Ryan came over to watch the Golden Bears take on Air Force at the Armed Forces Bowl this morning, which started at the ungodly and unfootbally time of 9:30 AM. Cal quickly, but not entirely surprisingly, dug itself a deep hole by early the second quarter, giving up 21 unanswered points. That sad reality combined with the jingoistic and masquerading patriotism of this particular bowl game (sponsored by the friendly and, yes, patriotic folks at Bell Helicopter) made the whole affair unbearable.
What better time than this to take a quick break to make some bank wires, especially when banks were closing early today and we still needed to beat the East Coast deadline for currency conversion. The task went relatively smooth even though the friendly representative at the neighborhood branch had never done a wire transfer in foreign currency before (surprise, surprise). Never mind, there was money to be sent (even at an abysmal exchange rate of 1.525:1) and the second half of a bowl game to catch.
All was well that ended well when the money went where it was supposed to (knock on wood) and the resurgent Cal football team with a new quarterback, Kevin Riley, at the helms overcame the early deficit for an exciting finish in Forth Worth. A potential first losing season for Coach Tedford was thus avoided and the seeds of a promising new start were sown for the next season. Very well indeed.
[As always, be sure to check out the rest of our Parisdise afterward for much, much more!]
Eleven days until the consulate appointments and we think we have finally sorted out the translation issue. While the professional translation service might be desirable and even necessary for corporate clients, we have neither the deep pocket nor the need for that kind of precision (we think). Instead, we will go with the solo translators from craigslist.
One guy we contacted yesterday responded this morning. Though he didn’t provide the requested samples and references he seemed earnest and, most importantly, his rates were quite reasonable: 7.5¢/word or $18/page versus the pros’s going rate of 30¢/word. In the end, it really came down to cost, and the revised quote of $190 for just the two motivation letters from the profession translation service sealed the decision. That and the fact that our friend in Paris, Jean-Louis, agreed to take a quick look at the translation to spot any glaring problems. We’ll start this solo translator out with the two motivation letters at $18 each and will see how it goes.
Unfortunately, the money we save from the translation task will not go back into the Paris fund but will instead go to pay the hefty health insurance premiums. With the able and invaluable assistance of Alta Vista Translation, deciphering the insurance applications word by word wasn’t as daunting as it initially seemed. (Maybe we could even translate some of our documents ourselves.) The applications were rather simple; we just needed to confirm that professeur also meant teacher, to spell avocat with no “d,” and to consistently use the dd/mm/yy date format.
We selected March 15 for the coverage start date with the assumption that it typically took about two months to get the visas. If we did not get the visas, we could still get our premiums back but only if we provided Mercer with written proof before our policies began. Though we were trying hard not to think of this latter scenario, we couldn’t help but think that it would double the blow to have one’s visa application denied and to lose thousands on an insurance policy of no value.
We still needed to bind the policies before the January 7 consulate appointments. However, Estelle was out until January 2 because of the holidays, which left only three business days to do so when she came back. Hopefully that will be enough time; doing all this around the holidays is really a balancing act, on a tightrope.
Another issue to solve before mailing the insurance applications to France (before the Post Office closed today) was what to do about the payments. It turned out that our bank could not generate checks in a foreign currency so the applications ultimately went out alone. Fortunately, the payments could be wired in euros to the insurance broker, but this could not be done until Monday because it was already past the currency-conversion deadline on the East Coast.
It seemed as if it was not one thing, it was another. But that was OK by us because there was no point stressing over things we could not control. Besides, there was a good bowl game to watch at home tonight (Oregon State defeating Maryland at the Emerald Bowl for the Pac-10’s first bowl victory this post season) and plenty more exciting games in the days to come.
[As always, be sure to check out the rest of our Parisdise afterward for much, much more!]
Paris Diaries 