This past week was remarkably lab-free: upon trying to enter the Pasteur campus on Tuesday, I discovered that my ID badge had expired, requiring I spend the rest of the week hunting down secretaries across Paris to regain access to my own desk.
If ever moving to France, there are some things you should consider:
To get a French bank account, you need to have a French place of residence. To get your French place of residence, you need a French bank account. (Can you say Catch 22?)
If you earn your right to store your money in a bank, best of luck retrieving it with the limits on your weekly withdrawals and charges. Expect your checking card to have a mind of its own.
Should you find a place to live, you will then have to sign over everything including your first-born child and that of your co-signer, who, by the way, must be French. This results in all sorts of odd relations within the international research community: my co-signer, for example, is my American lab head’s girlfriend. Signing your new lease should then only take a couple months. All fifteen original copies of mine might be fully signed by all my housemates, their ex-housemates, and everyone’s co-signers by mid-August. (I moved in on June 1.) In the meantime, you can forget about those welfare checks the French government offers to aid in housing costs for low income people: you don’t officially live anywhere! Not that this stops your landlords from expecting the rent...
You can hardly complain about the delays in the welfare checks when you consider your health insurance which will demand a second year’s payment before even thinking about reimbursing any basic expenses for routine medical visits from year one. Do not believe the nonsense you’ve heard about European socialized medicine: I’ve had to foot every one of my bills thus far while being "fully covered" here in France.
Venturing through the legal ropes of the French tax system is really a walk in the park, as you’d imagine: legal jargon isn’t bad enough when you’re a native speaker. Do not expect the FAQ to be available in English.
When dealing with dozens of secretaries per day, it’s preferable to time your visits when the temperatures in their offices are below 90ºF as Europeans don’t believe in air conditioning. Otherwise, best of luck.
And no, the photo associated with this blog entry doesn't really have anything to do with my French administrative nightmares. In fact, it wasn't even taken in France.
If ever moving to France, there are some things you should consider:
To get a French bank account, you need to have a French place of residence. To get your French place of residence, you need a French bank account. (Can you say Catch 22?)If you earn your right to store your money in a bank, best of luck retrieving it with the limits on your weekly withdrawals and charges. Expect your checking card to have a mind of its own.
Should you find a place to live, you will then have to sign over everything including your first-born child and that of your co-signer, who, by the way, must be French. This results in all sorts of odd relations within the international research community: my co-signer, for example, is my American lab head’s girlfriend. Signing your new lease should then only take a couple months. All fifteen original copies of mine might be fully signed by all my housemates, their ex-housemates, and everyone’s co-signers by mid-August. (I moved in on June 1.) In the meantime, you can forget about those welfare checks the French government offers to aid in housing costs for low income people: you don’t officially live anywhere! Not that this stops your landlords from expecting the rent...
You can hardly complain about the delays in the welfare checks when you consider your health insurance which will demand a second year’s payment before even thinking about reimbursing any basic expenses for routine medical visits from year one. Do not believe the nonsense you’ve heard about European socialized medicine: I’ve had to foot every one of my bills thus far while being "fully covered" here in France.
Venturing through the legal ropes of the French tax system is really a walk in the park, as you’d imagine: legal jargon isn’t bad enough when you’re a native speaker. Do not expect the FAQ to be available in English.
When dealing with dozens of secretaries per day, it’s preferable to time your visits when the temperatures in their offices are below 90ºF as Europeans don’t believe in air conditioning. Otherwise, best of luck.
And no, the photo associated with this blog entry doesn't really have anything to do with my French administrative nightmares. In fact, it wasn't even taken in France.
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