On the move - No.3
Step 3: Marseille - Paris
or "No need to cross borders to have problems"
January 8, 2016
After researching thoroughly on various websites, I finally found the perfect match. There was no picture, but it said “punctual, quiet, respectful, reasonable.” Boring maybe, but everything you’d want for this kind of short and sweet relationship. However, to have full disclosure, a fee was to be paid and availability was restricted to French credit card holders. It seemed too good on paper, I couldn’t possibly let it go, so I asked my sister to help me and she was kind enough to make the arrangements. This is when things started to go South - to Boulouris to be precise.
This train ticket, which would carry me all the way form Marseille to Paris, was delivered to my sister’s in Paris. “No big deal - she thought - the postal services are here to help.” Therefore, on the same day, she went to the post office and tracked mailed the precious piece of paper to Boulouris, where I would be receiving it within three or four days.
Two weeks went by on the French Rivera, family came and went, we christmassed together, our feet in the sand, wearing nothing much, enjoying a cool beer in the warm breeze, admiring the deep blue sea and red rocky formations. Two weeks went by and the mailbox remained empty. In the mean time, in Paris, the tracking numbers were patiently waiting on the mantelpiece for my sister’s return from her own vacation.
At first it didn’t alarm us. Indeed, the French postal services are reputedly late, even when they don’t have the excellent excuse of being on strike. But then, they are also infamous for their tendency to lose things, and it had already been two weeks instead of a few days. Beside, time had come for me to move away from the beautiful palm trees and beaches of my childhood to follow my mom to her flat in the white city of Marseille.
My perfect match still in transit, it is empty handed that I left.
A few days later, on her return from her vacation, the precious envelope still being in limbo, my sister headed to the post office, equipped with her numbers, to inquire about the location of the train ticket. It is only after fighting her way through the labyrinthine waiting lines, redirections, incompetent staff, and missing forms, that she finally obtained an answer.
If the French postal services’ reputation is already well established, it keeps on getting better: They managed to lose what couldn’t be lost. The tracking numbers couldn’t be tracked. The letter might have been posted… or not. It might have been here… or there. This was that, and goodbye Madam.
Well, if they couldn’t do anything about it, I certainly couldn’t do much else, except hope for a miracle. Carpe Diem.
It is in this spirit, that I calmly waited for my last day in the South of France to return to my grandmother’s. There, I found my passports, both the French and the Canadian ones, my international driver’s licence, and some other barely important papers I had been unable to locate for about a week - and secretly hoped I had misplaced there. This on its own would have been sufficient to make my day, but Oh marvel, Oh wonder, Oh miracle, bless the drunken god of the French postal services… All pretty and proud, on this very same day, at noon, the envelope arrived!
The wheel of fortune smiling on me, I hurriedly drove back to Marseille, packed, and left for Paris.