Today’s the day I stop complaining about French bureaucracy. After fretting about what I might be getting myself into, I made a long trip into the bowels of the 15th arrondissement to pick up a wallet that my friend Joe had lost (or more likely had stolen) when he was visiting Paris back in July. Somewhat surprisingly, he received a letter from the Paris police in early September that his wallet had been found and was available for pickup. Why he wanted to pay the 10 euro fee to retrieve the wallet, which appears to have been mended with duct tape, is a mystery to me, particularly since he’d already cancelled the credit cards and gotten a new driver’s license. I don’t know…maybe there’s something special in there. Trust me, I didn’t look other than to check whether there was any cash remaining. (There wasn’t.)

But back to my point. What a breeze. The process at the lost and found office was remarkably efficient. There was virtually no one there and I was in and out in under 10 minutes.