Technology...

Growing up in a country that succeeds in time and energy management, getting things done in the most efficient manner is part of my being.  Sooooo, sometimes I get a "bit" frustrated with the way things are done here in France.  The South of France more specifically, can't speak as knowingly about say, Paris.

In this day and age when we can set a car on Mars, and watch video sent directly from it on our computer, does it take a week to send money from a French bank account to an American one???  Shouldn't it be a press of a button and magically through this amazing invention called the Internet the number should be subtracted from one account and added to the other???

In addition, why do I have to fly for 9 hours back to America to hand in papers that will then be MAILED back to France, the other side of Nice actually, to be read and stamped, only to have me fly 9 hours back to America again to have a Visa sticker pasted into my passport that says I'm allowed to stay in the country I just flew out of???  Why can't I just go to the office, on the other side of town, and have all this done??  They have computers, I'm sure, that can send information back and forth to the other country much faster and more efficiently than me flying to deliver them only to have them mailed back to where I just came from.  I can google myself so I know it works.  When is France, and I'm sure America needs to be involved here, going to get on the twentieth century bandwagon and connect???  It does amaze me!

Oooohhhh, the paperwork...

Even to get your kids into a pubic school, you have to go to a town hall office, fill out lots of papers, have two different people look at them to decide which school is in your neighborhood, a third person stamps those papers and tells you which school to make an appointment with in order to enroll your child.  Why?  Shouldn't that info be on the Internet somewhere and you just call that school and set up an appointment with the director?  Why do we have an office and three people to do that?

Lastly, we've given notice on our lovely apartment and guess what we have to do to make it official.....we have to send a Certified letter from the post office for 4 euros 40.  Now, this isn't such a big deal except for the fact that the real estate agency that it's going to is literally next door to the post office.  Can't we just drop off the letter in person? ...You guess the answer.

Anyway....after all the inefficiency of the above mentioned, yesterday I was finally awarded my meeting for the Carte de Residence for Monaco. As a reward for all my patience, and substantial amounts of paperwork, it seems that in 20 days I will be a card carrying member of the "Land of Expensive Cars and a Real Live Princess".  And even if Monaco is just as behind in it's time and energy management, the lines are MUCH shorter. :)

Some customs we just have to grin and bear.