chapt 1 in the quest for a visa

First try, I walked to the Castellane neighborhood, big and clean and wealthy, from my apartment near Noaille, wild and dirty and dangerous, in search of the U.S. consulate. There, a security guard behind a huge metal gate told me I had to call for an appointment. He gave me the phone number, and I called from a pay phone around the corner. No answer, so I left a voice message though the recording told me I shouldn’t expect a call back for calls regarding visas. I stopped for a coffee and to read the paper in this new neighborhood before returning home. Second try, I called the Marseille consulate from home, where a woman answered and played dumb. She said they didn’t deal with visas there and that I’d have to call the consulate in Paris. Third try, I called Paris, where another woman played dumb and told me that because I am in Marseille, I should call the consulate in Marseille. Fourth try, I called the consulate in Marseille again with the news that the Paris consulate sent me back to them. After much questioning, the woman on the line told me that in fact, the U.S. consulates in France know nothing about the laws for obtaining a French work visa and that I should go to the Prefecteur. I hung up the phone and put the Prefecteur off for another day. I’d been warned this would be a painful process.
My love for this country is unrequited. My heart has attached itself to memories of moments recently passed, gazing at the cerulean blue of the ocean and jagged mountains in the distance, blending in with the untamed landscape bordering a wild, lazy city. But today I feel this country doesn’t particularly want me here, or simply doesn’t care enough to clarify itself. Rotten really, and typical.
Of all days the weather could choose to be nasty, of course it’s chosen this one. The sky is swollen with the intention of rain and the need to detoxify itself on us below or explode, causing the common question of the faceless dreary day pedestrians concerning when the clouds will shatter under the increasing water pressure to linger in the air.
After reflecting for a while, I’ve changed my mind. This city loves me immensely, the way a teacher loves a student enough to test him and challenge him and push him to the limit to confirm the conviction that he will not quit so easily. But this is far from my limit. I can endure so much more (and will have to if I’m going to pursue this obnoxious quest for a work visa) as long as I abandon that quirk I have of fleeing the moment things get uncomfortable.