why I hate french beauraucracy

Things have got complicated again. As it is the end of the month I enquired last night about getting paid. turns out that my contract, my convention de stage with avifrance isn't enough because since the rew government rulings about actually pying interns there has to be a special government contract filled out. Great, so my second contract is invalid. This means getting everything signed all over agian which will take more time because it has to be done by post because the fax machine in oxford is broken.

That is before the fun of me actually getting any money starts. With internships here you often don't get paid before right at the end. This of course is hugely helpful when paying the rent. The deal is here if you work longer than 3 months you get paid, less and they don't have to pay ou anything. So as a compromise Magalie, the finance director here, says that if i work 3 months without pay then on the fourth month I will get paid for that month and te previous three at once, thereafter I will get paid every month. This is not an emergency as I have some money left in my German account and elsewhere that I can pool together to pay my rent and stuff until then but it is kind of annoying as it means my budget may get kinda stretched until then. Not that when they do eventually pay me I will be getting milions. I a not ALLOWED to be paid moe that 1/3 of SMIC , minimum wage, currently around 8 euros 25 or something, so about a fiver.

I don't blame the company, I'm just fed up of french beauraucracy.

The new contract has 7 pages of guidelines(short by legal standards I know). Basically it is to stop exploitation and ensure hat the students get valid experience and are not just used as slaves as replacements for proper employees. it says over and over again that this is no a job it is an educational experience which is why it is ONLY available to students, if you are not a student you have to get a CDI or CDD. This is also cleary a way to try to reduce unemployment among the young where befor the companies were clearly using internships as cheap labour.

Week 2

Right, I now have a new home. My new home is nice, huge actually for 3 people, well the sitting room is anyway and day to day more unusual furniture appears. I now have a bed which is nice. Well, a mattress, I put the bed bit of it in the sitting room to make a type of chaise-longue thing because it is FILTHY. The flat was empty and the furniture that is being brought has obviously been sitting in a barn somewhere because it is old and not at all clean. Some of it is nice, we now have a very oldy worldy cubboard in the kitchen but Alice (my italian flatmate) refuses to put stuff in it until we have cleaned it. I agree. We were meant to be getting a proper kitchen table, not quite sure what happened there as what we do have is a big hunk of wood on tressels. Anyway more furniture is always good! We want to get lots of stuff for it but as we will only be there for 4 months there is kind of no point.

However, we have put up posters to make the place more homely and have decided to get certain things. We have a bizarre assembly of things in the flat. There are a lot of metal saucepans and slow cookers (for stews and such) but the singly frying pan is frankly lethal. We have two cookers but no washing machine (this is coming tonight) and a dishwasher but no mixing bowls or cutting knives. We are very much on the same wavelength about householdy stuff and it’s great that she is a student because I get to gatecrash erasmus things, again! Also she has more free time than me so can scout out whats good and not and then show me. Of course i would prefer to discover things on my own but it is better than not discovering them at all! I am also meeting people through her as she is a forgeiner and desperate to make friends too.

I moved in on Saturday and the first thing that Alice and I did was go to the Telecom shop and setthe internet up. Of course it won’t actually be online until the end of this week but we set the ball rolling! She also needs skype msn etc urgently! On Sunday we discovered our local market and have decided not to bother with supermarkets again as the produce there is much fresher and nicer. And actually not as dear as anticipated so we are going to be typically french now and trundle on down to the market for food. The markert is open 6am till 1pm so I can go before work and buy some stuff in an emergency. Which is nice to know as catching the bus at 8 and getting back at 6 kinda leaves me with not much time. I wish that my camera was working, it would be so nice to be able to take photos of everything because when the sun shines it is really very pretty. It seems to be the drill here that there is one day of glorious sunshine, not a cloud in the sky followed by wind heralding the next day of rain.

Work is fine, the people are nice, I’m going to be a total expert on planes by the end of this : P, it’s quite interesting seeing how the world of commerce/business works, never been exposed to it before, don’t think I’ll go into it later though, not enough words, too many numbers! I don’t mind numbers, I can work with them fine but lets just say they don’t fire my imagination!

I’ve noticed here that EVERYONE drinks expressos, I’m the only one who drinks tea and there are two tea cups and the rest are teeny tiny expresso mugs. In Germany the drinks were much more milky, lots of cappucinos etc and a lot of tea, black, green, red, white, fennel, fruit, roiboos, you name it, we drank it. Of course one of the first things that I did when I moved in properly was by myself some earl grey. I think I am actualy addicted now as I genuniely can’t get up in the morning without it!

The world is looking a more rosy place

The world is looking a more rosy place. (this is a slight pun as Toulouse is called la ville rose but such a subtle one I thought I should point it out in case anyone had missed it). Third week of work now. It’snot too busy at the moment and hopefully it wont become much busier because it means that I can get the stuff done that I need to while at a computer. Still finding it had to be sat for hours at a time, especially as today we have a bit of a tempête and I couldn’t go outside in my lunchbreak.

Getting fed up with Telecom, still waiting for internet... Was very amused to learn that the german Telekom is being punished by Brussels! Well the german government is on their account but anyway I’m glad someone has their eye on them! That company is bad news.

Drama with camera ensues, hence the lack of snaps but Alice has a camera so there will be some more pretty pictures of (french) buildings soon. French post sucks big time, so far 3 things have got lost and they wont let my camera be sent off for repair without insurance and even that is complicated.bleugh.

Had a really fun weekend. Was properly out on the town in all weathers. Sunday was the strangest day, sunshine and showers, hail and rain, apparently march weather is upon us. Went for a run (sunshine), bought bread on the way back and suddenly hail, bread was soaked and I must have looked a right sight, sprinting throught the streets without a coat with a soggy baguette clutched in my hand. Alice studies anthropology and all that stuff fascinates me so we went to 2 really good exhibitions, one on global cultures and the other on the history of Toulouse which was a roman city called Tolosa originally. We have a fun time communicating, Alice and I, mostly French but a bit of English and Italien when the vocabulary nous manque.

We tried out the nightlife (not overly impressed but then we don’t know that many areaas yet!). Our area seems to be the rugby central of the town. Friday nicght we ended up in what was obviously a rugby bar. The town is a big rugby place anyway but EVERY bar has the matches on on saturday, its great, much emptier streets due to the entire male population being inside watching the match! It is also clear from the build of the guys what the popular sport is around here, not to mention the cauliflower ears... This bar had everything, the six nations insignia, little rugby balls etc. They drink a fair bit og beer here in little demis most of the time and some wierd pink drink. I tried the pink thing not having a clue what it was. It’s nasty. Avoid beer and grenadine. Not good. The music was pretty good, nice and international, they even played “99 Luftballons” which I enjoyed.

We had a rather random encounter, but one which we hope we will be able to use in the future! I say we at the moment not as in the royal we but because in my spare time Alice and I do everything together as we both want to get to know the place and the people better. Saturday afternoon on our cycle ride we stopped off at the office de tourisme so I (being little miss tourisme as I am) could pick up some flyers to see what was going on around town. I came back out and Alice had struck up conversation with some random guy. She makes friends fast! It turned out he too was an erasmus student but actually from Bordeaux rather than Toulouse. He was swiss and was waiting for 2 of his friends who were doing the same thing as me. One czech girl and a german. We chatted for a bit and went our seperate ways never thingking to see them again but thinking, maybe we’ll bump into them on our trip to Bordeaux. Saturday night we made our way back to Place St Pierre to find experience another bar. Absolutely packed. We magaged after a struggle to get seats, squeezing through burly men, and then discovered why those were the two seats left free, right next to the speakers! Pounding drum and bass, so we stuck it ut for a couple of hours and then moved on.

On our way to the next bar who should we meet but our erasmus buddies! So we went to a bar with them and spent the evening comparing our years abroad. We also successfully got the number of the girl so we now have a contact in Bordeaux to act as tour guide; my little reseau of international contacts is expanding....

14.02.07

14.02.07

At the moment my life seems to be getting more and more chaotic rather than more settled. Every day I seem to find out another thing not totally to my liking. I am also learning that even good people definitely have downsides. At the moment I’m living in a French lady’s house who is called Anne. She’s very nice (but VERY French) but….. it can be sometimes a case of Anne giveth and Anne taketh away again.

She is lovely though, she makes me tea for when I get home cos she knows that’s what I’m craving (properly craving too) and is very chilled. She is good fun to talk to and impetuously generous. I’m also not quite sure how much she is charging me for this week in rent (it changed, went up and down), not very much I think.

On Saturday I’m moving into another flat. This flat is actually owned by her. It’s the first time she’s rented anywhere out (good or bad thing I’m not totally sure) and is feeling her way. The rent is 280 euros which is very good for central Toulouse. They’re renting it so cheap because her parents in law are going to be moving in there at the beginning of July. So we will be moving out. However, all prices are relative because with a monthly income of 350 its not cheap for me. I will be living with and Italien girl (who apparently is already making problems) and a French girl (who is going on holiday as soon as I move in but otherwise all I really know about her is that she is sympa with a forceful personality!

The french girl is also currently depriving me of my bed. The flat was previously unfurnished. So 3 mattresses were being brought in. We took one down last weekend. One was meant to be coming on Monday (12.02) , actually coming next Monday(19.02), and the one I WAS sleeping on. I was going to have that one, goodness knows what I’m getting now. However, she got it because she is very tall and wont fit on the others. So, I have no bed. Anne told me to sleep in her bed and she’s have the sofa but the thing is I have to get up at 6:30 at the moment and would just disturb her for an hour so I’m sleeping on the sofa which is actually fine but I would prefer a bed.

I have to move in on Saturday, hopefully pm cos I will have trouble if I have to pack my stuff Friday night when I get home at 6:50 after work. I found this flat sort of by accident cos I didn’t know she had another flat and at the time it was full. However the guy who was meant to be moving in didn’t show when he was meant to for the viewing and as a consequence she said no to him. She then mentioned it to me, we went and had a look round and I thought great! When I was looking round stuff last week I went to the CAF (caisse aide familiale or something) where I found out I’m entitled to social security cos I’m a poor student. Great! So I was enchanted by the location of the flat and by its size. And I thought 280, great and with CAF I get even more off! So I can afford to enjoy my time here (when I am not at work) more. So I told her I wanted the flat and told everyone else I’d looked at that I didn’t want theirs, then I started discovering the imperfections.

Today I found out that it doesn’t have internet. Also doesn’t have a phoneline. Great. The Italian will be putting in the internet but first she needs a chequebook cos the set up etc has to be done by cheque. I thought that was sorted on Monday, count forward ten days and I would have internet a couple of days after I move in. I NEED internet, it was always THE one requirement (apart from proximity to work) that I insisted everywhere I looked at and visited. Her heart’s in the right place but a leeetle airy fairy. At the moment for example there is no phone or internet in the flat. Dunno why. This is a problem for me cos I need to be able to be contacted this evening about financial things. This would not normally be a problem as she has in fact got 2 phone lines. One she explained to me you ring out on and its free to landlines and the other one is only used for receiving calls. The one you use to ring cannot receive calls. I worked out the reason why is that one is dsl and connected to the internet and the other is normal landline. So tonight no internet and therefore no making phone calls. As two phone lines, two different numbers, the other one which no one has. I could have received them though if only she hadn’t given the phone away. Another lot of charity cases, I’m one of many it seems, 4 guys from Belgium I thing or Holland who cant speak French very well who she has been helping. They’re having problems with their internet at the moment so she leant them the phone so that they can ring up technical assistance. Soooo, no phone for us

I also broke my camera, or it broke, I’m not sure which. Which is why there are no photos of everything. The weather is shit at the moment anyway, another factor to improve my mood, I’m inside all day and the times I am outside I am waiting for buses in the dark and it is either cold or raining or windy. Great.

I am not in the greatest of moods today but this has been slowly building this week. Mainly it has to do with the fact that I get up at 6:30, travel and hour and a half to work, work (thank God it is only 9-5!) sitting ALL day which I hate, I get restless at the best of times, I swear I can feel my bottom actually inflating as I sit there, take LONGER to get home, get home just before 7, eat, and then practically bed time. I know I have no right to complain as its not that long a day, not that long a commute, not for very long at all and totally my own fault as I decided I wanted to see what the real world was like. It sucks by the way for anyone reading this who is still a student. Properly sucks. Cant really see many advantages to it. No exams but just a different pressure. I wanted to see how hard it was to get a job (very) what it was like living in the big bad world (not fun and at the start quite lonely) This is only the beginning I know and the beginning anywhere is hard, it sucks for about the first month and then gets easier, by the end I will love this place I know but I just want it to be March, or even April so I have already settled in.

Also I love coming in the door and being confronted by new things that have happened. Tonight, no phone, last night no bed, Monday night something else. Maybe tomorrow night I’ll come home and find that I don’t have a flat to move into any more.

I’m going to go to bed now. I'll be in a better mood in the morning.

What I Do and Don’t like about the French

DON’T

Beauraucracy-
Seriously people get it sorted! There is soooo much. I thought Deutschland was bad but at least it was efficient and Tisha’s (my grandmother) right, one day this country WILL drown itself in paperwork.

The internship system-
Legally I am not allowed holiday, not a single day off in 6 months otherwise I forfit all of my oh so very generous 350 a month wages. They are apparently liable for anything that happens to you within that time which is why, as you might break something while on holiday and sue them or something. You are only allowed to do an internship WITHIN the framework of your education. If you are not studying, no work experience. Daft.

The 35 hour week.
I personally like this one as it means I work 35 hours rather than 36.5 which is the English full time hours (thank you tescos!) but I think it is a silly idea in general.

The price of milk.
I now know why EVERYONE drinks disgusting UHT. Its 59c/l whereas fresh milk is 1.14 euros/l at least. WHAT? Why? Have they no cows?

The bread.
I am CRAVING vollkornbrot. So at the moment for my sandwhiches im using harry’s American crappy bread, anyone who has eaten it will kno what rubbish it is but there is nothing else sliced. Not that great a fan of the French bread in general anyway.

Toulouse public transport system-
It takes me 1h 30 to get to work, nuff said. Also the discount system and pricing on that.

The lack of manners.
Small lady on the bus today, 3 big bags of shopping, who was the ONLY person on the bus to help her at all? That’s right, me.

Puree- smash in a box, buy some potatoes!




DO umm…at the moment?

Am cooking for myself so can’t enthuse about French cuisine, magret de canard is nice tho, on the whole its ok!

I’m looking forward to the warmth when it comes along. Although it is already too warm to wear my winter clothes but because of April showers we are having at the moment I’m wearing my raincoat.

Toulosue architecture,
pink and pretty.

The literature,
I’m reading Mémoires d’une jeune fille rangée which is just about sustaining my enthusiasm for the French language

My collegues seem pretty nice and quite chilled and hopefully my job will continue to be interesting (it's fine at the moment) so im going to reserve judgement on that for a month or so until I get properly setteled in.


The Pyrennees,
can’t wait to see them properly. I saw thm on the bus home in the distance today, so very inviting.

Flat hunting in Toulouse

I’ve decided to enter my first note as I’m being lazy and everyone who I’d email with it in this language is on here anyway so I thought I might save time. This is what I have been doing so far in France! I left Berlin (snff snff) on saturday to start my trek down to the south of France. The night train was ok, despite having no bed I was able to sleep curled up on the seat, those of you who know how wierdly I sit in seats anyway should have no problem imagining this one. Despite having my own body weight in luggage I was able to successfully find a taxi to get me from Paris Nord to Montparnasse fine and I must say Paris was looking lovely in the morning sunshine! The "own body weight " in luggage thing is no joke just ask Hannah, Jon or Katariina (thank you soooo much for helping guys).

TGV down also no problem except tired as I was my mood wasn’t great ( no surprise there) the ady in the seat opposite me REALLY irritated me, she had a little girl voice despite being 50 and a little lap dog with her. So I spent most of Sunday sitting in train stations or on trains.My base to dump my luggage is my gran’s house which is about 2 ½ hours north of Toulouse so actually quite handy. As there was no fixed abode ready for me in France unlike Berlin I planned to go in the next day on the train with just my rucksack and stay a few nights and find somewhere to live. This I duly attempted. I had basically decided where I wanted to live but had another place as an alternative in case for whatever reason the preferred one wasn’t as good. So I set up meetings and planned my trains etc. first thing to go wrong when I got to Agen was that the train was in the end 2hr late. This is a TGV from paris. Tut tut innaceptable.

So I was late for stuff and had to ring round about it. By the time I got to this completely unknown town it was 6:30 and dark. Got transport tickets and a network map, no street map though and toddled off to see the flat. It was ok. So now off to the 2nd one which is where the fun starts. STILL don’t have a street map, its 7:30, ask directions but just want to check I’m going the right way so I go into a shop to ask the owner. Turns out he lives 1 apartment block over. He takes one look at me, asks if im on my own and then refuses to let me try and find it on my own because I took the wrong turning at a roundabout and have gone the wrong way and this area is too dangerous for me to be wandering around at night on my own in. I remind him of his daughter and he wouldn’t want HER wandering around with a huge backpack on her own! So I decide to trust him. When he shut up shop at 8 he gives me a lift in his white van (!) to the apartment.

The flat is nice and all fine and she’s nice, over an hour to work but there you go. I intended to spend the night at the youth hostel. Have sort of directions to the metro, turn right at the 2nd roundabout etc. Off I went again and think, this doesn’t look too familiar, 9:30 by this time (and raining). I just want to check that im heading the right way so I ask a man out for his walk who promptly says, oh no, you don’t want to go that way, you’ll go a really long way round, I’ll take you on a short cut, and anyway what are you doing walking around by yourself at this time? This calls for a leap of faith, I decide ok he’s hopefully not a psycho and will actually get me to the metro. Which he does, even through this woody bit, only saw one other person out, walking as fast as possible in the other direction. Suffice to say that flat is no longer the top of my list seeing as I couldn’t find it and the people who live there think it’s too dangerous to walk around after dark! Still having money on my ticket and quite wanting to put my bag down I went to the youth hostel. Ridiculous but Toulouse only has one it turns out. And getting there at 10:30 I found this one was completely full. I know I should have reserved properly but I couldn’t get them on the phone and thought the email was enough. haha. So, no youth hostel.

Went back to the station and asked 2 security guards there if there was another youth hostel or cheap hotels. No more youth hostels but hotels close. Hotels are expensive but I found one I could afford with my cash but also full so getting bored of this tried pretty much every single one there and all full. Great. The wonderful thing about the Toulouse public transport is that after 22:00 there are no buses and the metro closes at midnight. By this time it is shortly after 11, my options are rapidly running out. Don’t particularly fancy a night on the streets as among other things even though I am in the south of France it is February and not that warm. And it is raining. Cant spend the night in the station as it closes and they chuck people out who they thing want a kip! I then decide to get back on the underground and go to the house I 1st visited and cry at them until they let me spend the night. Th only thing is it will be about midnight and they may have gone to bed. I also (usefully) have no more credit as ive been ringing people about flats and its my german sim so I cant get more.

So anyway I’m on the metro again and quite by chance one of the security guards I talked to previously gets on. Obviously I’m not 100% happy with the situation so he asks me what happened. His solution was to ring 115 which is free and connects to the foyers for the SDFs, homeless people, a bed for the night. Ok so I now have a plan B, things are looking up and I’m getting myself together. The other security guard now also gets on with his wife and also asks what’s going on. Don’t worry I hadn’t attracted the attention of EVERYONE on the bus, well actually I might have. He asked the other guy what he had thought of and immediately said, nope, you’re not going to sleep at a place with homeless people all you’re stuff will get stolen and it’s just not safe. You’re coming home with my wife and I for the night. Ok, thank you.

He had to close the last station for the night so wait around and then 15min walk home in the rain. They were so sweet. Just about to head to bed after the BEST shower in the world when it turns out his wife has make me burger and chips. So 1:30 am I’m sitting in a random apartment having burger and chips because they don’t believe I’ve eaten anything today. Was sooo grateful for the bed so couldn’t really refuse anything! He was from the Cote d'Ivoire and she was from Martinique as an explanation for those of you who were pleasently surprised by the hospitality of this french couple!In the morning they also gave me some clothes. I thought I must have looked bad! Actually clothes was the last thing on earth I needed as my bags are so stuffed in any case but again couldn't refuse for fear of being rude! I am a pretty capable person (I like to think)and had a load of stuff to get done and I still had enough money but he insisted on accompanying me and helping me until I got somewhere to sleep for that night which we did find in a random hotel where i had great fun watching Knight Rider in german!

I spent that day and the next visiting flats and getting myself sorted. I have a flat I want to live in but I will only find out on the 15th if I can live there. It's complicated As my job starts on the 12th in the north of the north (north of blagnac which is north of toulouse) I have also found somewhere to live this weekend with a lovely lady who was also really helpful. She is french but has lived abroad for the last 15 years in the middle east and thinks that the french are mad! im not too keen on the picture this is building up, it doesn't help my current marked preference for all things Deutsch!

This flat does however mean I’m 1h30 from my job using public transport in the mornings but I have no choice. So that is the situation so far. I have a French mobile number though now which is on facebook but I cant give my address to anyone as I don’t have one yet! If you want to send me things urgently my grandmother’s address isGeorgina MillerChez Patricia AlfordMoulin de Quatre Carres47 150 Monflanquin and it will be forwarded.Suffice to say it was lovely to get back to my grandmother’s and relax in preparation for next week. Urgh. Getting up at 6:30, yay!

The first step into the big bad world of blogging

Blogging is a dangerous sport. This is my first blog and I can see it eating up much of my life, the little time that I have spare although I am not sure what the purpose of this blog is meant to be. To a certain extent I suppose it is an ego thing. I believe that my opinions and thoughts are interesting and important enough to be worth sharing with other people, well I'm not sure if that is the case and we shall see...


I have also uploaded a photo in order to make this a little more interesting and this is the only half decent one of me on my usb pen so here you go, me on the ferris wheel at the Brandenburger Tor for the tag der Deutschen Einheit. I am currently living in berlin so this is not just any old tourist photo!