15. The French Consulate

Ugh.

At 9:15ish this morning, my mom and I left work & headed for the French Consulate for my 10:30 appointment in the spirit of being "better early than late". Personally, I expected most of the workers to be français, meaning from France, and for them to just collect my documents.

um, sort of...

At first, we waited about 5min. outside the office for check-in, which consisted of two men. One was a strict & impatient man who asked for both me & my mom's passports. When my mom asked if she could show her driver's license, he was like, "Oui, c'est de ta choix. Passeport, permis de conduire..." in a very wtv tone. He just kept scoffing impatiently...nice.

The other man was kinder. You could see it in his eyes. :P Basically, he POLITELY asked for our bags so that he could check them for security reasons & for cellphones, which they confiscated. I was given waiting-number 507 and then we were sent into room 1.

In room 1, while I read my book of food wonders, the news was playing on the television above my head. It was all blah blah for me, as much as I wish I were a little more interested in current events...

Anywho, about a half an hour in, we were called to a booth and that was HELL. I don't want to go into details so I'll rant in point-form:
-why would they put a solid piece of glass? do they not want me to hear what they're asking for??? (there's no holes or anything. the sound waves were totally bouncing right back to the speaker.)
-that ugly man was impatient, arrogant & couldn't stop scoffing (this is a different man, btw)
-the tiny slot intended for passing documents through was blocked by his table calendar so i kept stuffing my papers into it
-i forgot to get a notary's approval of a signature so while the man was tapping his fingers as i got out other papers, my mom was beside me, whispering her parental disappointment...I WAS GOING NUTS! Sry but I can't handle that while I'm trying to apply for a visa?!
-the Consulate somehow expected me to bring things they didn't ask me to bring...

Anyway, I'm still glad that I even got the appointment & that I can hand in everything I missed by tomorrow 10:00 a.m. phew...

working again tomorrow,

<3

[bt]

p.s. I spoke to my host sister on MSN the other day & I wasn't really sure what to say so I just asked her a lot of questions about school. I've realized that lycée is very much like CÉGEP. Days aren't from actually 8-6. You go when you have class. :) I'm in Terminale, like her.