Recently we were turned down to exchange our driver's licenses from Kansas with a French one. We have a friend in Claire - who we call our "woman of peace" who has gone before us in so many situations in helping us with our school and everyday life. She has helped us with many governmental things. Once again Claire has come to our rescue. She has worked at the Hotel de Ville (city government office) in Versailles for many years (Versailles is the prefecture for our area). Recently she decided to take a year off. (can you imagine?) She can return later to her job. She wants to spend time with her older children and especially with her 9 year old Guillaume. The French allow a mother to stay at home for a number of years (15 if I remember right - someone correct me if I'm wrong) while raising children and can go back to their jobs later. I know, it seems hard to believe from a USA perspective.
Claire looked on the French diplomat website and found that, INDEED, Kansas has a reciprocal agreement with France. I don't know what our sous-prefecture was looking at when they said we didn't but we are going with Claire. Let's hope when we show this webpage to the office - via letter as they requested - unless Claire intervenes even more - then we may have strong reason to celebrate. I have been emotional about this whole ordeal. Believe me, it is an ordeal - not that it can't be overcome but I'm just trying to drive in this town with a stick shift. I was practicing with my son-in-law Joe with his car in the states so we are making progress. It's been since 1979 since I drove a stick.
I really didn't want to have to pay tons of money (1000 euros per person minimum if we pass the tests and could go up to 1500) and go back to driving school and take 2 exams. Using the analogy of a track runner, we have all been jumping over many hurdles in life and we are hoping to jump this hurdle with more ease and less cost.
No comments:
Post a Comment