October 17
Another miss with the CAF (France’s office of financial support for people with low incomes. We want to get some money for the rent). After going to one office last week inside the city which was on strike, we went to an office that only opened on Wednesdays.
We walked and took the bus to get there, got inside and were to come back wednesday.
Things are tedious. it was written on the website, but not clearly as it could have been.
October 18
Another day, another false start. This time with the bank. Luke is thinking of opening an account in France. So we go to the one I am at, in the town of Saint Maurice.
The desk person was not cooperative at all, as if welcoming potential customers was not part of her job. We had to take an appointment to open an account, apparently. Which seemed ridiculous.
- “Ce matin, c’est pas possible?” (This morning isn’t possible?)
- “Non, on a demain apres-midi.” (We have tomorrow afternoon)
- “Ca va marcher… she’s telling us we need an appointment and there’s one tomorrow afternoon but told her it is not going to work,” I tell Luke.
- “Et Jeudi?” thinking of my day off Thursday.
-”We’re playing golf with Eric on Thursday,” said Luke.
- “Jeudi matin?” I repeat.
- “Jeudi apres-midi,” she said.
Apparently, opening new accounts are afternoon only services at the Banque NOT Populaire. The BP is a pain is the butt. I have an account with them, because my mum is with them, and that made it easier when I was gone. My mum could supervise my account. The problem is that the BP is divided by region, and I am affiliated with a Banque Populaire in Brittany, not Paris. So I cannot do anything at the BP paris. And I forgotten my password for the online account, which complicates things.
Moving in a totally new place is not easy. And I personally feel disconnected from my country. I get the facts wrong, and then go to places and get told to come back with this or that. Hence things are settling only slowly. We will get there eventually. As Luke said a few times, by the time we will fully be settled, we’d have to leave.
Setting the cable account was an adventure too. We went to a company called numericable on last Thursday. We were told we would get the channels basically right away, and the internet a little later. Today, Tuesday, we still don’t have any service. My credit card didn’t go through the first time at the store, so of course no service were activated. Sunday I called the technician, who said he couldn’t help me, and that the office who could, isn’t open on Sunday.
On Monday I decided to call the store. After a few unanswered calls, I get the woman who helped me, I give her my credit card number twice (she notes it wrong the first time). It finally went through, and she tells me she will leave instructions for me on my voicemail later this afternoon. On tuesday I am still waiting. I tried to call 3 times this morning, but I guess 9.30 am is too early. Eventually, after work, I called the help line, finalized the subscription… and in the next hour we had everything: internet, wi-fi, and ESPN America.
Mercredi 19 Octobre
We went to the CAF again, and fortunately didn’t have to wait long to be told to come back when Luke’s passport is stamped with the immigration’s office. I could see smoke coming from Luke’s ears.
From that day we instated a rule: “That whatever we have to do administratively, we would call first to make sure we got everything right on our checklist.”
Now, what is on our list is getting the immigration regularized for Luke. We couldn’t get the process started until we had a place, and then we got caught up in other things like bank accounts, and cable, internet, that we forgot about priority number one.
We took the bus back and had a successful mission at the post office, at least. Now we can send postcards.
