CarTrip

After living in France for two thirds of a year, I finally broke down and bought a car. There's a nice board at cern for people buying and selling things and I found a car there that I liked well enough to buy. That was the easy part.

Oh yeah, the car, as you can see, is a 12 year old plymoth minivan. (Yes, that means I DO in fact have the coolest car of all of the three Triplett brothers.) Why this car? Well first off it is an automatic and I'm not really wanting to learn the nuances of driving a stick at the same time I'm learning to drive in a crowded European city, especially since it's been months since I've driven at all yet. Secondly, it will be great for hiking/biking/backpacking/rock climbing with friends. And there are mountains here after all.... Oh and I can fit my fridge, couch, washer, and such in it for when I want to move. Much nicer than having to hirer professional movers. Lastly it was cheep because of the way the license plates are, only an ex-pat working at cern, living in France long term, could really buy it.

So now that I had a nice car to drive around in, I had to go through the steps of getting insurance and license plates for it. Insurance was a pain. The company here needed proof that I had been insured and had no claims if they were going to give me a good rate. Unfortunately the insurance company back it the States seems to have lost that piece of info. Luckily, Dad managed to argue with the insurance company in the US long enough that they gave me the proof I needed. Of course the insurance company here wasn't any faster. About 2-3 weeks after I bought my car, I was insured and ready for the hardest step of all. Getting license plates.

So a bit of background. My car has (or rather, will have) green license plates. Green 'K' plates are something like diplomatic plates which means you don't have to pay tax on the car in France and such. In this area only ex-pats at CERN living in France qualify really. The problem with the green plates is they take a lot of work to get. However this car had green plates on it before, so if I wanted to change them to regular plates, I'd have to pay to import the vehicle to France or such. The other problem with green plates is that they take 6-8 weeks to get. In order that people can actually drive in the mean time you can get temp plates.

So there are 3 locations that are important for getting these plates. The first is the French customs place which is in CERN at one of the sites in France. It's about a 15 minute bike ride from either my office or home. The second is the 'installation office' at CERN which is just down the hall from where I work. Lastly is the equivalent of the French DMV in Gex which is about 10 miles from home and up in the Jura mountains.

Here's the steps. First I had to go to customs with the guy selling me the car (a semi-famous string theorist) and he had to sign it over to me there and we had to give them the old green plates. Then I had to get insurance. Fast forward to three weeks later. Off to the installation office where I had to give the lady there about 5 different forms all in triplicate of course. That was to apply for the real plates. Since I wanted temp plates I had to come back an hour later (“I need some time to make all of the copies and stamp them all” says the lady at the office). An hour later I have the three copies of the form I need, all stamped and signed. I take them back to the customs office where I get some more stamps and they keep one copy. The next morning I get on my bike for the trek up the mountain to Gex. 45 min later I make it and walk in, take my number, and an hour later I had the lady at the desk the last two forms. She takes them, and 10 minutes later I get called back up, give them 35 euros and they hand me a nice grey piece of paper and say bye. The end.

Wait, I'm confused now. What do I do with this grey piece of paper? Lucky for me, another guy from cern was at the DMV and doing the same thing I was. I asked him and he even knew. Apparently what I had was permission to buy a license plate. In France the DMV doesn't make or sell the license plates, you get them at a key maker or garage. So I bike back home (only 20 minutes this time, yay downhill). After lunch (during which everything is closed of course) I bike down to the mall in the next town over and find a keymaker who makes me a set of plates. Coming home I screw them on and jump in my car to take a trip.

There's this nice place a few Km above Gex where you can go rock climbing. So I put my climbing shoes on and drove out there. Stopped to get some food and I had a nice afternoon bouldering, eating, relaxing, and taking pictures. Lots of wildflowers out.