Finally legal

January 8, 1998: Five months to the day after arriving in France, Cricket travels to the préfecture in Orléans to pick up her Titre de Séjour. Dave has had his for less than a month.

These, of course, are our legal documents that allow us to stay in France for the year. So bureaucracy is just as swift here in France as it is in the U.S.

One difference between the two countries, though, is that the French seem to be less concerned about the whole "rules" thing. We have already mentioned in a previous post that French customs is... well, actually, it isn't. Also, the answer to a straightforward question (e.g., "Will I be allowed back into the country after taking a short trip to London?" or "Am I required to waste an entire day listening to a French civics lesson for foreigners?") appears to depend on whom you happen to ask on a given day at a given time. For the record, both of the previous questions were answered both in the affirmative and the negative at different times. The good news is that we were allowed back into France (did we mention that French customs is a little lax?); the bad news is that both Cricket and Dave did in fact spend roughly an eight-hour day watching PowerPoint slides describing Liberté, Fraternité, Égalité.