I slept at 1+am last night and when the alarm went off at 710am this morning, I had to drag myself out of bed. I am not that sort of lazy people who would “lai chuang”. But thinking that today was the “Prefecture Nightmare” Day, I just can’t help to feel dreadful. At 850am I was at the prefecture and there were quite a number of people there waiting at the door. Some African women with big bosoms and super curly hair squeezed their way to the front. I was happy to be standing behind because Elva-Hsiao lookalike was standing in front of me. Completely vixen looking. At 9am, the door opened and everyone just jammed the opening. After some squeezing, I finally reached the counter and asked for a number ticket. Miraculously I was third in the queue for the “Foreigner” section.
When I was at that department, I saw that the lady at the counter wasn’t the same one that served me last time in January. I wanted the same lady because she could speak English. When it was my turn, I told her I couldn’t speak French and she frowned. Then I asked her if I could go to England with my VISA. She frowned again. So I switched to French and asked again. She smiled and explained to me in English. Basket. She trying to be cheeky or what. Can speak but cannot understand English. She said I cannot go unless I got the Carte de Sejour. I asked her repeatedly and she said no. Then I asked her the “+1 transit Schengen” thing on my VISA. She went back to check and came back speaking French to me. I told her to wait while my little brain processed slowly the info. She gave up waiting and explained again in English. She said that I can go to a country in the Schengen community BEFORE coming to France. Wah! I couldn’t believe what I heard. I can transit in a Schengen country before entering France? I asked her again and she said yes “before”. Then I asked if I can go to Italy. She said with the temporary resident card that I had done in January, I could. But to enter England and come back to France, I needed the real resident card. Then she asked me to go to another department “REGIE” to buy a 55 euros stamp and come back to her.
So I went to the “REGIE” section and saw quite a number of people there. That was when I was completely lost. They all had the number tickets already. My number ticket was for the “Foreigner” department only. Then came my saviour. A lady came and I recognized that she was behind me just now at the “Foreigner” section. She must have gone through the same procedure as me. I saw her going back to the main counter where we first got our tickets. She asked if she needed a new ticket for “REGIE” and the counter lady said no. Then I followed her back to the department and we waited. We were both quite puzzled because everyone else had a ticket except us. We then decided to wait awhile and if no one goes forward to the counter again, we go next. Then I started to chat with her and found out she is from Brazil. That explains her tan complexion. And she can speak moderately good English. She asked what am I doing in Rennes and I said I am training in IRISA. And then she said she is doing her PhD now in IRISA too! At Project Armour! Wow. What a small world.
After we finished all the procedures, we were told to come back again and get the resident card. Kao! I thought this was the last time. Both of us took the same bus back and I asked for her name and email. She is called Ana. She said she is staying in INSA too, in “Les Glenan”, just one block away from me. Les Glenan is really a luxury residence because she had the bathroom to herself and shared the kitchen with another room. 2 persons to a kitchen! Mine was 20 people for a dirty kitchen. But the rent there is 320 euros. She said she has been taking French lessons in University Rennes 2 and is in intermediate class. We chatted a lot on the way back and when we past by the city centre, she said she was going off to do her grocery and asked if I am coming. I said no because I had to go back IRISA for work. Anyway, I done my grocery liao.
Back in the office, I told hui about the info I got from the prefecture. My side told me that I needed the resident card to go to England. His side said no. And he felt quite sure that it is not necessary. Probably he was right and I had just wasted 55 euros. But at least this VISA issue is no longer bugging me. My mind is much at ease now. And I met a Brazilian girl. But still it aches my heart to see that 55 euros transformed into a small little stamp which is used for the paper works. I sent an email immediately to Ana to tell her how happy I am to have met her at the prefecture. I also told her that I am conducting some experiments and asked if she would like to participate. Lastly, I asked if she would like to have a coffee break together at the cafeteria next week. Awhile later she replied and now I got one more participant just like that. And someone to drink coffee with. Maybe I will ask her to go with me to the prefecture to collect the resident card too.
After lunch, I took a short break before carrying on with my report. After I had done and sent my report, I actually wanted to stop work for the day but felt that I should really fix that bug in my program by today. Halfway through Nicolas came and presented his paper to me sheepishly. Kao it was 10 pages long!!! Previously when I helped Mathieu to vet his rebuttal paper it was only 4 pages. Too bad I had already made a promise and told him I could only return to him on Monday. He said ok. I guess I would use the time on the train tomorrow to read the paper. The train ride to Nantes is 1.5 hrs. Should be enough time to look through his paper. At around 545pm, I finally fixed all the bugs in the program. Hooray! Weekend would be complete relaxation without any work on my mind. And next week it would be quite relaxing too; just getting some colleagues to try out the program. But on Monday morning I would double confirm everything.
Then I started looking at the tour plan which I had not touched for days. I was finalizing on the hostels and that was when I realised that the hostel which I had in mind in Paris had no more vacancies for those dates that I wanted! Wah lao! I guess I would have to spend the Sunday planning Paris again because of the changes in hostel (and therefore the location) and also an additional day. But That extra day will be easy to plan because I would just dedicate it to Disneyland. I thought I could use the Sunday to have a movie marathon. I have not touched all the movies that I brought for nearly a month now. When I was about to leave the office, I realised that I had forgotten to book the train for tomorrow’s trip! And I almost couldn’t remember where I was planning to go when I wanted to make the reservation. The past week was really killing me as my brain had not enough rest. I went online and made my reservation and while waiting for the email reply, Ahad gave me 20 min of French lessons. He was somehow trying to impress me with his French as he is an Iranian. Coming to France not only exposed me to French people, I also met Brazilian, Algerian, Lebanon, Czech, Mexican and Spanish (and these 2 are now missing in action, never reply my email). It was already 730pm and the email from the train website still hadn’t arrive. It normally takes a few hours to get the confirmation. As slow as the admin here in France. To get paperwork done is like going through the SOC in Army; this was what my colleague told me during lunchtime today. There are cartoons on French TV making fun of French admin. I felt that it was too late and didn’t want to wait for that stupid email anymore and hence printed out my reference number from the web. Hope that I would get my tickets tomorrow.
When I was at that department, I saw that the lady at the counter wasn’t the same one that served me last time in January. I wanted the same lady because she could speak English. When it was my turn, I told her I couldn’t speak French and she frowned. Then I asked her if I could go to England with my VISA. She frowned again. So I switched to French and asked again. She smiled and explained to me in English. Basket. She trying to be cheeky or what. Can speak but cannot understand English. She said I cannot go unless I got the Carte de Sejour. I asked her repeatedly and she said no. Then I asked her the “+1 transit Schengen” thing on my VISA. She went back to check and came back speaking French to me. I told her to wait while my little brain processed slowly the info. She gave up waiting and explained again in English. She said that I can go to a country in the Schengen community BEFORE coming to France. Wah! I couldn’t believe what I heard. I can transit in a Schengen country before entering France? I asked her again and she said yes “before”. Then I asked if I can go to Italy. She said with the temporary resident card that I had done in January, I could. But to enter England and come back to France, I needed the real resident card. Then she asked me to go to another department “REGIE” to buy a 55 euros stamp and come back to her.
So I went to the “REGIE” section and saw quite a number of people there. That was when I was completely lost. They all had the number tickets already. My number ticket was for the “Foreigner” department only. Then came my saviour. A lady came and I recognized that she was behind me just now at the “Foreigner” section. She must have gone through the same procedure as me. I saw her going back to the main counter where we first got our tickets. She asked if she needed a new ticket for “REGIE” and the counter lady said no. Then I followed her back to the department and we waited. We were both quite puzzled because everyone else had a ticket except us. We then decided to wait awhile and if no one goes forward to the counter again, we go next. Then I started to chat with her and found out she is from Brazil. That explains her tan complexion. And she can speak moderately good English. She asked what am I doing in Rennes and I said I am training in IRISA. And then she said she is doing her PhD now in IRISA too! At Project Armour! Wow. What a small world.
After we finished all the procedures, we were told to come back again and get the resident card. Kao! I thought this was the last time. Both of us took the same bus back and I asked for her name and email. She is called Ana. She said she is staying in INSA too, in “Les Glenan”, just one block away from me. Les Glenan is really a luxury residence because she had the bathroom to herself and shared the kitchen with another room. 2 persons to a kitchen! Mine was 20 people for a dirty kitchen. But the rent there is 320 euros. She said she has been taking French lessons in University Rennes 2 and is in intermediate class. We chatted a lot on the way back and when we past by the city centre, she said she was going off to do her grocery and asked if I am coming. I said no because I had to go back IRISA for work. Anyway, I done my grocery liao.
Back in the office, I told hui about the info I got from the prefecture. My side told me that I needed the resident card to go to England. His side said no. And he felt quite sure that it is not necessary. Probably he was right and I had just wasted 55 euros. But at least this VISA issue is no longer bugging me. My mind is much at ease now. And I met a Brazilian girl. But still it aches my heart to see that 55 euros transformed into a small little stamp which is used for the paper works. I sent an email immediately to Ana to tell her how happy I am to have met her at the prefecture. I also told her that I am conducting some experiments and asked if she would like to participate. Lastly, I asked if she would like to have a coffee break together at the cafeteria next week. Awhile later she replied and now I got one more participant just like that. And someone to drink coffee with. Maybe I will ask her to go with me to the prefecture to collect the resident card too.
After lunch, I took a short break before carrying on with my report. After I had done and sent my report, I actually wanted to stop work for the day but felt that I should really fix that bug in my program by today. Halfway through Nicolas came and presented his paper to me sheepishly. Kao it was 10 pages long!!! Previously when I helped Mathieu to vet his rebuttal paper it was only 4 pages. Too bad I had already made a promise and told him I could only return to him on Monday. He said ok. I guess I would use the time on the train tomorrow to read the paper. The train ride to Nantes is 1.5 hrs. Should be enough time to look through his paper. At around 545pm, I finally fixed all the bugs in the program. Hooray! Weekend would be complete relaxation without any work on my mind. And next week it would be quite relaxing too; just getting some colleagues to try out the program. But on Monday morning I would double confirm everything.
Then I started looking at the tour plan which I had not touched for days. I was finalizing on the hostels and that was when I realised that the hostel which I had in mind in Paris had no more vacancies for those dates that I wanted! Wah lao! I guess I would have to spend the Sunday planning Paris again because of the changes in hostel (and therefore the location) and also an additional day. But That extra day will be easy to plan because I would just dedicate it to Disneyland. I thought I could use the Sunday to have a movie marathon. I have not touched all the movies that I brought for nearly a month now. When I was about to leave the office, I realised that I had forgotten to book the train for tomorrow’s trip! And I almost couldn’t remember where I was planning to go when I wanted to make the reservation. The past week was really killing me as my brain had not enough rest. I went online and made my reservation and while waiting for the email reply, Ahad gave me 20 min of French lessons. He was somehow trying to impress me with his French as he is an Iranian. Coming to France not only exposed me to French people, I also met Brazilian, Algerian, Lebanon, Czech, Mexican and Spanish (and these 2 are now missing in action, never reply my email). It was already 730pm and the email from the train website still hadn’t arrive. It normally takes a few hours to get the confirmation. As slow as the admin here in France. To get paperwork done is like going through the SOC in Army; this was what my colleague told me during lunchtime today. There are cartoons on French TV making fun of French admin. I felt that it was too late and didn’t want to wait for that stupid email anymore and hence printed out my reference number from the web. Hope that I would get my tickets tomorrow.
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