Chapter 102 – Random thoughts from a random mind

Sunday, May 29, 2005
Once the mechanic, had put the steering column back together, he started talking about his other passion (and what car mechanic isn’t a lover of flowers, after all). By the time we left, I had 3 branches of “snowballs” (those white flowers that grow, well, in balls), and a few other flowers. Nico had never seen this man do that (I guess he just liked me better, hehehe), but it was sweet.

So, with H-Force-1 on the road, and no longer smoking. The next step was ownership. On a morning when my classes started a bit later, I went in to the sous-préfecture as soon as it opened…and there were still 25 people ahead of me. Fortunately, they were super efficient, and I was in and out within 45 minutes, the proud new owner of H-Force-1. Thus ends the tale of the acquisition of the Justy’s worthy successor. What would a car of mine be, without stories to tell right from, literally, day 1?

On to the random thoughts. Is it really almost June??? At least the weather here is finally feeling like…now to find a reasonably-priced air conditioner so that I can sleep!

Construction: Months ago, the building across the street was taken down, in preparation for a new apartment building (I’d like to make a side observation that “apartment building” is nothing like what you might picture in a North American city, but rather a 3 or 4 floor building with no more than about 15 or 20 apartments). Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, then finally started working on the hole in the ground that they left months back. Bit by bit, though, the fence around the construction zone started moving farther into the side-street that half the neighbourhood parks on, taking away more and more spots. This would happen within days of me getting a car, of course! I made some comment that soon they’d take over the whole street. Nonetheless, I was plenty surprised when they did just that. Well, not the whole street, but the whole width of the street, and a bit more than the length of the lot under construction. On the bright side, random people going out the the Valentino (the “old people” bar across the street, which just re-opened after months of remodelling) no longer park on that street, because they wouldn’t know to, with that end blocked off…on the downside, they all park on the street my building is actually on, on which you’re not allowed to park, but, in true French form, everyone just parks 75% on the sidewalk, which seems to be the acceptable alternative. Surprisingly, it doesn’t bother me anymore.

Shopping: I’ve finally made it to Germany to do a little grocery shopping, which was originally to be one of H-Force-1’s first missions, but hadn’t happened yet. First was a walk around Freiburg, on an absolutely beautiful day. The plan had been for several hours, but the heat started getting to us, and we cut short early to head to the grocery store that another friend had once taken me and Lynn to, near the border. Finding it ended up proving more difficult than expected, but after a phone call that cost a fortune for all (me calling from Germany on a French phone, to another French phone in England – in my defense, I didn’t realize he was still in England), and a bit more difficulty, we finally found ourselves in front of it. First was the bulk beverage section (actually a separate store altogether) where I stocked up on my favourite German beverage; carbonated apple juice…I know; it sounds weird, but it’s sooooo good. By doing this, however, we are inherently committing ourselves to returning; Germany consigns 100% of their glass beverage bottles (which, themselves, are the majority of all beverage bottles) and even some of the plastic ones, which are not melted down, but simply reused! Fortunately, it’s just 15 minutes farther than the major grocery store in Mulhouse which has quickly been added to my list of stores to shop it, since they’re just about the only people around that sell cheddar (and good cheddar at that!). Anyway, I didn’t end up buying lots of stuff, limiting myself mostly to things I can’t get in France (like sour cream), and things that are waaaay cheaper (like shampoo). Nico’s observation of the day made me laugh: it _is_ just the freaky French that use pink toilet paper 95% of the time. You can get white (and green, and orange), but pink is everywhere. I had told him a while ago that in Canada 95% is white, which came as a surprise to him. I was plenty amused when he caught up to me in a different aisle to observe that most of the toilet paper was white. He also said that packages were bigger, and bought a “large” (500g) box of Corn Flakes (cereal in France is general about 375g at the most!). There were one or two of cereals that I haven’t seen in France (like Mini Wheats) which was exciting, but the selection is still severely limited compared to North America.

Anyway, those are my random observations for the day, which weren’t really all the random, but oh well. Happy Sunday!

Chapter 101 – Adventures in transportation

Wednesday, May 25, 2005
When last we ’spoke’ I was trying to buy a car from Nico’s mom. Having my driver’s license was definitely a good start towards that, but I had an inkling that what was to come on the scale of bureaucracy could drive me a bit crazy. It sounds like both little and a lot to deal with (depending on your experience, and with which bureaucratic organizations); I needed only 2 things: insurance, and ownership. I had to have the insurance first, of course, so I immediately called my dad’s insurance company in Canada, to get a new version of a paper they’d sent me once before, indicating my driving record with them. I also called the teacher here who is a certified translator, and booked her services in advance to get the thing translated as soon as it arrived. In the meantime, I got on the internet and started getting quotes. I started with one of those sites that gets you quotes from all over. The difficulty was, none of these quotes would be correct, since there were a bazillion or so questions, and many I couldn’t answer properly due to the differences in driver’s licensing and insurance systems here and in Canada. No matter what I did, I was going to have to follow up by actually making appointments (or else waiting for ages) at at least a couple of insurance offices to know for sure, and be able to actually compare. The lowest quote I got was for GMF, a company that I had heard of, so I figured that that was a good sign. Denying all suggestion that marketing works on me, I also went to the MAAF website (‘la référence qualité prix’) and ended up with a quote within 3 euros of the other (guess that web site didn’t use all possible resources). The next thing was getting these quotes lowered, because, in the French system, your insurance rates go down 5% every year that you drive without incident, giving you a coefficient applied against the ‘normal’ rate. I was encouraged (and none too happy) to be aggressive about getting the right coefficient. After all, depending on how they counted it, I have be driving for 9 years. Hence the next problem; how could they count it? The calculation of the coefficient (for those interested) is .95 at the beginning of the second year, and then multiplied by .95 every year after (but rounded each time, so when I was calculating it to check, I also got a lower number than they did). The date on my French license is this year, and the date of my Canadian license (indicated on my French license) is indicated 2000 (which may be when I got my G, or it may just be when I got my last license card, I can’t remember). I got my G1 in 1995, though, and my G2 in 1997 (but had no proof of either).

Once I got the insurance paper (a few weeks late) I made appointments with GMF and the MAAF. Unfortunately, that week had a Thursday holiday, which meant getting in to see them was going to be torture (Thursday holidays often mean half of France doesn’t show up to work on Friday, which brings me to another tangent, that I may or may not have already told you about; they may have way more vacation days, but they don’t have sick days. Being off sick, with the exception of serious illness and/or having a doctor’s note, means losing a vacation day. That said, I’ve been told that it’s easy to get into a doctor’s office on Fridays (many doctor’s don’t take appointments, you just go and wait with everyone else) but really hard on Monday mornings. So I guess it’s probably not that difficult to get a doctor’s note. Students that are most certainly full of it have brought them to me before. Anyway…). I ended up getting an appointment at GMF the same day (Monday), although I was trying to get both for Wednesday, so I could just miss a half day of work and get it all done. Silly me, GMF doesn’t open on Wednesdays (of course). So I hurried out of work early, and got the bus downtown. I didn’t have the insurance paper with me, and couldn’t remember the date on it; the woman said they’d take the date of the start of my insurance as the date for calculating the coefficient, rather than worrying about the license dates (made sense to me). She gave me a ‘best case scenario’ of .72 coefficient. Then, since I still had time before closing, I ran over to the MAAF (which was a bit outside of downtown, and between the running and the heat, walked in with my bright red face, realizing that I couldn’t really do anything, because the online quote I got hadn’t made it to their computer system, and I didn’t have any of the information I needed (like the photocopy of the car ownership, which gave all the key details). So, I would still have to wait until Wednesday. By now I was getting really excited, because I had found out that once it was insured, I could drive it, and I had a month to get the ownership changed. Plus, I had been invited to a friend’s cottage for the Wednesday night (taking advantage of a Thursday holiday) for her birthday, but getting there was going to be a pain, because I had to be back in Mulhouse for lunch with some other teachers, while everyone else was planning to stay there for at least the morning, if not all day. I started asking more people about which company they would choose (between GMF and MAAF) and got several that told me to try MACIF (another one). I was mostly asking about service, since I knew more or less about price. I finally got the kind of anecdote I was looking for; GMF had not renewed a contract with a coworker’s girlfriend, because of several incidents in a short period of time, none of which were her fault, leaving her with a really really hard time getting insurance elsewhere. MACIF, on the other hand, had reimbursed him for something they normally wouldn’t because “he looked honest.” So I called MACIF. I explained about the Canadian stuff, and the dates, and he said he’d have to give me a quote as a new driver, and that I’d have to go in to their office to show them the paper and get something better. I laughed when the quote he gave me was for something like 550 euros a year (the others were under 300) because, he said, that included a ‘new driver premium’ as well as the coefficient of 1.00. I told him that that was ridiculous compared to the others, and he said that if I took my stuff into the office, they’d take it into account.

Following my appointment at the MAAF (which went really well; they offered my .72, with a lower rate than GMF, and the guy had been to Toronto like 9 times, and was telling me about museums there that I didn’t know existed) I decided to walk up to MACIF. It was well out of downtown (in a different direction) and took me a good half hour to get there. When I arrived, I asked if the wait was long, but there was only one person in front of me, and the girl at the desk said it wouldn’t be. The person ahead of me was called almost right away, and I was reassured. A few minutes later, another client came in, and was looking at me oddly. He finally asked if we knew each other, which, clearly, was not the case once he heard the accent. We chatted for a bit anyway, and then he was called. I was a little irritated, until the girl told me that the person that would be meeting me was on her way. Five minutes later, she finally came (by now I’d waited about 25 minutes), and I started to explain the situation on the walk to her desk. I showed her the paper, and the translation and she excused herself to ask her colleague a question. She came back to tell me that they couldn’t take anything outside of the EU into consideration. In other words, 550 euros a year. I had barely sat down before I was up, extremely irritated that the guy on the phone hadn’t bothered to find out / give me that information, and started the long walk back to the MAAF. I called the guy on the way, to make sure he’d have time to see me as soon as I got back. Yahoo for cell phones. We finally got things under way, and despite a few computer glitches, and some extra time, I walked out with a .68 coefficient (although I can no longer remember how we arrived at that) and insurance papers in hand. I left a message on Nico’s phone to let him know (his parents wanted the car out of their driveway, almost as much as I wanted to have it). By some miracle, we managed to meet up that evening after work, and got the forms filled out and ready for my to take to the sous-préfecture to take over the ownership. I couldn’t believe it. I had a car! I even made it up to Marie-Luise’s cottage (which was amazing) and back to Mulhouse for lunch the next day.

It was only later that evening that my car (H-Force-1; a 1993 Peugeot 106) started showing it’s Frenchness…and smoking. Yep, less than 24 hours after getting the car, the Heather Force car curse was in motion. The smoke looked almost like cigarette smoke too; coming up in just a thin line…from the steering column. There was also a bizarre clicking noise coming more or less from the turn signal, and while the smoke was rare, at one point the two things (the noise and the smoke) were fully connected, as the smoke started, and I was unable to use my turn signal. The following day, there was no smoke, but I figured that it was information I should pass on to Nico. That night I was supposed to pick up Lynn’s boyfriend, David, at the airport, but Nico didn’t want me driving the 106 until a friend of his father’s (who had always been their mechanic, and therefore knew the car well) had had a look at it. He lent me his car for the night, though, so I could keep my promise to David (they’ve stopped bus service from Mulhouse to the airport, and a) the taxi-train-taxi combo, or b) the taxi-all-the-way method are a) a giant pain, and b) way to expensive to be reasonable). On Saturday afternoon, we were able to see the mechanic, who was super nice. He took apart the steering column, but could find no indication of fire or anything. He did figure out what the clicking was (current going back to the indicator) and promised to change that. I figure that same current probably lit a bit of dust on fire a couple of times, and that was that (oh, and Nico’s parents insisted on paying for the repairs). He hasn’t had a chance to fix that since, but the clicking only seems to happen when it’s cold, and it hasn’t smoked since. Ah, Frenchies. Deep down, they’re all smokers.