French bureaucracy reminds me of those logic games we used to play in 6th grade, the ones that you solve by making a grid and marking off boxes until you're left with the right answer. I can't think how to explain them, so here's an example. There's always a point where there's some key piece of information that you didn't notice or didn't get the significance of, and once you figure it out you can X out the rest of that row, and that leaves just one space in a certain column, so you have that answer too, and suddenly the whole puzzle is complete. The difference, of course, is that I knew all along what I needed and just didn't have it. But no longer! After three and a half months on the job, I finally have my pay stubs, and have spent the week destroying my to-do list. Somehow, getting that paperwork seems to have coincided with a period of what I can only describe as Being In The Zone - literally everything I have needed to do has suddenly been easy. Bureaucrats have decided not to care whether I made appointments, and have smiled at me and accepted my sometimes-questionable paperwork and my bad French and told me everything is going to be fine. Offices have mysteriously added lunchtime hours on my busy days. Strangers have stopped to give me directions to half-hidden locations before I even realized I was lost. There is simply no way that it can last, so I've been trying to do as many things as possible before the magic wears off.

In the past week, I have:
- Sorted out my medical visit/visa validation (appointment is next month) and obtained an official paper stating that it is in process and I haven't actually overstayed
- Obtained paperwork from my landlord stating how much I pay in rent in order to qualify for a housing subsidy
- Submitted large sheaf of paperwork demonstrating my (lack of much) income in order to get said housing subsidy, which might be as much as half my rent. This included sweet-talking them into accepting the aforementioned official paper in lieu of an actually valid visa.
- Changed my address with my bank, who will hopefully now stop sending me things at my school.
- Submitted paperwork to enroll in state health insurance. Technically I have been covered since I started work on Oct 1, but I'm not in their system until this goes through, so I would have had to pay out of pocket and then file for reimbursement after my paperwork was in. Now, hopefully I won't have to deal with any of that if I get sick. (And I might even be able to get the bloodwork I'm about to be due for, wouldn't that be cool.)
- With pay stubs in hand, went to the community center a three minute walk from my apartment to ask about their sliding-scale yoga classes. Found out I can go for only about 3.75€ per class, which is excellent! I like this country.
- Booked tickets to Copenhagen next weekend! Procrastinating really paid off - this morning tickets were 100€ round trip, down from almost 300€ a couple days ago. Teesa will be there for a conference type thing, so I'll have good company and a free hotel room. Excellent. :)
- With the help of the kind-hearted stranger mentioned above, made my way to the city's lost-and-found warehouse in the middle of nowhere to retrieve my stolen wallet. I didn't mention this here, but right before the holidays someone came up behind me at a very crowded metro station and unzipped my bag, which was slung across my body but behind me. My own fault; it's almost the only dodgy part of town, and I know better than to keep my bag where I can't see it in that kind of crowd. I noticed within about five minutes and immediately canceled all the cards, but what I've really taken out of this experience is that Lyon has some of the world's most considerate thieves. They took my wallet out of the bag, but left everything else, including my ipod, camera, cell phone, passport, keys, and notebook. They then apparently removed the small amount of cash, but left everything else (US drivers license, credit cards, transit card, etc) and left the wallet someplace where it could be found. In the wallet was my meal card for School 2, so the city sent me a letter there to let me know. Seriously, where else would that happen? This is a good city.

Today I also had the latest in a series of funny encounters with my building's concierge, which is roughly analogous to a superintendent. These started shortly after I moved in, when I went to go and let him know about some minor problems with the apartment. Since my French is fairly shaky, I tend to prepare for things like this by going over the whole speech in my head, and this one started off with me telling him which apartment I live in (which is tricky because French numbers are not my friends). When I found him, he immediately threw me off my game by saying "oh, you're the girl who lives in apartment 1404," which I still have no idea how he knew. This of course left me flustered, and what I said came out something like this:

"My roommate and me, we have some small problems. We have... the... burning thing? For [in Spanish] cooking? I'm sorry, for [in French] cooking? There are two? This one, the one here, the front one, he works. But the other, the one back, he doesn't work. Oh and also, we have three... we have... we need three lightbulbs. We have three lights who not work. The one, the one in the bedroom? And the one in the hallway. And the one, the one in the toilet, but there are two, but this one [motioning up] he works, but the other [motioning] he doesn't work. And also I need one these, I don't know how you say [pulls shelf peg out of pocket]. It's for the shelf of my desk, I have three, but I need one more, for the shelf. The shelf of my desk."

It's worth mentioning, at this point, that he is also not a native speaker of French. Anyway, he decided it would be easier for me to show him than for us to actually communicate, so he said he would come up in ten minutes. And then never showed.

Encounters, two, three and four were all similar. I would run into him by random chance, and we would have this exchange:
Him: "Oh! I have a package for you."
Me: "Oh, okay. Don't you leave a note in my mailbox when there is a package?"
Him: "Yes, but I couldn't." [Note: our mailboxes have large slots in the top, such that anyone can easily leave a note at any time.]
Me: "Oh. Why not?"
Him: "[Something I didn't understand.]"
Me: "..."
Him: "..."

So as a side note, if you are planning to send me a package, it is probably best to let me know so that I can arrange to accidentally run into him and be told about it.

Encounter five was in the elevator. Three Germans got on a couple floors below me, and the concierge got on a few floors below that. When they saw him, one of them said [in French] "Oh! We've been looking for you." He said "Okay. I have to go to the basement, but I'll be right back. I'll be back in two minutes, two minutes" and got off on a different floor. Immediately after the doors closed, one of the Germans said [in German] "Uh huh. Sure. Suuure you'll be here in two minutes. I just bet you will." So at least now I know it's not just me, hehe.

Anyway, today I finally got around to writing down all of the things that I told him were broken in October and handed him the list. He looked very surprised and acted as if he had never heard any of this before, and promised to fix things "soon." So, we'll see.

I have a huge note file I've been keeping of things to post about, and now that all these errands are out of the way, maybe that will actually happen more. I'm curious to know whether anyone is still reading after all the radio silence, so drop me a comment if you are! And now, I am very late to dinner at Hannah's, so I'm off. (Hi, Hannah! See you in five minutes.)