Adventures in Bureaucracy

Today we began the saga of obtaining a green card for my wife Claire.

I am often giving Claire a hard time about how ridiculous the French bureaucratic system is. This was illustrated to us quite nicely during our early attempts to obtain my Carte de Sejour (working permit) , during which we were told that perhaps my carte will be ready by the time Thanksgiving rolls around.

Well, after our day at the American Embassy, I'm afraid to say that the American Way is just as ridiculous, if not moreso. Friday is apparently "Green Card" Day at the American Embassy (the others are reserved for people seeking simple visas). The door opens at noon, but apparently to secure yourself a spot you have to line up several hours earlier. For instance, we arrived at about 10:30 am and although we weren't in serious danger of being sent home, the majority of people had arrived earlier than we had, and I'm pretty sure that not everybody waiting got in. Anyways, at noon we fortunately made the cut. We then proceeded to wait for another several hours until finally we met with somebody and handed over our paperwork while they reviewed everything. After that there was a little more waiting (I think it was while the employees were all eating their lunch), followed by a brief interview of about 5 minutes duration during which they asked us questions to make certain that we are indeed married and that Claire plans to work in the United States. All in all, the entire process involved about five hours of waiting for about 10 minutes total of contact time, and this was just the first step.