Paperwork, the french way.

I trust that everything goes well for your preparations to England, Eleanor; and Shelly, I have sent you an ungodly long email. But now, I feel like no post about my travails in France can further take place without first a mention of that loveliest of aspects of French culture -- bureaucracy.

Only now do I discover, having never been told by anyone in charge of telling me things, that I must pay almost 200 euros for French social security, I must open a bank account in order to deposit French checks, I must have two student I.D. cards at two different universities (for I am registered with one, but take classes at another), I should purchase train cards, tram cards, walking cards (oh, no not the last, je me trompe) -- all cards of course with one of the pictures taken by a disgruntled CVS employee who (bless the confused girl) could not actually get a picture of just me and the white backdrop, leaving me with only a grimace by the fourth take, a silent snarl of aggression that hereafter defines me forever because of one fragmentary second of my life as determined by the shutter speed of a camera and the finger of a pharmaceutical worker. If that is not Sartre enough for you, I don't know what is.

Anyway, all this new information comes to me as I am still smarting from the horrid affair that was my French visa process, especially when I talk with other Erasmus students from the EU who have dealt with not one ounce of paperwork until now! I'm quite sure that my visa costs, in total, were more than $400. First, because I needed my passport for China, I could not send it in the mail and receive it in time -- one must allow 2-4 weeks I was told, and that's if they do not lose your passport like they did another Georgetown student's. So the cost of a plane ticket a week and a half before my departure was added to my bill.

And then, there was the whole ordeal of Campus France, where I had to pay $60 in April to open an account, then wait for another month before they gave me a "green light" to make a ten-minute appointment with the consulate. I then had to wait for my papers from Georgetown and the university here in Strasbourg (both were pleasantly prompt, actually) to prove that I am a student. And then I had to prepare an entire folder of never-ending documents to prove, like Pinocchio, I'm a real girl. Okay, bad simile. Je m'excuse.

Once I arrived at the consulate in fair DC, they denied ever receiving my Campus France payment (which is ridiculous as they sent me an approved message that everything was complete), so I have yet to know whether the blame lies with the French in DC or the OIP at Georgetown. They would not even let me into the building, either, but instead I stayed in a lobby while a French gentleman scurried back and forth three times trying to sort out the mess that was my exchange with them, all while I panicked silently (maintaining an aloof and poised air) that all was in vain. In either case, I had to pay yet another $60 before I could pay the $70 for my visa (of course I did my transactions -- visa and money exchanges -- right when the euro was brutally ransacking the dollar; I learned a gros mot from a Frenchman yesterday that would be appropriate for the situation, but I shall not say it, no, for it is far too crass). And then... well, then my visa was ready in five minutes, and very pretty too. (I would also like to mention that I spoke with a Canadian who did not have these fees at all!)

But, despite all of the countless forms I've been filling out that ask for the same information (only placed in two different boxes of the same paper), I guess I need just take it in stride. So next time I have a drink, I'll drink to the Grand Bureaucracy that is France, and the EU, for -- you know -- Strasbourg is a prominent city for the EU. May it continue and gratify the ever-hungrier governments of the world!

Alison