Bureaucracy and Beer

In which Rebecca experiences French bureaucracy, participates in a pub quiz and begins her French classes.

(I've been reading a book that M lent me called something like 'How to give yourself a classical education' - that's not the title... but it is something like that. The book gives some good tips on how to read different kinds of literature. Years ago, books and chapters always had very long a descriptive titles which, although they gave away what was going to happen, helped the reader better understand the text. I decided to try it out.)

Carte de Sejour

I was warned before coming that French bureaucracy can be frustrating. That you can wait for hours just to find out you needed a document from somewhere else first. This is true.

Last Thursday I woke up at 5:30am in order to get myself to the Nice administrative centre (which is way out by the airport) in order to get my Carte de Sejour. The building doesn't open until 9am, but because so many people go if you don't get there by 7:30am you won't be able to be seen that day. When I arrived a the centre, there was already about 20 people crowded around a small gate waiting to get in. This was just the outer gate - not the actual gate of the building. Now the document I had read online about how this works said to: be "Prepared for long line-ups" and to be "patient, polite and assertive". This was a huge understatement.

When the gate opened at 7:45am the race began. People immediately started pushing me from behind and the whole crowd broke into a run to be the first in line at the building. I almost knocked over an old man as I was pushed forward. I joined in running and actually managed to get a good spot in line! Then we had to wait another hour before we could get in the building.
When I finally did get in I was told that because I was here on a student visa I was in the wrong place - I actually had to go to another office downtown :P

The rest of the day was spent: going to office #2...waiting in line...finding out I was missing a document...going home to get it...going back...waiting in line again...discovering I was missing photocopies of my documents...getting copies made...going back again...waiting...waiting...FINALLY seeing someone and getting my paperwork done!

Pub Quiz

On Monday night the group of us went out for dinner at an Irish Pub in Vieux Nice. One of our group, E's boyfriend was visiting from England and was staying with some some guys from church so she had invited them along for a thank-you dinner. It was nice going out with other people - it felt like being at home! It feels really weird living somewhere and knowing only a handful of people.

The best thing about this pub is that every Monday night they have a pub quiz! We had tried to get in the past week but it was totally packed. It was a fun evening overall: ordering in English, having a Magners cider, being the only one who could answer the question about Brian Mulroney AND having my team come in 2nd winning 50 euro off our bill!

French Classes

Yesterday I began my first day of French classes. I have class every day at the Fac de Lettres from 9am to noon. I was happy to find out I was in the most advanced class :) There are 17 of us in the class - I'm the only Canadian as most of them come from China, with some from Japan and Russia. Quite a few students also seem to be women who have married Frenchmen and now need to improve their English.

I got to know a Japanese girl sitting beside me and she, I and a few others went out for lunch after class which was fun. I find it feels a bit strange to be speaking with international students in a third language. I'm used to being the ESL teacher who gets to speak in my own language while the other person is at a disadvantage. It is really nice now to all be at the same level - somehow it seems easier to have a friendship this way too.

Où est la piscine?

The name for my blog comes very uncreatively from the title of Julia Child's autobiography. Not that I'm comparing myself to her at all (I'm a terrible cook) but I'm hoping that living here in Nice for a year will inspire me to get better at this.(I'm also hoping to see the movie 'Julie and Julia' sometime soon for further inspiration!)

Today is my first official full day on the French Riviera. I arrived here last Thursday evening but left early the next morning for a week of cross-cultural orientation in Otford, England. As I don't have an apartment yet, I'm staying with my team leaders and their children for a couple days. We also share the apartment with a slim black cat with a Spanish name I can't remember who has her own European passport. For real. Her previous owner was a Spanish woman who moved countries with her cat so she had to get all the paperwork done. I am totally jealous of this cat. It does not seem fair that she can get an EU passport when I can't.

This morning M (my host) took me to the open air market in town to buy fruits and veggies. The market is open every morning except for Monday. It was super hot in the sun as we walked over (which I think is typical for summer). The market was made up of rows and rows of vendors selling fruits, vegetables, fish and other products. I bought myself a bag of seven yummy figs for only .90 euro! I ate them for lunch with fresh goat cheese on top :) An elderly man tried to talk with me but unfortunately my French is a bit out of practise and I couldn't catch everything he was saying. Hopefully I'll improve quickly over the next few weeks.

On the way home, we stopped in the health food store so I could look for 'gluten-free' bread. I was so excited to find that they had gluten free baguettes(!) - and the brochure in the store also promised gluten-free 'pain au chocolat' - which would be amazing! I also loved the health food store because it was the first store we visited that felt very familiar somehow to me - I guess that health food stores are the same around the world.

I haven't seen any celebrities yet...although there was a whole 'parking lot' for private jets at the airport here in Nice so they must be around somewhere... On the bus ride back from the airport yesterday we passed the clinic where Angelina Jolie gave birth to her twins. It is also the place where A (M's daughter) goes to the dentist :)

The rest of the family has gone to the pool this afternoon while I opted to sit and rest for a bit. This reminds me of one of my favourite 'Flight of the Conchords' episodes when they sing the French song...and look for the pool (la piscine). ;)