More Hoops

So, in case anyone was wondering, the blog is currently called "Hoop Dreams" because we have a dream of living in Paris, yet it feels like we've done nothing but jump through hoops to make it happen. Someday, we hope that the hoops will disappear from the horizon, and we can change the title to something more appropriate, like "French Bread Overdose" or "How Foie Gras Improved My Soul."

Recently I spent nearly an entire day on a goose chase through Paris. I'll try to be as succinct as possible. After researching online where I needed to go to get my resident's permit (carte de sejour), I traveled to one corner of Paris to find a prefecture with a sign posted telling me I need to go to practically the opposite corner of the city for such items. Once arriving at the next location of the chase, I found a prefecture under construction. Passing by a crane and some bobcat-looking contraption, I found a Parisian police officer who was kind enough to ask if I needed help. I explained to her what I was looking for, and she immediately had an answer: a piece of paper showing a hand-drawn map to the next leg of my journey. Off again I went, to yet another corner of the city, where I found another prefecture / government sort of place.

This final location looked like an old YMCA painted with incredible pastels, and filled with chairs, desks, and a metal detector that failed to detect the chunk of camera in my pocket. Oh, and the metal detector was paired with a police officer that kept an aerosol air freshener on hand. Long story short, after explaining my situation (living, employment, citizenship, etc), the person behind the desk consulted a large tome with the letters C-O-D-E banded across the cover, and determined that I -- well, my situation -- was confusing and needed special attention. So he directed me to another prefecture...