Residency Card for France

Celebratory lunch in Caen.

Thursday was a big day. We went to Caen for our appointment to get our residency cards for France. I had read in several blogs about what a nightmare dealing with the French government could be. Standing in long lines only to be told you had the wrong documents, or you needed extra documents and then repeating the same routine on another day with another clerk, only to have to do it a third time before getting anywhere.
Well we had a pleasant surprise. We showed up at the medical office, for the required physical, thirty minutes early. We were immediately greeted by a very nice young lady that spoke a little English. She checked us in and sent us directly to radiologie for chest x-rays. We took a seat and within five minutes, or one game of solitaire on the iPad, we were called back together by a young man. We were each directed into a dressing room and instructed to strip from the waist up. There were two doors on the dressing room, one leading into the hallway and another leading into the radiology department with the x-ray equipment. I stepped out into the x-ray room and the tech gave me instructions in very good English, I got my chest x-ray and went back in to put my shirt back on. Alice did the same. Exactly the same, no gown to cover her, she stepped out and the same male tech instructed her in how to stand against the x-ray machine and get her x-ray. She then walked back across the room and into the little dressing room to get dressed again.
She came out of the dressing room to meet me in the hallway and we walked back to take a seat in the waiting area again.
"That was a little weird," Alice said with a puzzled look on her face. Then she told me about it. We both shrugged, that's France.
In a few minutes we were informed the x-rays turned out just fine and we were directed up to the doctor's exam room/office. We were greeted by the doctor that spoke passable English and we took a seat in front of his desk.
"Do you smoke?" he asked me.
"No."
"Have been in the hospital recently?"
"No."
"What immunizations have you had?"
"None since childhood."
"Are you in good health?"
"Yes."
He then took vital signs, heart rate, blood pressure, and listened to my breathing. Then he filled out the forms, signed them and we went through the same routine with Alice.
That was it. Physical done, documents in hand and we drove to the OFII imigration office ten minutes away.
 There we were greeted by a lady that spoke no English, but a young girl that had just started working there was able to translate for us. We went into a little side office, handed her all our documents, the physical certification, our passports, a utility bill to show residence, a passport photo, and a receipt to show that we had paid the fee of 241euros in advance online. We chatted through the interpreter while she made copies, filled out paperwork and pasted two residence permits into our passports.
All done, welcome to France.
The entire process started at 9:45 and we were finished by 11:30, in time to celebrate over a champagne lunch in a restaurant across from William the Conqueror's Norman castle.