It’s funny the things you treasure in times like these that you would otherwise take for granted. I was so hungry yesterday morning, because all I had were three biscuit packs taken from church at the Midland Hotel in Bradford the day before. I could only drink water with my hand from the tap in the bathroom. Buying food was almost exhilarating – I had lunch: a baguette, of course, along with some cheese and a bag of apples. That would last me several meals at least. Now I’ve just returned from buying some juice, tomatoes, and jam, all of which are so precious. New tastes to add to my palate after several meals of bread, cheese, and apples, as if I’d never tasted them before! And getting a plastic cup was like unlocking an achievement in a video game like Minecraft: drinking ability acquired! All these are thoughts I will soon forget as I settle into the confidence of routine, which naturally I long for in these uncertain times, but as in the past I’ve given others the advice to enjoy the uncertainty, for it is fleeting; to ‘live the questions’, I must heed my own advice now.
This morning we went to see the international office woman to get our signed documents back to release our ERASMUS funds, as well as obtain our student cards, a coveted item that would seemingly unlock all else, foremost being the internet. The woman had not signed the documents yet – she is, after all, very busy – and told us to come back the following day. Then another girl, the girl who’d done her best to take us through the blue form, tried to help us get our student cards.
The problematic requirement was called something like responsabilité civile – health insurance of some sort, I believe. That was what the Americans had been arguing about the day before, because their uni had already made them buy insurance and they understandably didn’t want to pay more. ERASMUS students were supposed to only have to pay €5, well, €20 when you add in some other charge, but they were saying we had to have an EU identity card, otherwise we too would have to pay the full €200. No thank you. I was mentally preparing to put my foot down when the American guy, the one who speaks French well, pulled out his international student identity card (ISIC, which you can get from STATravel which entitles you to numerous discounts) and said he had insurance with that card. Now, I had that card as well, having applied for it during the summer for the discounts on flights and other things abroad. But I didn’t know anything about insurance. Nevertheless I pulled mine out and said, ‘I’ve got that as well.’ That seemed acceptable; the international office woman photocopied them (every time a French person is willing to photocopy documents rather than telling us we need to bring photocopies, even though they have a photocopy machine right behind them, I rejoice, for it’s a rare occurrence) and we trooped down to the payment office.
But I knew we weren’t yet in the clear and stayed on prepared-to-put-my-foot-down mode for when the payments woman balked at a card she didn’t recognise. Miraculously, that didn’t happen, and we got away with paying only €20. Well, I say ‘we’, but the Americans probably really did have insurance with their cards – I doubt I do, I didn’t pay what they did. Thank goodness I ordered that card, though.
Confession: The French have not won me over to their bureaucratic, multiple copies required, filled-out-in-triplicate way of doing things. I tend to think that as long as I can get through the process and obtain the end item or state that is required, it doesn’t really matter if I actually have what they’re demanding – isn’t it just the government making people pay for things they’ll only need in the rarest of circumstances? Or institutions covering themselves so they won’t be liable in any case whatsoever? And then even if young French (who, from what I’ve seen so far, hate it as much as we do) resolve to get into politics to change it, by the time they get to a place where they could potentially change it, they themselves are benefitting from it too much to want to change it anymore. Sly fat cats.
Probably not very morally upright or even completely factually viable, but I am fairly exasperated. You’ll see why in a bit.
Back to the story. Again, I couldn’t pat myself on the back quite yet. We had all the required documents, but we still had to make the actual application. We went upstairs to deuxième étage and joined the queue. Thankfully it wasn’t long. Like at the picnic yesterday, I felt I should talk to people, felt it would be a good idea, but couldn’t quite work up the will. Other than those in our crew. Finally my turn came and I went in. I decided to ask, as endearingly as I could, ‘Parlez-vous anglais?’ She looked at me in a sort of cute, helpless sort of way, shaking her head. Guess not. Oh well. Hope there are no problems.
She was stumped with the ISIC as well, and kept asking her colleague things. The colleague was a bit better at English, but not by much, so it ended up being the other student applying at that moment, a German girl, who asked me in English what they needed to know, then told them my answers in French. Germans are so reliable. I bet they’re efficient with their bureaucracy as well. I won’t deny that the thought, ‘Maybe I should’ve studied abroad to Germany after all’ has come to mind more than a few times over the course of this week, but I’m not a quitter.
In the end they accepted the card, but not before sending me back up to the international office woman to get her to photocopy my passport. Thankfully they saved my spot in the queue. The other things required were, of course, two identity photos, which – this frustrates me quite a bit – are so that they can stick one on the application form and scan one for the student card. Why don’t they just scan it and then stick it on the form, and therefore only need one!? I bought eight photos in the UK before coming, wishing I could buy less, and now I’m almost out.
Oh well. No matter. I was on my way to the guy who prints the cards. Could this be it? At long last, was this fabled mythical item, with all the riches and glory that accompanied it, about to be mine? I imagined myself celebrating with hands in the air as if I were back at Far East junior year, right after we won the football championship on penalties. He had me write my name on a list. He put my photo in the scanner. He stamped a single sheet of paper five times and gave it to me. He stuck a blank card in the card-printing machine.
Ennnh. The card came out with half my face blacked out. Ink problems? He adjusted the roll inside the machine and put another card in. That one came out with a thick black line on it obscuring some of the information. He looked at me. I looked at him. No way.
“Vendredi.”
What!! Come back Friday!? It’s only Tuesday! What could possibly take three days about replacing an ink cartridge?? But of course I had none of the French to express these feelings, so I could only muster, “Vendredi…d’accord.”
Then it got worse. As I left the room the girl behind me, the awesome, helpful German girl, sat down and got her card. just. fine.
What.
And everyone after that, including the people with me, got theirs just fine.
What. What. What.
Most of you will be pleased to know I didn’t pantomime the rage roiling within me. I’ve hated foreigners in Japan (don’t take that the way it sounds, foreigners) long enough to know that throwing a fit gets you nowhere, and generally just confirms stereotypes. I’m not about confirming stereotypes, as far as I’m able. So I left with the others. Vendredi? Vendredi.
I did also have that sheet he stamped five times, which contained all the same information as the student card would, so maybe I could procure internet with just that. Our group returned to our Arsenal accommodation and asked about internet. Apparently it wasn’t so much that the student card was the magical item as that the numbers on it became our login username and password details. But the accommodation internet was not, as we’d believed, wi-fi; we would need ethernet cables to connect. Joy. Another thing to buy.
We went shopping. In addition to Monoprix, we’d also found an electronics place yesterday where we were able to by power adaptors (after all my trying to think of how to ask where they were in the shop, the word turned out to be the same in French as in English. Recollections of Japanese…) so we returned there and some of the others bought ethernet cables. I decided to wait until I had my full funding – the soap, shampoo, toothpaste, towel, duvet, and duvet cover that I also bought today nearly cleaned me out. In fact I had to borrow money from my American friend when he and I went food shopping afterward. Not ideal.
[This next bit I wrote this afternoon, whereas the rest I’m writing this evening – or later days and changing the ‘date published’ on WordPress, but never mind – so it is representative merely of my state at that time, not my current state or general state in relation to being in France. It is a comparison of my financial situations in successive study/work experiences.]
The first time around, the only challenge was finding an ATM – there was one in the commuters’ lounge, but it was often out of cash, and the next nearest one was at Wawa’s, about a twenty minute walk away. So I found myself withdrawing large amounts of cash when I was in downtown Philadelphia – two things unlikely to be found together in the same sentence outside of a crime report – to take back to campus. But I’d already had the account, and it already had savings in it.
The following year was a piece of cake as I was earning money and withdrawing from the same account. The most complicated bit was creating that account in Japanese, and that wasn’t that hard – world’s best customer service, for the win. Plus, it being Japan, there was no need to think twice about carrying around large amounts of cash in my wallet.
The second time around (third time, yes, but second uni) was more complicated – I took a lot of pounds with me and deposited them in an account once I’d made one – which wasn’t overly difficult and everything was set up and running, including my debit card, that same day – and that was that until it ran out. There were a few days of panic, but then my parents and I discovered that it was super easy to do a bank transfer from Japan to a Lloyds TSB account in the UK, and I was set for the next year and a half.
This time, the third uni, I’m close to pulling my hair out, in a quiet, internal sort of way. Maybe it’s just that I’m in the middle of it. I thought I’d be receiving my ERASMUS grant almost immediately after arriving. How naive of me – I now know not to expect anything to happen immediately in France [this is the outburst I asked you to take with a grain of salt in yesterday’s post]. As of now I have forty pounds in my UK account. I have plenty of money in my US account, but it doesn’t have a chip so I don’t think I can use it in ATMs! I just need to find something that works and stick with that – or borrow money from friends till the grant comes through.
I can’t help but feel that I am living in an interim period. The globalisation of banking is still playing catch-up to the globalisation of travel. Or maybe I’m just stupid and don’t know where to look. I hear Citibank is good. They call themselves the world’s first global bank. I’m not really in a position to switch everything over to them at the moment, however.
I admit it, I’m stressed out. It’s not consuming me, but sometimes it feels like it could if I let it. It’s not like there are concrete things that are seriously bad, I’m just out of my comfort zone. And this summer I got used to being sat firmly on the couch in the centre of my comfort zone. This is good for me. This is good for me, I keep telling myself. Doesn’t stop me from wanting to scream sometimes. Why am I doing this again? Is there something at the end of the tunnel that makes this worth it? French mastery? What use will the language be if I hate the people and policies by the end of it?
Hah, I won’t hate them. I might just need a long break from them.
[Okay, now that the minor breakdown with brief philosophical interlude to reflect on globalisation is done with, let’s carry on with the account of the day’s events.]
That evening, our group (myself and the two I came from Bradford with, the three Americans, and the other two English girls we met) went out for dinner. We walked through the area called Saint-Pierre, where a lot of bars and some clubs and hordes and hordes of students are; carried on along the river, where we saw even more students doing something – either a freshers initiation or some sort of protest – and found a nice quiet place a bit farther along. As we were all trying to save money, I wouldn’t call it the height of the French dining experience – hopefully that is yet to come – but it was good food, and a good time.
It’s going to be a good year – I’m going to enjoy it. Perhaps I didn’t spend enough time during the summer anticipating this year, as I did before I came to England. It’s important for me to make up my mind that I’m going to love a place, because if I get caught off-guard (as I have, somewhat) it’s easy to descend into bitterness, but I don’t want to live like that. I will enjoy my wine and my cheese, everyone that I meet, and every bumbling mistake and crucified pronunciation on the path to fluency.
Oh, and I should mention – seeing as it’s probably the true cause of my improved mood – that I was able to use my US credit card to withdraw euros from an ATM on our way to the restaurant. That was such a relief. Didn’t need a chip after all, the dreadfully outdated swipe bar sufficed. Thank goodness I changed the PIN when I was able to something I can remember so we don’t have a repeat performance of Turkey! They’ll probably whack me with a massive overseas charge, and since I don’t yet have internet I haven’t seen yet what that charge is, but at least I won’t be out on the street starving. That is unless they cut off my access because it’s coming from a new overseas location. But this should get my by until the ERASMUS funds come in, which will hopefully be by the end of this week.
So today turned out to be another productive day, though no student card. I at least have a full set of bedding, which is probably the most key to my current physical and emotional well-being. That and money. Does that say something about me I don’t want to be said?
Inspiration's Waiting Room 