The French Government at its Finest

Now that I have six days left in France, this country decides to tell me they want to make sure I didn't bring any diseases to the country. So in order to obtain the last bit of my visa, a medical visit would take place. Seriously. Even my host family thinks this process is stupid. The medical visit allows me to have a stamp in my visa that tells anyone who looks at it, that I'm here in France legally. So, does that mean I have been here illegally this whole time? So, here's a sample of how well the French system works.

I got a letter in the mail written by President Sarkozy himself (just kidding), that had four pages of things I needed to bring to this appointment. So I went and paid five euros for an I.D. picture, I paid fifty five euros for a stamp...a STAMP, I obtained Nathalie's ID, an attestation from her, one of her utility bills, my passport, all three of my insurance cards, my vaccination record, my medical exam from the USA, my glasses, and a whole other stack of papers that prove I am who I say I am and that I am indeed a student. Yes, I felt very secure carrying that folder with me on the bus and tram. It would've taken the jaws of life to pry my arms open for that folder. And do you want to know what the secretary at the desk looked at when I checked in? ONE LOUSY PAPER! And was it one of my papers? NO. It was one of the four that they sent me.

So then, she tells me to sit back down and wait. I wait. She calls me back up, hands me a whole other stack of "very important papers" and tells me to go to the next room and wait. So I go to the next room. And I wait. Then I get to talk to a lovely French nurse who takes my height and weight and so on and so forth and demands to know why I haven't gotten the HPV vaccine. Then she advertised it and suggested I get it while I'm here in France. She proceeds to hand me a condom with the comment, "You're going to need this." I don't know about you, but this medical exam just gets stranger and stranger. So she tells me to go back to the first room and wait. So what do I do? I wait. And wait. Then I go to get my chest x-ray which I was NOT happy about. I was also not happy about having to strip down in front of three other French people. After that awkward moment, I was told to go back out into the second room and wait. So I waited and a nice woman brings me my x-ray and tells me I need to keep it and that it was very important. Then, she tells me to wait. SO...I wait and finally, the doctor comes to see me. We go back in her office and she asks lots of family history questions and asks me repeatedly if I smoke. Then she demands WHAT on earth I have done to my back as the x-ray shows my spine like this? No really...it's a question mark. So that's interesting. Then she hands me back my stack of important papers I acquired from the secretary and my very important x-ray while I'm still clutching my folder full of important EVERYTHING, and the doctor tells me to go back out to the first room and wait. By this time, I'm sure my face was as red as Elmer Fudd's, because I was damn ready to get out of there. Twenty minutes later, the secretary calls me back up and asks for the documents listed on the OFII letter. FINALLY! My important documents have a purpose! She takes two of the papers. Doesn't look at anything or ask for anything. Pardon my French, but why the fuck would they send four pages of requirements threatening you under penalty of death if you forgot ONE thing if they were only going to look at two??? She tells me to sit back down and wait. Some woman who has an unfortunate case of balding finally calls me back to her office where she explains I need to keep the x-ray and the stack of important papers the secretary gave me and then she gives me two more "very important" papers that I need to keep for my records. And FINALLY she opens my passport and puts a stamp in it! Victory!

Two full hours later, I walk out of that god-awful building after having been in every single room and waited at some point. But I had my stamp on my passport that said I could be here legally for the rest of the six days I will be here. And the trip back on the tram, I was some sort of crazy. Anybody who touched me was a terrorist. I clutched my very important papers as if they were my lifeline to sanity, because after that ordeal, I needed a lifeline!

But my favorite part of the day was when the balding woman told me I needed to go to such and such building at the end of January in order to obtain some other important paper. When I laughed and said I would be gone in six days, she got just about as angry as I felt and spouted off that the government wouldn't even receive my medical paperwork until at least three weeks after I was gone and that I would have been better off skipping it. Efficiency...