Official papers

B and I are working on signing a PACS. I thought it was supposed to be much easier than getting married, although I think now the easier part is ending a PACS (just make an appointment and dissolve it; no proceedings).

I went to the American Consular Post in Toulouse about two weeks ago, which was a strange experience. It's a tiny office in a regular building without any plaques outside. The only way to know that the Consulate is there is to look at the mailbox in the entry. After a security check which required me to leave my water bottle outside, my cellphone and iPod in a drawer, and to take off my boots for a metal detector, I was permitted to enter. I forgot I had a pocket knife with me, but the guard missed it in my purse because it was under some tampons. I'm not sure what that says of their security.

Anyway, I filled out the form I needed in front of the staff women, and then waited for the Consular representative to come and verify the form and put the official seal on it. I had to wait 5 minutes while she was on the phone, so I picked up a book on the coffee table about the Ambassador's residence in Paris. I'd forgotten that Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were the first two ambassadors to France. The book had nice pictures of the various rooms and gardens, but I was really put off by the patriotic text. According to the book, the residence serves as a home-away-from-home for Americans living in Paris by hosting events and receptions. I miss bagels and brunch and TLC, but faced with America-is-better and the-secret-wish-of-all-Americans-is-to-return-to-the-US rhetoric, I'm ready to forget my complaints of train station smoking French and dog poop on the sidewalks. I felt really out of place in the Consulate, as though I was going to have to vow my allegiance to America, or risk losing my passport.

Let's not forget that the document cost me 24€ as well, but it was cheaper than the translation of my birth certificate. I was born in Germany and the copy of my birth certificate that I recently requested is only in German, not in 6 European languages like the older copies I had were. B and I forked over 30€ to a translator for him to translate the one page document. Poop on the requirement of using translators "assermenté". I could have translated it just as well.

Luckily the documents we've requested from the French courts are free. You get what you pay for though, which means I'm still waiting for the last document.

I think we might take up B's parents offer of a PACS gift, not to celebrate the relationship, but the fact that we jumped through all the paperwork hoops. Too bad there's no trapeze act.