Administration, the Swiss way...

involves lots of waiting and paperwork. Today the first day I could go and do all my University of Geneva stuff. So I started at 10am, and didn't finish until 4pm. First up was the International Relations Office at the University, where I picked up my scholarship money order for the month, and some forms. The next stop was the University cashier to cash the money order in. Then I had enough money to go to the Student Residence Office sign my lease, pay my bond and pick up me keys. Unfortunately I needed to wait about an hour before seeing the person who was in charge of new students renters. Fortunately, she had so many students waiting for her, she let me have my keys before going to the bank with the form to pay my guarantee, as long as I promised to do it the same day and fax and mail the forms back to her as soon as possible. It was a little strange signing a contract in French. I will have to go to the apartment sometime this week to do an inventory check and maybe meet my new flatmates. After that I headed to the population office, 20 minutes bus ride away to hand in my forms for a residency permit. Where I had to stand in line for quarter of an hour to get a ticket to wait in another line. Love that efficiency. It was very quick and painless once I got to a counter about an hour later. I didn't even have to pay the fee due to the scholarship. Then I headed back to CERN, about an hour by public transport, so I could open a bank account there. I figure that would be easiest since that's where I'll be spending most of my time while I'm over here. I had to convince the lady to give me a bank account though, my CERN contract didn't have a high enough percentage of time spent here and I didn't have my residency permit yet and forgot to pay a temporary one. Luckily having the paper work from the my scholarship and my apartment was enough to convince her that I really needed an account. So now I have a Swiss bank account. *grins* Not one of those cool ones though. *sigh* I still have a more administration to do next week. Fun times.