SETTLING IN - CultureShock! A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette - page 139

SIDA Information Service
24-hour hotline tel: [phone]
Website: http://www.sida-info-service.org
Act Up Paris
Tel: [phone]
Website:http://www.actupparis.org.

International activist association with weekly meetings.

Deaths
Deaths must be certified by a physician and reported
to the mairie within 24 hours. The certifying doctor will
explain the procedures. Only after such official registration
may a funeral or repatriation take place. Notify your
embassy officially and it will provide assistance with
the paperwork. For information when someone dies, contact
the municipal Urgences Funéraires (tel: [phone];
website: http://www.servicesfuneraires.fr). See Pompes
Funèbres in the Yellow Pages.

MANAGING YOUR MONEY
The Euro
On 1 January 2002, the euro (

) replaced the national
currency of 11 countries. As of this writing, five newer
members have qualified to be part of the euro zone. Thus,
if you travel in any of the 16 countries here mentioned, you
need not worry about exchanging currency or whether you
will be left with unused foreign cash when you return. (The
EU zone now consists of: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland,
France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta,
the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain).
For more on the EU, see Chapter 9.
Each country pegged the euro to its previous currency.
In France, for example, one euro was deemed to be worth
6.559 francs. There was thus a permanent rate for people
to convert their currency to the new one. Even now, some
shops and real estate brokers still give their prices in francs
as well as in euros, but this is slowly being phased out.
Although currency values themselves do not fluctuate
within the eurzone, prices do. During the transition, for

€