Day 10 (10 July 2010) – Cell Phones
Getting cell phones for each of us for our year in France has proven to be a bit difficult. We first tried to get them on Tuesday, four days ago. But since we didn’t yet have a French bank account we were denied. We went back this morning, French bank account set up, and over the course of two hours managed to get three phones. Those of you good at math will realize that there are four of us, meaning we are short one phone. 
Orange, the company through which we are getting service, accepted our bank information on three phones and denied the fourth. Twice. Once in the morning and once in the afternoon. We will try again in two weeks, the assumption being that we will have earned enough “equity” to qualify for a fourth phone.
The person fourth in line for a phone was Ella, seen here in this picture with me inside the Orange store. We took this photo before we knew that she’d have to wait a couple of weeks for a phone but during the two hour marathon needed to get the three phones purchased. Thank goodness we had Romain and Manon with us to do the talking. And Saad, the Orange employee who helped us, was more than kind. I can’t say the same about the guy who entered the store three times, and was kicked out three times, shouting at the top of his lungs.
French Sabbatical 