Adventures in France Episode 10

An early morning start was on the menu for Monday of this week. We had to be in Toulouse by 10.30 for our all-important appointment with the Office of Immigration and Integration to legalize our one year visa. We had refused any help in the form of navigators or translators, preferring to try to be independent, so, feeling rather nervous about taking on the bureaucrats, we programmed ‘Jane’ and set off. Needless to say, she made no mistakes, although we had to turn around twice when we turned at the wrong place. We had also allowed ourselves way too much time to get there and arrived a whole hour early, but sat in the car for half an hour to while away the time. After that, feeling that we very nearly well-done, we scrambled out of the vehicle and made for the main door of the building hoping that there was air-conditioning inside, and comfortable chairs. Air-conditioning there certainly was, but the comfortable chairs were not needed as we were shown through to the Medical Exam Department straight away. So much for having an appointment! After a fairly cursory history was taken, we were shown through to the X-Ray Room. I went first, and was instructed to remove all my upper clothing, in a small ante-room. I did so and then looked around for a gown to put on but, aha! this is France where no-one worries about things like that. Trying to be totally nonchalant, I went through to the x-ray room, held my breath at the right moment, and then stepped away from the machine. The radiographer rattled off something which I didn’t catch and, not wanting to do the wrong thing, I asked her to repeat it more slowly. Instead she switched to English and said ‘Take off all your top clothes and go and wait outside” Well this may be France and all that, but I already had all my top clothes off, so I took it to mean just the opposite, which was right. The next thing on the agenda was the medical examination. Really not my favourite thing, ever. But it was over in a flash. The doctor greeted me as I walked in and sat down; asked if I was well (Yes, thank you); if I smoked (No, not at all); and if I had high-blood pressure ( he was reading it off the history sheet) I replied that I had, but that it was controlled by medication; he ticked lots of boxes, then took the x-ray out of the envelope and held it up to the window, finally signing the form and giving it back to me. We wished each other a pleasant day and that was it. The first medical I have ever had where the doctor never even got off his chair, and certainly never came closer than the width of his desk away. Finally it was time to see the only person who could really make a difference – the lady with the computer and the set of rubber stamps! But all our worrying had been for nothing. She was friendly and efficient, and in no time at all we were entered into the computer and each had a ‘vignette’ stuck into our passports which entitles us to stay for a full year in France. This permit is renewable annually (Yay!) but can only be done in the two months prior to the expiry date (Boo!). This means that we will have to return to France to renew it each year (Yay!), but we will have to return in January to renew it before the end of March (Boo!) We are obviously going to have to do something about that expiry date. Just what, we don’t know yet. In any case, we left the offices in high spirits and decidedly pleased with ourselves for managing the entire episode in French.
On Wednesday evening, we had been invited to dinner with some friends of Nicky’s whom we had met about a week before. When they heard that we had no TV, they immediately offered to lend us a TV monitor , a DVD player and all their DVD’s. We were quite blown away by their spontaneous generosity, but when we arrived at their house for dinner, there was all the equipment standing outside the door ready to be loaded into our car. They were on the point of returning to England where they both work and will not be back here until September, but even so, it was an incredibly generous thing to do. Since then the evenings have taken on a new routine, with dinner at 7.30 instead of the (sometimes) 9 pm that it had been; washing up done and the kitchen tidied in rapid time; and then a quick dash to the lounge to settle in front of the TV set to watch a DVD. Gosh! It’s almost like being back in South Africa!
The rest of the week was very boring by comparison with the days taken up doing routine household chores. Thursday and Friday were unbearable hot with the temperature climbing into the thirties but after a spectacular thunderstorm on Friday night, everything cooled down again and has been very pleasant.
Isn’t it strange how First World countries can be so good at some things and so hopelessly behind the time with others. Take banking, for instance. One can easily draw cash at an ATM, just as in South Africa, but there is simply no option to get your balance from one. For that you need to go into the bank! Or cell phones, for another instance. In South Africa if you recharge your pay-as-you-go phone with, say, R10.00, you will get ten Rand’s worth of calls and a reasonable time in which to use it up, and of course, every time you top up your phone, the time allowed for incoming calls will be extended . I think when last I checked, I will be able to receive calls until some time in 2012, which also means that my number will not expire. Here, however, 5Euro buys you a week in which to make calls to that value. After a week you lose what is left over, but will still receive calls for some time. In an effort to have longer in which to make calls without having to buy another recharge voucher, we bought a 10Euro voucher, but we still can’t win as we now have an enormous number of calls to make if we want to use it up, even though we now have a month in which to do it. From the customer’s side it is really a no-win situation, but on the other hand, the landline set-up here at the house allows us free calls within France, so who really needs cell phones here anyway. Well, I for one. I like to ring people when I am running late in order to tell them not to worry. I also like to phone ahead to confirm times of events and such. I used it endlessly when we were here in 2008 to find caravan parks in which to spend a day or two, but if one is not using the phone endlessly, if you only want it for security, the system is definitely not on your side.
Sorry! No pictures this week. I just didn’t take anything worth passing on.