OFII And Stuff In The Cave

Bonjour all,

Tuesday this week was the day of days in our ex-pat journey here.  A legal firm had been hired by Cassie's company to shepherd us through the French immigration organization (OFII) which naturally is different from the French Consulate (the abode of the great and powerful OZ in Georgetown) and where we reported to with well over 150 other foreigners for our "physicals" that would then lead to all of the supporting paperwork being forwarded back to the legal firm (more on this later on).  Let's just say that the process or the way we were processed was not unlike going into the military again sans uniforms or drill sergeants.  Papers were exchanged, and we waited, our names were called (mangled) and we were then moved into another hallway brusquely.  More papers exchanged and then into a semi-large waiting room that was already filled with people and no available seats.

While all this was happening, various staff members were milling about looking very important in white lab coats and eventually a very stern looking administrative lady started shouting orders in French to the room full of waiting people many of whom didn't speak enough French to understand her.
Eventually people started being processed and chairs opened up but there were several women waiting to be seated and I made sure they had seats.  For some reason, the curt admin lady had been watching me and as soon as a seat opened up she yelled at me pointing to the seat which I took to mean that I needed to sit down which I did.  I looked over at Cassie who was grinning on the other side of the room.  I'll also mention here that at least half of the people in the room hadn't bathed in at least 3 or more days so there was an air of funkiness in the room that had little or no rhythm.

Our names were finally called and we were ushered into a room with 2 lab-coated persons who weighed us, measured our height and then pricked us with pins to check our blood sugar levels which were a bit high as we ate sandwiches before leaving figuring that we'd get hungry if it went overlong.  Of course no mention was made that they were going to check our blood sugar levels or we would not have eaten.  From there was the next room where we were lined up for chest x-rays which were sans shirts, bras, etc. with no gowns or lead aprons to protect everything else.  The x-ray techs were from the Nurse Ratched school of bedside manner and surprisingly didn't shove red hot pokers up our asses too just for fun.

After that we were eventually called into offices with separate doctors both of whom were very nice.  The doc who saw Cassie exclaimed at her high blood sugar and she told him of the Parisian sandwich (jambon au frommage avec mayonnaise au butter on a sliced baguette) she'd eaten less than an hour before.  My doctor was female and a big sweetie who wanted to know a bit of my history and who told me my chest x-ray was "bon" as was my blood pressure.  She wanted to make sure I was being followed by a doctor and I told her of Dr. Audabert and again she said "bon".  Minutes later we out of there and took the metro back to our hood and had drinks at Brasserie 16.

The final step here is to wait for the paperwork to be processed by the legal firm and then sent to us and we take that to the local Prefecture du Police and submit it and pay over 400 euros and probably get some kind of ID card that identifies us as Americans authorized to live in France.  I may be wrong on this but it's fun to conjecture.  We both felt that we'd passed a mile post with this and it was actually easier than our experience with the consulate back in late February.

Lastly, we finally got the guardian (Angela) to give us the keys to store the old mattress from Kian's room and one big tucker tote down in the "cave" (basement) which basically leaves the apartment clutter free for the first time since getting here.  This transpired yesterday while Cassie is in Finland again.  I'm hoping she brings back a big box of moose meat.

Love to all everywhere!

Sid