Oh yeah, today was welcome to France big time. I spent the entire day running from taxi stand to prefecture (police station) to taxi stand and on. One is supposed to get the Carte de Sojour, meaning you can stay in France longer than 3 months at a time, within 5 days of your arrival.
Everytime you go to the prefecture, they give you a new thing to get, its like a scavenger hunt.
They won't tell you everything all at once and everything on the internet is slightly wrong.
But then, so is the info they give you at the prefecture.
They sent me to the US embassy, because the translations I had so painfully done of our birth and marriage certificates were not good enough for the Carte. They got us the visas, but not the carte which extends the visa.
Well, the exceptionally guarded massive embassy won't even let you near the gate without an appointment or a pass.
The consulate is open exactly 3 hours a day, 9-noon, Monday through Friday! Its a beautiful cream stone building surrounded by guards in blue and black, chatting and not letting anyone in. Ohlala, c'est american, france style!
So, tomorrow the Fixer may be able to hook me up with a "official translator". He insists that this is all part of moving to France and that it will work out, don't take it personally.
In fact, I don't it doesn't feel personal at all, just byzantine, archaic, baroque and crazymaking, but hey, I wanted to know the life of an immigrant. At least I don't have to do it on all on foot or horseback, I would never be able to get it done in five days!
Even with all the running around, it is a beautiful city, You can't hail a taxi like in New York, you have to go to taxi stands.They are usually 53-5 blocks from wherever you are, you just have to find a busy street and walk until you find one.
Some of them have working taxis, but it is also where the taxi drivers go to rest, park and eat. So, you can get to one only to find no one will give you a ride, sweet.
And still with all this bellyaching, I felt like a lady, an elegant lady. I'd put on makeup and a dress with my leopard print shoes.
Oh, and in the midst of it all, I was taking a taxi to the 18th from the 5th, when all of a sudden the streets were blocked off, the taxi driver turned around drove 4 euros distance back, to turn another way. He turned on the radio when I said "Uh, where are we going?" Even with my miserable sense of direction I knew we were going back where we had come from. He said" How do you say Manifestation?" I knew what he meant, I frowned and said "Protest probably" "Oui, protest". Yeah, at my expense! He was about to tell me what it was about, did I care? I had a scavenger hunt in process! Official style photos, official translations, the original electricity bill, oui, protest.
After I'd run into the dead end at the consulate, I decided to stop putting off eating and sit down to a lunch of endive rolled in thin slices of ham with a light bechemel sauce. Delish!
On the way back to the apartment,I pasted yet another protest march. I couldn't se the first person withthe sign, but the march was long and all the raffic was stopped but pedestrians could dart through. I spotted another flower shop, I soothed my nerves with a fresh lavander plant, it sits next to the jasmine that soothed me yesterday.
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