A constant kvetch about the American government (other than the psycho killer
in the White House) is its impenetrable bureaucracy. Government for the people
and by the people should be friendly, transparent, and, like everything else,
customer-service oriented, shouldn't it? Me, I think that we Americans should
be grateful: As I recently found out when I attempted to secure a long-term residence
visa, the official BS in this country is nothing compared to France. (Why I want
to live in France is simple: People keep telling me that if I don't love America,
I should leave, so I am.)
Having discovered the small print on the confirmation e-mail they send out
only after you register by navigating the seven rings of two separate departments'
incomprehensible Web sites (they use neither the sort of cogent French an American
might have expected to have learn in school, nor a reasonable translation thereof),
I had discovered at 10 PM the previous evening that I needed several documents
besides the ones they explicitly mention that you need. Thankfully, I live in
the City That Never Sleeps (tm) so off I went to the all-night Kinkos, where
passport pictures were taken in compliance with the regulations posted on the
Web site and documents were Xeroxed in duplicate and filled out in black and/or
blue pen, in French, in capital letters.
The next morning, I presented myself at the consulate's passport department
(which is around the corner from where the Web site says it is because of construction)
20 minutes early for my 9:45 appointment, only to find a crowd pressing against
the doors akin to that mobbing the US embassy in Saigon during the troop withdrawal
at the end of the war. Most of them didn't have appointments and I did, but
it availed me naught: The guard who came to fetch the chosen inside did so in
a voice that I can only say did not match his considerable girth. I can only
describe this fellow as a "people person." Apparently, I'm supposed
to understand his instructions on how to proceed through the metal detector
by his grunting in Morse code. I am also apparently supposed to be a graduate
of Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, as how I'm supposed to empty
my pockets of foreign materials and then walk through a metal detector a room
devoid of tables or other surfaces to place said objects without the aid of
magical powers eludes me.
The actual room where one obtains visas is plastered with warnings that anyone
losing their temper at the clerks will be barred for life from France, the EU,
or any former colony thereof. There is a reason for this.
My first stop, after panicked attempt to find my passport, which had somehow
migrated from my document folder to my shoulder bag, was the cashier. This,
at least, made eminent sense: Since France is a socialist country, you pay first.
She asked for my form filled out in black and/or blue pen, in French, in capital
letters, and my passport photos, which, as it turned out, were not acceptable,
as they have to show BOTH ears and not just one. (I should point out that my
ears are pretty similar.) You also have to show her your chest so that she can
make sure you're not Jean Valjean. After I put my shirt back on, she gave me
the address of a drug store a block away on Madison Avenue where a professional
wedding photographer who was an expert in European passport photos charged me
an arm and a leg for some snapshots that would fufill the stringent requirements
of the Fifth Republic. (Apparently, the Greeks are even stricter: You can't
have any shadow behind you, and you have to pose like Myron's discobolus. Apparently,
they'll be going to retinal scans in the next few years, and so you'll have
to pluck out your eyes like Oedipus.)
The cashier had given me a receipt that acted as a get-in-free-past-the-ogre-at-the-gates
card, even though the latter still didn't seem to understand the need to hold
my cell phone and keys while I sauntered through the metal detector, I got back
upstairs relatively hassle-free. (The good news is because of the grant I have
received to go to the Land of the Cheeses, I didn't have to pay the usual fee
for the receipt.) While the clerk at the next window flirted with the cute female
Oberlin film student he was "inspecting" ("Oh, so you go to France
to study film! What is your favorite director?" "Oh, there are so
many... I'd have to say Godot..."), my bureaucrat was apparently trained
by the Vichy regime. Naturally, the first question he asked me was "Parlez-vous
francais?" to which I replied, "Oui, but I don't feel like embarassing
myself today."
Having established myself as not sufficiently savoiring how to faire, he proceeded
to request every document I had and then some: Another passport photo, another
form filled out in black and/or blue pen, in French, in capital letters, and
one of the two letters from my grant-issuing agency that assured the reader
I had a reasonable income, medical insurance, and knew the difference between
a Beaujolais and a Burgundy. But neither these, nor my unkempt state and vaguely
socialist leanings, nor the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs
with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what
each one was, were enough proof of my status as a student: Apparently, I also
needed my last "diploma," which, I hesitate to mention, is from 1998
and which I didn't, in any case, have with me. I therefore passed along the
color Xerox of my school ID, which, according to the consulate's very own Web
site, is sufficient proof of my student status. He reluctantly accepted this,
but only after Xeroxing my grant acceptance letter (which by this point had
mysteriously become decorated with phone numbers, coffee rings, doodles of the
Eiffel tower, and a crepe recipe) and placing it in my dossier. After stamping
a bunch of things with Official-Looking Stamps, he decided to keep my passport,
which I had to return for at 3:30 that afternoon.
Shrugging my shoulders with Gallic resignation, I did the only thing I could
do: I had lunch for four hours.
Paris, I'm ready for you!