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22 September, 2000

I am looking forward to being able to post updates that are inspiring and exciting, about how we've come to a foreign country and it's great. That will have to wait.

We have bought the Audi. It's a great car, sort of like a European Mustang. It has a nice low rumble, and it's quite powerful. Yesterday, when we went to get insurance, we brought our great big notebook full of papers, including our motor vehicle records from Colorado. The DMV records state that neither Gia nor I has any kind of record. The insurance is surprisingly cheap -- about $360 for a year!

It is this cheap IF you can prove that you have a clean driving record for the past ten years. So we drove downtown yesterday to MAAF Assurances, and found out that because the DMV reports don't say when we started driving, but only that as of 2000 we have no record, they don't constitute proof of a clean record. Apparently the reports could cover only the last two years, or I could have learned to drive when I was thirty-three or something. The report would have to say "From 1982 until 2000 Andrew Swift has committed no offenses". A subtle but important distinction in the minds of the insurance agents.

Yesterday I spent a while on the various phone with our ex-insurance agents and the Colorado DMV. When Gia got our reports, all she would have had to do was request a "Full History" as opposed to just a "Department of Motor Vehicles Report", but of course they didn't mention the option. Anyway, We have gotten a fax from Gia's old agent specifying that she has been insured since 1988 and caused no accidents. This turns out to be enough evidence for both of us. We are very excited at the prospect of finally being able to see the surrounding areas this evening.

The phone saga appears to be over, but we will not know until next week for sure. It is indeed impossible to get voice messaging where we live, despite the several colorful and glossy brochures we were given when we signed up for it. However, we have an amazingly well engineered answering machine (responder) and phone in one. So far, after two hours of use and two messages, it seems to work great.

Another saga is in the works. Originally American Mayflower told us that it would take six to seven weeks to ship our things to France. So, we sent everything on July 21st, reasoning that that way everything would arrive between September 1st and September 8th, i.e. during our first week here. Today, I called the English agent who is handling the non-American stuff. Apparently American Mayflower didn't even ship everything from the U.S. until September 5th. It is due to arrive in England on the 25th. It will take several days to clear customs there, and then it will be another two to three weeks before the English company has a truck in this area. That means a projected arrival date of October 15th through the 22nd.

What this means to us is that many many things we shipped were of the category: "things we need in France but can do without for a few days." This includes virtually all of my clothing, important business resources, all my shoes (I've been wearing flip-flops for a month), and probably lots of other trappings of civilization that I've learned to do without by now and can't even remember.

So, if you do this yourself, steer clear of: Qwest, AT&T, American Mayflower, France Telecom. In fact, every single company we've dealt with that has more than about 5 employees has screwed up catastrophically since we started. Except the airlines (thank god). I'm sure there's a message for someone in this... for more information visit the BIBA website at www.boulder-iba.org.