people that we know are gonna stay and if we're gonna commit energy to people, we wanna feel like it's gonna be worth that investment, which isn't always fair. You miss out on a lot of really cool opportunities because friendships are always for a season and that can just be a week. It can just be one coffee and you really connect with somebody and then you never see them again. But you have an exchange that's very meaningful. And so I'll never feel fully French and I know that I'm fine, I don't get all the references. There's still so much to learn, so many puns and whatever.  

Jay:    00:38:19    I can go to a standup show and enjoy most of it. But I'm sitting there with my friends, I'm like, what? What was that? You know, that question is also, I think it's one that we level at ourselves because we put ourselves in a circumstance where it's very apparent and I think that we forget that where we came from, we may not have felt like we really belonged either. So it's something to remember that like you, whatever belonging is, is something that's internal and it's something that really has more to do with you than it does the people around you. That obviously isn't entirely true if you're walking around like getting a dog made me feel way more included in my local 'cause with the neighborhood I live in kind of sucks. And so like, it's very rich and it's very conservative and it's very like people do their own thing and they don't look at you.  

Jay:    00:38:57    And I always felt like unwelcome here, not actively unwelcome, but like just never liked it. And then I got a dog and walked around and didn't change most of the people, but it, it did bring out a lot of interesting people that were actually really nice and I had very nice conversations with. And now when I'm walking around, I'm recognized by all kinds of different vendors and you know, some of them knew me from coming in, but then there are others that I never go to for their services, but they know my dog and there are layers of it. So I think that we need a few really close connections. I think we need some good connections, we need some acquaintances and then we just need to be recognized as human and as somebody who exists. And that can be a much broader circle. I could recommend getting a dog. I don't know that I would, that that does have an impact for sure.  

Kristin:    00:39:38    Yeah, maybe you were just seen as some, you know, random tourist greeno. I don't know if they have greeno in France, but probably the same. 

Jay:    00:39:47    No,  'cause all French people are greeno, so it's fine. We're <laugh>.  

Kristin:    00:39:50    Yeah, so you were more invisible because you could have just blended in like looking like an American walking through the neighborhood. But now that you have your dog, people are like, oh, this guy lives here. I've seen this dog before, I've seen this guy. And then the wall kind of comes down a little bit.  

Jay:    00:40:04    Yeah, it helps a lot. And we live in a time where people are really lonely, right? And um, increasingly lonely. And I am very happy to say that I'm not a lonely person anymore. But I used to be, I used to be incredibly, incredibly deeply agonizingly lonely, especially after I left the ship and I left, I lived with 400 people in a tin can to like life on the road as a consultant in airports and hotels. And it was physically painful, how lonely I was for a long time. And I think that like, the reality is that nobody's in so many circumstances in our life, but with loneliness as well, nobody's coming to save us. We have to put ourselves in a position where we're able to go out and make headway on our own. Obviously we need relationships and that's a two-way street. You don't want to put your time and effort into people who aren't gonna treat you well and aren't gonna show up.  

Jay:    00:40:52    But like for me, part of the most important thing about getting my citizenship is that I feel like I've built a life for myself here for the first time in my adult life, maybe in my entire life. And I feel like I belong and I feel like I'm at home and I feel like I'm loved and cared for in ways that I never could have otherwise. And I needed a citizenship to protect that. And the way that I did that was by coming here like lonely, sad, struggling. I had hit rock bottom a couple times and I had a couple more layers of that rock to crush through before I stopped. But the difference was over time, I did the work on myself as much as I could. I invested as much as I could myself and I showed up consistently and tried to invest in others.  

Jay:    00:41:32    And eventually through that you, there's a lot of rejection, there's a lot of disappointment. There are a lot of people that let you down. But over time, if you can, you slowly collect the people that are really gonna be there for you, that are gonna really be your friends. And there's no silver bullet. But over the years, suddenly you realize, oh, I have people. And slowly but surely that loneliness really does and can. It really can. And I think it really does fade away. So wherever you are in the world, whether you're traveling or you're at home or you are an additional nomad, like I think showing up for yourself and showing up for others, putting that proactive effort in is where, where the cure for that loneliness comes from.  

Kristin:    00:42:09    Very well said. I just did my last YouTube video was about loneliness and loneliness as a traveler. Loneliness as an expat and kind of the facade of loneliness that it's a universal feeling that everybody can relate to. Hmm. So why do people think that, you know, if they travel, they're going to be lonelier than they are at home. Like you can hit rock bottom anywhere in the world. Your geography is not going to change that immensely. I mean, it can help definitely to get a fresh start and go to a different place, but how do you feel that living in another country helps you discover more about who you are?  

Jay:    00:42:48    Uh, myriad of ways. I never fully liked this analogy, but it works in the sense that like, culture is, like the water that the fish is swimming in. It's just what you exist in. It's just where you are. You don't think about it until the water changes. If you get dropped into some salt water and you're not a salt water fish, you're gonna notice a lot about yourself really quickly.  

Kristin:    00:43:04    That's a great analogy.  

Jay:    00:43:06    Yeah. I think that like culture is a really good litmus test for so many things. Just to see how you react, how you deal with stress, how you deal with adversity, because that adversity comes in ways that you never expected. It's like, how do I buy produce? I don't know, simple things like that. Like why is the toilet paper so thick here? Like, there's so many things that like even if you just go one step over to another western country that has so much of the same stuff, you'll be shocked to discover how many things are different. So you learn so much about yourself just because you, you start bumping into parts of yourself you didn't know were there 'cause they never hit any friction before. And now you're, you're running into stuff and you're like, I don't like that. I've never seen this before.  

Jay:    00:43:47    I've never felt this before. I've never whatever. And it can be overwhelming. And I think especially if you're learning a new language, like the first few months of moving to a new place, if you've never done it before, and even if probably if you have, after a while you stop having this experience, but the first few times you move anywhere, like you kinda have your own version of tunnel vision and there's an element of like becoming a toddler again where you just are overwhelmed with information. Like the input is so different, everything's there. The sights, the smells, the sounds, whatever. It's exhausting. So I don't think that there's a way you can go into it knowing for sure what you're gonna learn about yourself, but I think that there's almost no way, especially making a commitment like that, there's no way you go through that experience and you don't learn about yourself.  

Kristin:    00:44:26    Exactly. And your comfort zone expands. The longer that you're out there in the wild, the longer that you are exploring. It's almost hard for me to identify with who I was before I traveled because in my mind I was very adventurous. I was very curious and I think a lot of people can relate to that. But until you do it you just have this idea of what it is. It's interesting because it's like you have this seed in you to want to travel. You don't know yet what life has in store for you, but you're not gonna know until you go. And then once you get out there, you have the adversity and the challenges. But then you also somehow get a better understanding of yourself because you can get out of that water. You know, maybe you're living in a pond and now you're living in a river. We're staying with this metaphor <laugh>. Or you're gonna live in the ocean and you're gonna start surviving and breathing in a different type of water, in a different type of environment. Actually my sister just had a baby yesterday.  

Jay:    00:45:23    Congratulations.  

Kristin:    00:45:24    Thank you Austin. And he is so tiny, he only weighed six pounds and I've only talked to her for a few minutes and she just said if I give him to anyone else he cries. So she hadn't slept in two days. And I was thinking just as you were talking, his comfort zone is just her stomach right now. Like if he's moved out of his comfort zone, he feels uncomfortable, he starts crying. But as he grows he's gonna be more and more comfortable straying farther from home, which was the womb for the last nine months. And so it's kind of like that. It's like at first you are only comfortable with, with what you know, but as you expand what you know, then you work that muscle and you become more comfortable with the unknown. And I guess that's why both of us are still doing what we do.  

Kristin:    00:46:18    Sometimes I even feel like immune to culture shock in a way because I've been in so many weird situations. Yeah. But I think if I was living in Freetown I would definitely have a different perspective on that. Yeah. I did have one other question about the expat culture. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So kinda, I didn't know we were gonna do such a deep dive into the psych psychographics of expats, but I love talking about this with people who have gotten citizenship in another country and really integrated with another culture. Do you see any common threads among the types of people that you meet in Paris or in other countries or on the Mercy Ships that are being attracted to this lifestyle, whether it's in a a war zone or sipping cappuccino on the streets of Paris and what are kind of the good, the bad and the ugly of these characteristics?  

Jay:    00:47:07    Yeah, it was funny because after living in like the, my West and central African experiences were very adrenaline high. Like there were life threatening situations regularly enough and then you start seeking it out. Then you're just like, I'm gonna climb that rusty tower because no one's gonna stop me. Which now I look back and I'm like, wow, I'm really glad I didn't like die <laugh>. Yes. In so many different ways. It's funny because then you move to a place like Paris and you're just like, nothing happens here. And it's a really weird sensory deprivation where you step out of the world you lived in into another one and it actually is really unnerving because of how safe everything is. And because it doesn't feel like you're actually doing anything, you just talk about on the ship how like life was compressed and in a matter of months you would have years worth of experience.  

Jay:    00:47:50    The your relationships would deepen really quickly because you trauma bonded over all kinds of things and you saw things and it, depending on who you were, there are people that definitely stayed in their safe little bubble in the ship as well and didn't really go too far out. And there are people that went way farther than I did. There is a world of difference between the types of people that end up in those places for sure. And I think I used to say this and I don't how fair this is, so take it with a grain of salt. The people that end up going to a place like Mercy Ships. And I think a lot of those kinds of organizations are probably running from something. I think that they're looking to solve internal problems with external action. And that could be because they hope to save some lives.  

Jay:    00:48:26    That could be just because they're literally in the witness protection program and that's the farthest place they can go. I know a guy that did that and not everybody is that way, but a lot of people and I was one of 'em. I was definitely running and I didn't really fully realize that when I did it. I think Paris is different. I think Paris is a city that has a fantasy built around it. And I think that like the ugly side of it is there are a lot of people here who come for a fantasy that doesn't exist and it crashes a lot of people. There are a lot of people that don't last in Paris. It's not as brutal as New York. But very few people I feel like really are built to last long term here if they aren't familiar. And even the French try to get outta here as fast as they can.  

Jay:    00:49:00    They make it really hard to live here sometimes. But I think for a lot of the expats that come here, there's a mixture. We've also talked a lot recently about how it's kind of a woman's city and there's a lot of history behind that. I don't have a fully working theory about this yet, but there's a lot of history of female emancipation in Paris in particular the shopping scenes like with the department stores. There's just a lot of little cultural things that actually gave women forms of freedom and aspirations that they couldn't have had anywhere else. And France is by no means like front leading on a lot of this stuff. Women didn't get the right to vote until like during World War ii, but there's a real love story for a lot of Anglo women in this city. So what's funny is like back in the turn of the century, the last century when we entered into the 20th century, there were a lot of men here.  

Jay:    00:49:46    Like the jazz scene was a lot of African American men. There were a lot of American writers, there were a lot of men that were here having a grand old time at the beginning of that century. And now it's not the case. The majority of people that I ever experienced in my French classes were women. And the majority of expats here are also women. And the majority of relationships are American women to French men and not French women to American men. There's a lot of like, I know some American men who have married French women and very happily married and they're lovely couples. But by and large it's, it's an interesting dynamic. And so the shift is very different here.  

Kristin:    00:50:20    You should write a book about French culture from your perspective. That would be really interesting. It can go along with your Paris guide <laugh> because it's like unlocking all the mystery there. But that is fascinating what you just said. Mm. And having myself lived in so many Latin countries, seeing it the opposite way. Like when you go to Latin America and you go to Southeast Asia, you see a lot of western men with local women. You don't see it the other way around. But I think that's why people like me, you know, single independent western women we're much more attracted to go somewhere. Not all of us, but many of us to go somewhere in Europe where things are a little bit more equal in society. You know, like in Scandinavia women have more rights throughout Europe, women have more equality. And it's interesting that you mentioned that you see more western women with French men, which is like the complete inverse of what you would find in other countries. So that, that's something interesting to look into. That's definitely a big <laugh> can of worms.  

Jay:    00:51:22    It's a huge can of worms. And I, I'm sorry for whatever I unleashed on you in the comments on this one, but I think that like, 'cause it is true, women don't have the same power and freedom to travel as men do. And I've lived in some really dangerous places. So I actually feel pretty safe in how to handle myself in most circumstances. And if I don't feel safe, I really don't feel safe. Like I'm like okay, no I need to get outta here. I recognize that like it's unfair like the, a lot of the experiences I've had are not very easily if at all, accessible to women. I do know some women that have had similar ones and they are complete bad asses and I respect them so much. And so a place like this I think offers a little bit of that freedom and autonomy in a way that a lot of the rest of the world just can't. And like you said, I mean Scandinavia is even better. It's safer, it's more egalitarian. Like Paris isn't dangerous. I think for most women they'll find it safe if annoying 'cause men will harass you more here than they should. Absolutely. And then that they would in other countries. But it is fascinating and I don't know if the dynamics are the same in other countries in Europe, if there are a lot more American women than men, how that works out, I'm definitely very curious about it 'cause I don't understand it entirely either.  

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Jay:    00:53:42    I kind of take a break from dating for a while. I'm always friendly and chatting and meeting people. I've started dating again recently, like in the last six months or a year. And it is interesting like the dating French, again, this kinda goes back to that like are you dating somebody who's never left or not seeing somebody who's French that left for a long time and it's a completely different experience than when I dated somebody who was French and hadn't left. I kind of feel like honestly my, we talk about this a lot among our friends, but also the dating scene here culturally it's just not the same. It's not as fun and like when, and when I say fun, I just mean that like if you're gonna date culturally, the French like to play games. Like they're very much, there's an expression in French see and that means if you follow me, I will run.  

Jay:    00:54:25    If you run, I will follow you <laugh>. And there are a lot of expressions like that in French because like that mystery, that love, that romance that is associated with the French isn't totally wrong. Like they definitely know how to play the games. I want to have a conversation. I would like it to be a little bit more direct. And so what you find is that you don't know what's going on and you might be attracted to somebody, you might be like, oh I see them occasionally and like, oh, like we brushed against each other once and oh like it seems a little flirty. But then I don't hear from them for a while. And then if you go on like a date and especially if you like sleep with that person, you might find out very quickly that you are together. Even though you didn't know you were together.  

Jay:    00:55:01    You're like, oh yeah, we had a date. It was nice. And the next time they see you, if they come straight in for the kiss instead of abuse you, you're together in their mind you're on that track. And then there's a good chance that they might let you know over that lunch or whatever. They're like, okay, so you're meeting my family this week and like it just goes from like zero to like 60 in an insane way. So that's one of the elements of dating French that just like completely threw me for a loop. And I know a lot of friends have had similar experiences  

Kristin:    00:55:26    <laugh>. Oh wow. I wouldn't expect that in French culture. But then again I haven't dated over there. But that's so interesting. Yeah. There was one thing that you were mentioning about, you know, people kind of running from something when they're going to these other countries or at least looking for something, you know, like women going to Paris to write a novel and look for love. It's a little cliche, but hey then there's eat, pray love in Bali. Like that's a thing. Yeah. And she crushed it. There's stereotypes for a reason and I've taken a writing course in Paris so I, I can relate to that. Great. But then there's also this other extreme, like I remember when I was living in Costa Rica, this guy who owned a cafe that I went to all the time and then one day it was closed and I'm like, what happened?  

Kristin:    00:56:09    You know, my friends were like, oh he got picked up by the Interpol, like the international police. And I'm like, what? Like he actually was running from the law and decided to run to Costa Rica. So there's like that extreme. There's also a guy that I knew in the expat community in Mexico who also kind of like got run out of town because he was a registered sex offender and people found out about it. So there's like that like dark side of the expat stuff. But then there's also, yeah, kind of the normal things that people are running away from. And like inner work that I've done recently, I've kind of uncovered that I have a belief that if I lived in other countries or if I was traveling, that was a way for me to be my freest self and that if I stayed in the US I felt more bogged down with certain responsibilities or cultural expectations.  

Kristin:    00:57:02    You know, maybe the rat race and all of that stuff. So my subconscious solution to getting out of that trap of the American rat race was to just leave the country <laugh>. And that's why I've been outta the country for so long. Well that's not the only reason, but I never thought that basically like I thought that I was traveling because I always was enamored by the idea of it. I used to read books and dream about traveling and read encyclopedias and things and I wanted to go see those places. But then, you know, after being outside of your home country for a couple decades, you start to wonder like, well is there any other reason why I wanted to do this? And it is that I feel like I can be myself when I'm traveling or when I'm living in other countries because I don't have those societal expectations on me or even family perceived or real expectations. Do you feel like there was anything like that that makes you feel more comfortable in France because it's somewhere that you chose to live versus where you were born?  

Jay:    00:58:03    A hundred percent. I resonate with that. I think we're so blind to so much, you know, and that never changes. It does change in the sense that we gain greater and greater awareness hopefully over our lives. But like I think that's one of the great joys challenges and sometimes depressing moments. You're like, oh man, if I didn't see this version of myself five years ago, what am I not seeing now? <laugh> Um mm-Hmm <affirmative>. And I think that I was running from family stuff, from expectations, from the deconstruction of my faith, my loss of trust in the institutions that I was raised to believe in across the board. A lot of stuff has very much entered in the mainstream conversation now is like also there's a level of freedom but there's also a potential that I didn't think I could reach if I stayed. I dunno that I could have fully put my finger on what that meant before I came.  

Jay:    00:58:49    Like you were saying earlier in getting out and in putting myself in some really, really risky positions over the years I have learned so much more about myself and I respect myself so much more and I have a really hard time thinking positively about myself. I have traditionally and I'm getting much better about that. But when I look back and I like, I list out accomplishments that nobody knows about. I look back on who I've demonstrated myself to be. 'cause part of it is I've become someone, but part of it is that I've revealed who I am. And I think it's pretty cool that between those two there's a level of pride that you can take that you have shown up in that way. So that I find hugely valuable. And to your point like yeah there are people here in Paris too. There are definitely people here that are here that you're like, what are you doing here?  

Jay:    00:59:32    Like you get to know people more and more the longer you're here. And then there are people that are like just gonna kind of keep my eye on that guy over there. Like I don't know that I like that he's here. And that happens even in Paris. But the cool thing is that you do end up finding a lot of people with a lot of shared experience. And what's cool about it is when you meet a lot of these people, like they come from different parts of the world. They don't all come from where you come from. I don't have any friends here that come from my part of the world. But that said like you discover that what's there, it's not about the details, it's not about the surface level stuff about like, oh I lived here and I did this job and I whatever.  

Jay:    01:00:03    What you find is that there are core experiences under so many of those different things that create a shared experience that even though you never even lived in the same place or you never did the same thing, what happened to you or what transpired, what may have traumatized you or what may have illuminated or whatever it was, you do find people that had that same experience in a way that even if they weren't there, they understand you. And I think that there's a real real value to that as well. So getting out to have these experiences can be isolating in a way. It definitely limits how many people are out there that had the same experiences but also brings you into contact with some amazing people that you would never meet any other way.  

Kristin:    01:00:41    That's why I'm so grateful for this podcast. I mean just even having this conversation right now, it's helping me so much as well as hopefully the listeners and had you not come on the podcast, you know I might just get some Paris travel tips from your videos but not really connect on this way. So thank you for being so transparent and open about that and we'll see what happens in another five years. You'll have to come back on  

Jay:    01:01:06    <laugh>. Maybe my hair will have grown back by then. You don't know.  

Kristin:    01:01:08    Hopefully mine too. You know, it's not as voluminous as it once was.  

Jay:    01:01:13    Luminous  

Kristin:    01:01:14    <laugh>. Well okay let's do this. Let's do a quick Paris lightning round. So you mentioned you don't live in the best neighborhood in Paris, but which neighborhood do you live in and what are some of your favorite a Rhonda Smiths? Yeah,  

Jay:    01:01:27    I live in the 16th by circumstance and I'm very, very grateful to have the place that I have here but it is not a place to go visit. So my favorites are gonna be like the ninth, 10th and 11th, particularly the north to east of the ninth. And then getting into the canal summer, that area. I could draw you a map. I love it. The best food, the best bars, the best nightlife. Like there are practically no parks or monuments out there but like who does that stuff when you live here anyways, like I love those neighborhoods so much and I think hopefully in the next year or two that's where I'll end up moving. But right now I'm reinvesting everything I make into my business so I still live in a closet. Yeah,  

Kristin:    01:02:06    Paris has some of the highest housing prices in the world and hotels.  

Jay:    01:02:10    Yeah. Ain't cheap <laugh>.  

Kristin:    01:02:11    Yeah. I know that you are a foodie and a coffee connoisseur. Can you give us a couple of recommendations for restaurants and cafes?  

Jay:    01:02:20    Yeah, for sure. I think I can just give you some of my top recommendations that are like consistent winners all the time. Motors Coffee is very central, very easy to get to. You could walk there from the Louvre probably about a 10 minute walk from the Louvre 10, 15 minute walk. But it's worth getting away from that area because if you stand the near the Louvre it's hard to find good coffee. Although I do know one place that's closer but still Motors very consistent, good coffee. They bring in a lot of interesting beans and the stuff they cook downstairs, like they bake their own cinnamon rolls, they bring in cookies and they bring in donuts from the best local donut maker in Paris. So it's not the most frenchies of French vibes but it is like uh, so good if if you're a coffee lover you won't be disappointed there.  

Jay:    01:02:59    And then for food, there's a really nice Lebanese-French fusion called Miznon that's very well known. They've grown across the city. They used to have one location in the Marais and now they have a few locations. Miznon does a lot of really fun stuff that is like beef burgeon in a pita with like a garlic aioli on the inside or they have like their own Ratatouille. That's really good. They have a lamb kebab that's really good. They have a roast cauliflower that's really good. I've never eaten anything there I didn't like. And they're a really easy winner because whether you're, I think they even have some vegan options, but whether you're, you know, vegan to full on, gimme all the meat you can, you're gonna be pretty happy with what you get.  

Kristin:    01:03:36    I love that. Blending French cuisine with Lebanese food. That sounds delicious. <laugh>.  

Jay:    01:03:41    Yeah, Levantine, Levantine.  

Kristin:    01:03:43   Oh Levantine, okay. Yeah,  

Jay:    01:03:44    Yeah. But there's great Lebanese food here as well. Like if you want a classic French bistro experience, I'd go to like Brasserie Dubillot which is on Rue St Denis. So also fairly central but also Rue St Denis is famous for being one of the old like prostitution streets and you can still see some kind of signs of that. There's some old sex shops, it's not as like blatant as Piel. You get a a sense of like the history of that area when you go. So it's like, it's kind of a fun walk for the brave  

Kristin:    01:04:11    <laugh>. Awesome. We'll link to everything in the show notes. And what is your Parisian daily routine like?  

Jay:    01:04:17    My daily routine is, I don't have a daily routine. My routine is pretty much get up, go straight to the gym, get home, get the dog out, walk him around and then get my day started from there. And that could mean like on Mondays it's a lot of meetings. Any other day of the week I could be going straight out to explore and film whether I'm vlogging or like we launched a new channel just for my Paris content, so Paris In My Pocket if you go to that on YouTube or Instagram to separate my life content from my Paris content 'cause my YouTube channel you might like, oh wow this guy has tips on Paris. And then go and be like, why is he sad? I don't understand, you know? So like we've separated out those two things And so then yeah my day is like, I generally do eat out for at least one meal a day and I'm always exploring either trying new places or going to a place that I already recommend to make sure they're still good, take photos, meet friends out and about and then pretty much just work either from my backpack out and about or back here in my tiny closet.  

Kristin:    01:05:11    What is your favorite tourist trap in Paris?  

Jay:    01:05:14    The Go-to is the Arc de Triomphe for me because it has a wonderful view and the building itself is just like, it's cool, it's really cool to go out to it. And because it's also on a bit of a hill, you get a little bit of an overlay of the whole city. So especially if you have like a long lens on your phone or your camera, you can get some really cool photos from up there as it takes you an hour. You do have some stairs but they do have an elevator for people that have mobility issues to get all the way up. So you'll have to take some stairs to get out to it but then once you get to it you can ask to use that elevator and then get up to the top.  

Kristin:    01:05:42    What about an underrated or kind of off the beaten path experience that you can have in Paris?  

Jay:    01:05:48    Underrated or off the beaten path? There are a lot but I think given that this is coming out in the summer, the canal is the most underrated thing that even Parisians don't. I know people that have lived here for years that didn't know there was a canal in Paris, which is bananas to me because it is so great.   

Kristin:    01:06:05    I was like, what canal are you referring to?  

Jay:    01:06:07    <laugh>? Yeah, the canal. So it's called Canal <inaudible>. It was built by Napoleon III 'cause we skipped the second for some reason that's history, I'm joking. But he built this canal to connect to the canal systems of Europe. We don't really use it for commerce a little bit, but not really. But the area around it generally is really, really cool. And if you go all the way up to the 19th, the canal is the like what I would call the guaranteed safe space for tourists where it's like there's just a lot of cool stuff and fun. There are two boating experiences you can have on the canal. They're both kind of slow. One is more interactive, one's less. If you take the canal tour, like the big boat tour, you can't do anything on it, bring some booze with you 'cause you're just gonna have a nice time with your friends.  

Jay:    01:06:47    But it goes down through the lock system and you actually get to see the whole canal at a really nice slow pace. And I think it's underrated 'cause it's a really relaxing, fun experience really close to everybody. And I love that if you want the more interactive version, you can actually rent little electric boats so you can get a little one for a few people or you can get a big one for a big group and again bring a picnic basket, bring a bunch of booze and then just like put around on that thing. Uh, you can rent it for an hour, you can rent it for hours and hours and then just enjoy the sunshine and people watching and try not to run into anything. And you get to go through like the bridge that you know raises up and whatever else. It's, it's great. It's a great area to spend some time that probably nobody does when they come to Paris. 

Kristin:    01:07:25    That  sounds amazing. Especially summer in Paris. Got that good sunny weather being on the water. Amazing. Yeah. What is your favorite place to visit outside of Paris? It could be a day trip or another city within France.  

Jay:    01:07:39    I would dedicate more than a day to it, but you brought it up earlier. Marse is so cool. Like it will be pretty hot during the summer but they always have a breeze and there's so much to see around it. You have like a lot of smaller towns nearby that are really cool. But the coast, the Lan, the inlets, it's one of my favorite cities, if not my second favorite city in France.  

Kristin:    01:08:00    I do love Marseille. What stereotype about the French have you found is false?  

Jay:    01:08:05    That they're rude. They're rude in the same way New Yorkers are rude. It's like you just kind of get what you get, but like they're so friendly and helpful and lovely in their own way. You just have to know how to engage with them.  

Kristin:    01:08:15    What is one thing that you think is overrated in France or in Paris?  

Jay:    01:08:19    The Sean is a really easy call. It's terrible. It's just a long strip mall at this point. And also I'd say skip fair si like I don't mean to make this my hill to die on because apparently it's become that, but like it's a long day when you get out, lots of crowds. The hotter it gets, the worse it is. Like honestly there's much more beautiful and cool stuff to do that doesn't take as long and is much more easily accessible in my opinion.  

Kristin:    01:08:42    I haven't been there, but now I know I don't have to go  

Jay:    01:08:44    <laugh>. You don't have to go. Like it's one of those things that once something in a lifetime, fine, everybody sure you should go if you, if you you really into it, but, and if you do it like by bike tour or by motorcycle tour or something like that where they can take you to the market. It's one of my favorite markets in the world. So the market in raci, the Notre Dame market is incredible. And then you go out and you enjoy the grounds for like a picnic, that's great. But again, it's a really long day and the palace itself, whew man, it's rough.  

Kristin:    01:09:09    Oh, okay. Yeah, it does seem like a bit of a tourist trap and I know you have a whole video dedicated to this, so we'll link to that. But any tips for ordering food at a French restaurant?  

Jay:    01:09:19    Oh yeah, we're actually gonna be doing a new video so hopefully by the time this comes out we'll have a better video for you to link to. But I would say any tips right off the top of my head, I would definitely always be open to the pat ur, whatever the special is for the day because it's probably something fresh and interesting. It's not like generally speaking the pat ur, it depends on where you're going, I guess generally speaking, it's not like they're like, this fish is about to go bad, let's make a deal out of it. You know, it's like this is what was fresh in the market today, so we want to make something out of it.  

Kristin:    01:09:47    Imagine that.  

Jay:    01:09:48    <laugh>. Yeah, crazy. So that, I would say this is just another random aside, but make sure you drink orange juice while you're here because it's all fresh pressed. We're really spoiled and it it'll change your life.  

Kristin:    01:09:58    So good.  

Jay:    01:09:59    And then as far as like, yeah, other ordering in restaurants, just be ready for the waiting wait. Staff experience be fairly different. There are only a few points of contact where they like see you and then they bring you water. If you're lucky, they'll bring you some stuff, they'll take your order, they'll bring the order and then they're very likely to leave you alone until you're ready for the bill. So they're not gonna come write their name on the table, they're not gonna tell you their life story. They're not gonna check in and smile. They're not gonna ask, Hey, how are things going? They're not neglecting you, they're giving you your space. So you also have to be ready to get their attention, which is its own full contact support. Just definitely keep your eyes up. It takes a while to make eye contact, raise your hand. It's not rude, you're not like critiquing them for not doing their job. You have to get their attention, bring them over to ask for anything or to ask for the bill. It's just gonna be a different experience on that front.  

Kristin:    01:10:43    Great tips. Thank you so much Jay. And where can people follow you? Watch your videos, find your Paris guide and more.  

Jay:    01:10:50    Yeah, if you want the Paris stuff to go to Parisinmypocket.com for my guide, we actually have a discount code for you as well, which I'm sure you'll find in the show notes. But that's Nomads15, so if you wanna get 15% off the guide just for listening to this delightful podcast, then you can do it that way. YouTube is my main thing. Price in my pocket is the new channel. Jay Swanson is me. If you wanna get more of the life stuff and then of course Instagram and everywhere else as well.   

Kristin:    01:11:15    Alright, Thanks so much Jay and enjoy your weekend in Paris.  

Jay:    01:11:19    Thank you Kristin. Thanks for having me.  

Kristin:    01:11:22    Thank you so much for tuning in today. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Jay as much as I did. I'm so glad that we connected to today. And make sure to check out the show notes for all the resources and tips and links from this episode, including BetterHelp for your mental health support FareDrop for finding cheap flights around the world and World Nomads for your international travel insurance needs.