Only in France - Part I

I often reply to questions about how I'm settling down in France with one adjective: different. 

It's not just the obvious things, like driving on a different side of the road (Bah! I survived 6 years in Canada!), kissing everyone on greeting (still akward for me but no problemo), and a different language (ok, on this one I concede defeat).

It is also in the not-so-obvious things, like how:

- they tell time using the 24 hour format (I feel like I am in a spy movie all the time: We rendez-vous at 1300 hours, d'accord?),

- schools are closed on Wednesdays (I really thought they were kidding when they told me, and it took 3 people to tell me the same thing before it finally dawned on me that it was true),

- I have to buy insurance to insure against people hurting themselves in my home (don't visit me if you consider yourself clumsy, please),

- I have to call the firemen, not the ambulance or police, in an emergency,

- and the number to dial is 18 (which have no resemblance to 999 or 911 or anything to do with 9 at all)

- I am not allowed to hang my laundry out to dry on my own balcony because my Parisian neighbours do not want that to mar the aesthetics of their grand buildings

- my payslip is not a slip, but a bl**dy A4-sized letter full of numbers that no one, even my HR colleagues, can decipher,

- I need an equally large piece of statement called the RIB (Relevé d'Identité Bancaire) issued by the bank, specifying 37 different codes and account numbers, to allow me to set up each routine bank transfer, 

- I need to buy my own vaccine from the local pharmacy for my children's routine vaccination,

- the vaccination schedule is totally different,

(French doctor: "You give the booster shot when you have 12 years (i.e. 12 years old)?? Tsk tsk tsk...zhat ees terrrible!  That is very ze outdated method..."),

- I have to pay EUR 9,000 a year to the government to subsidize internships in France,

- there is no quick lunch in France, even in my company canteen or Sophie's school menu; there is always an entree (appetizer), a plat (main dish), a dessert, and a coffee.  Here is the lunch menu on 10th May at Sophie's school:

                                                     Entree     Salade de Mache aux Pignons

                                                         Terrine aux 2 saumons - sauce tartare

                                           Plat         Paella

                                                          Tarte chevre tomate

                                           Legume   Salade Mixte

                                           Laitage    Tartare ail et fines herbes

                                                          Fromage blanc

                                           Dessert    Fruit de saison

                                                          Flan nappe caramel

The kids get ALL of the above; it is not a choice.  I am not kidding you. 

Sophie, being the fussy eater she is, is not enrolled in the lunch plan.  Either she will come home hungry everyday, or she will turn into a gourmet eater very soon, and it's not too ideal for us in either case.

- I need a lesson on how to write cheques, and guidebooks on living in France dedicate a whole section on this topic,

- my doormat is my mailbox,

(Old Parisian apartments like mine do not have resident mailboxes in the lobby downstairs.  Instead, the gardienne brings the mail to each apartment and leaves it under the doormat.  I sometimes come home to a bulging, pregnant doormat when I receive parcels) 

- you need the approval of your residents' committee to get anything done in or to your apartment, even if you own it. 

If you are renting, then forget it.  You are the lowest life-form as far as anyone in your building is concerned.  You should just languish at home, not touch anything, let your laundry dry over 5 days indoors away from the windows and the sight of your elegant neighbours (see above), run the cables of your satellite TV through the working chimney to avoid installing cables along your exterior wall, praise the Heavens that you have a roof over your head, and no matter that your window is cracked or your radiator is broken, or that your buzzer downstairs still bears the name of its 18th century inhabitants.





Getting our names on our buzzer downstairs is a mini battle that consumed 7 weeks, 8 emails, the approval of 9 people, and, as the Cantonese say, some amount of "vomitting of blood".  Now good luck to the next occupants in getting rid of it. :P

...to be continued...