Still no news. We have bids in on our two top apartment choices and we are hoping that one of them will come through. It seems quite likely though that the first one is now off the market (after they cancelled our lease signing appointment) and for the second one to come through we need the agent to sell us hard to the owner as we are offering less than what she wanted (... but we are already offering a lot!!). We hope to have more news on Monday morning. In the meantime, we are trying to relax, but it is very frustrating to still have no final home - and as a result no firm plans to get out of our unsuitable current temporary home.
On Friday morning I had my first encounter with French bureaucracy in all of its splendor. There appears to be no higher cause or greater joy for a French bureaucrat than to find ever more creative ways to say 'non'. Visits are a chess game of move and countermove - Did you bring a certified translation of your US drivers license? And a photocopy? Ah - but did you bring a second photocopy, Madame? What about copies of your payslips for the full calendar year 2006? And a document proving your entry into France? (I'm here sitting in front of you, aren't I??) But - aha - you haven't been here for 6 months, and you must know that you need to do that first. Everyone knows this. It is clear in the requirements (brandishes piece of paper on which there is no mention of a 6 month stay requirement.) So - 1 hour later - I now have a 1-inch thick paper file buried somewhere in the prefecture de police - and still no driving license. (Good thing I kept my Swiss one when I left Geneva!)
To get a driving license I am going to have to rely on the real way French business gets done - a network of contacts. P&G helpfully pay for relocation support which includes a person that takes you to all these required bureaucratic steps. She clearly has developed a great network at the prefecture - and it was impressive to see it in action. We were the first people allowed into the prefecture - waved past the 2-block long queue of people waiting in line by one of the gendarmes the relocation 'fixer' has befriended. We got to the drivers license bureau and despite grumblings from the bureaucrat manning the gates (no appointment? But we are currently issuing appointments only for October! This isn't a supermarket, you know!), repeated mentions of the 'fixer''s friend in the department got us in as the first appointment of the day. Unfortunately however, this friend is on vacation for over a month... so our luck stopped there. Now we just wait until the friend gets back... at which point the 'fixer' expects this '6 month rule' - that she had never heard of before - to magically vanish. Vive la France.
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