My Birthday/OFII

I've never had a vacation during my birthday, it was definitely bizarre but in a good way.
On the 23rd, the girls from Charleville (the next/biggest town in our department) met up for my birthday. I had decided that since we're in the Champagne-Ardennes region, we should do a champagne cave visit/tasting. I chose Pommery and off we went. It was a wonderful day spent drinking LOTS of champagne (after the Pommery in the afternoon we bought a bottle of Mumm) and eating good French food. All in all, quite lovely birthday.

Then, on the 29th was my OFII appointment. My original message about this appointment somehow never got saved (written en route to Switzerland on my tablet) so I'm re-writing it. I spent the 27th-29th in Reims (it seems that so far I've only gone to Reims and Paris, lol) exploring Reims and hanging out with the other assistants. The friend who I was staying with also had her OFII appointment on the same day. My friend back in the States who had done this program the year before told me that I should get to my appointment an hour early, to be the first one to get in. Well, my appointment was scheduled for 9am which meant leaving Anna's at 7am (she lives on the outskirts of Reims, so getting to the center of town takes half an hour, and getting to this x-ray appointment, 45-1 hour). We decided that it would be best if we walked since she didn't have internet at her place and the mediateque is closed on Mondays (awesome). I printed out the walking directions before I arrived and off we went, at 7am. Luckily we didn't get lost en route, in fact it was a wonderful little stroll where we passed THREE champagne caves! Upon arrival, we got a little lost since we couldn't find the right building on the street (where are the street signs/numbers France?!?!). After 5 minutes of debating if the building we were standing in front of was indeed the correct x-ray lab, we went inside. The building next to the office was an apartment complex that looked like a sketchy motel where some drug dealers and prostitutes hung out. After we went inside the xray lab building, we found two other people waiting, they came from a small town in the Champagne region where one of their neighbors made his own champagne (what?!?! Super jealous!) and she proceeded to tell us how amazing her small town of 2,000 people is and what a culture shock it has been. People drive their tractors on the roads and during harvesting season the air smells of champagne. Sounds delightful. She even has a French boyfriend, the guy who does IT at her school (they had been going out for 1 week) and he had driven her to the appointment- an hour and a half drive North.
Anyway, they proceeded to say that the building won't actually open UNTIL 9am, so there was no point in getting there early. So, we waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, at around 9am (more like 9:05) people began taking the elevator up to the 5th floor (where we were scheduled to do our chest exam). We all took a number and waited in the waiting area. Then, when they called my number, they took my passport and paperwork. After doing the paperwork, I waited some more and finally around 9:30 was taken to a little room where I dropped my coat and things off before heading into the lab for the xray. The x-ray exam was to make sure that you didn't have tuberculosis (because apparently that's still a thing here). Luckily I passed, wohoo! And they handed me my x-ray and told me how to get to the second building for the medical exam.
Off Anna and I went to building number two, but of course, since we're nice people we waited until EVERYONE, and I mean EVERYONE was done with their appointment so we could all go together (clearly nullifying the entire point of arriving early). After a few debates about which bus to take, we were all on the right bus and headed to our next appointment.
When we got to appointment number 2, we wrote our names on the attendance and waited until we were called. After 15 minutes of waiting, the receptionist informed us that there was going to be a shift change (because why would a French doctor work for 3 hours without getting a break). 15 minutes turned into half an hour which turned into 45 minutes. Luckily, after waiting for 45 minutes another doctor showed up and we were able to get this process started. Since Anna and I waited for everyone, we ended up being the 4th to last people getting seen (urg) AND we had a time table since we needed to catch a train to Switzerland at 3pm. My appointment went well, the doctor apologized for me being in Sedan (a common theme) and told me I was in tip top shape and gave me my resident stamp and wished me well. We were done around 12:30 and went back to Anna's to have lunch/get ready.

I couldn't be more ready for this vacation to begin.