It's Like They Have Some Secret Code

I went to the school offices today to apply for my Carte de Sejour (residency permit.) For the record, it is biblically impossible to obtain any type of permit from France without having to visit the appropriate office at least three times. The good news is, this time I was able to leave and come back within less than an hour with the appropriate paperwork. The bad news is, I now have to go to a different office - the prefectural office - to submit the exact same paperwork. I don't get it - why don't they just have people go directly to the prefecture and skip the middle-man office?

And another thing I don't get. You can't obtain a student visa to even get into the country until a month before your program starts. Appointments for the Carte de Sejour - for which you need the student visa - are made at least a month in advance and you can only get the appointment after you arrive. In other words, you have to apply for a Student Visa in August for a September arrival to get, at the earliest, an October appointment for the CdS. And then the school CdS office where you submit your paperwork first assigns you your prefecture appointment for at least 2 weeks later (mine is Nov 15.) So basically the permit people really don't care that you have to miss a half day of classes to get the Carte de Sejour which is required in order to be enrolled in the education program from which you're missing a half day of classes. Are you confused yet? Because my head just imploded.

I think the moral of my France story: Never aspire to live in another country without the administrative and financial backing of a very large S&P 500 company, or the CIA.