Cartes de séjours - legal at last!

28-10-2010
Originally uploaded by cspatrick

Friday, October 29, 2010 Day 121
Celebrate! We are legal! We got our cartes de séjours today, with only one minor stumble.
But first – it was cool this morning, so we waited until almost 11:00 to walk the Peyrou. Then we returned to the apartment for lunch. I wanted to go out and mail a package and get some wine, but Roger didn’t quite understand that this was my goal, and we left our building too late to get the wine. We went to the post office, where I waited almost 20 minutes for my number to come up. It turns out that, since it is (fairly) clearly a document, as it is in a roll, I didn’t have to fix a customs form for it and I needn’t have waited at all, but could have used the machine instead of seeking the assistance of a clerk.

It was a quarter to two by the time we left, and we were supposed to be at the OFII at 2:00, so we set out at a fast pace and arrived just at 2:00. We needn’t have hurried. We were unable to determine the system (if any) of calling people for processing. When we arrived, there were about six people in the waiting room, among them a fiftyish man and an Indian-looking woman. As we sat waiting, some of the people were called back, and more entered the room, and they were called back as well; but the four of us – the fiftyish guy and the Indian woman and Roger and I, just sat there, waiting. At one point they called these other two back, but they were gone for only a moment, then returned. And still others came and went. It was a few minutes before 3:00 when they finally called Roger to go back for an x-ray. After he returned, I was called in for my x-ray. The x-ray technician told me that after the x-ray, I would see a nurse, then a doctor, then meet with someone about the carte. She left me in a small lighted cubicle with instructions to remove my shirt and bra. She returned a few minutes later and led me to the x-ray machine. That’s it – no drape, no cute little cape, just me, nude from the waist up. She completed the x-ray, the put me back in the cubicle and told me to dress and wait until she checked the film. She returned shortly with my x-ray in a large envelope and sent me back out to the waiting room. Roger was gone by this time, and a nurse came shortly and got me. She indicated a chair and had me sit down while she asked me a few questions: do I smoke? What medications am I on? What are they for? Do I have my vaccination record? No? When did I last have a tetanus shot? Then she took me over to the scales and weighed me, then checked my height. I was not too displeased with my weight. In our Paris apartment there were scales so I tracked my weight there. Since arriving in Montpellier, I have not set foot on scales. It was a relief to me that I had not gained weight since Paris. However, the nurse told me I am five kilograms overweight and handed me a booklet about healthy eating. Sigh. Then it was back out to the waiting room, then back to see the doctor, a fortyish woman who mostly reviewed my records and asked me if I have ever had TB. She did a blood pressure check, and wanted to know if I have a cough (no), do I spit blood (only when I am really, really angry), what am I doing in Montpellier? Retirement? How nice! Do I have relatives or friends here? No? Interesting! How brave!

That done, I returned to the waiting room beside Roger and we waited again. Another clerk came and called our name, and we went into an administrative room this time, where we produced our passports, a rent receipt for October’s rent, and 340€ each (that’s right – almost $1,000 total) in immigration stamps. There was a brief moment of panic when she looked at the rent receipt and said “but it’s not in French.” Mildly panicked, we told her our landlord is British, and this was all he had given us. She took the receipt and left the room, returning shortly saying “c’est bon.” Thank you!!! She glued the immigration stamps onto pages for her file, then fastened yellow cards into our passports, stamped them and placed a film over them. We were finished! Legal! We left with our souvenirs – large paper envelopes containing our x-rays.

I had been having various levels of anxiety for weeks, ever since we were putting together all our application papers and discovered that we did not have one of the papers that the French consulate in Houston gave us. Actually, it was a form we gave them, printed off their website, and all the clerk in Houston did was stamp it with her official-looking stamp and return it to us, telling us that we would need it in France. We had the unstamped copy with our other paperwork, but apparently we left the stamped copy in storage in LaPlace. Fortunately, there was never a request for it here in Montpellier. We submitted the unstamped form as if it were all we had (it was!) and we were never questioned about it. All the anxiety for nothing! I have discovered levels of anxiety about various things here that I never had in the States. I am sure that most of it has to do with the language barrier. I didn’t ask the doctor what my blood pressure was, but I suspect that it is higher than it was in Louisiana, where I had a tidy 110/70.

One of the reasons I was so anxious about the whole carte de séjour thing is that we were afraid we might not be allowed back into France when we return in January after seeing our new grandbaby, who is due to be born on January 5. We will stay in Dallas for a couple of weeks, then return to France. I had visions of us being denied entry at the border because we were not legal.

We celebrated our new legal status with Dr. Pepper from the English Corner Shop and popcorn and, of course, a hot baguette.

Here’s a shout-out to Wildcat, my newest follower. Thanks for dropping by.

The photo is from yesterday's trip to Nimes. I couldn't resist it for its two English grammar errors. I guess we have to forgive them, for they are French.