Visa Drama

Now I’ve never had the pleasure of getting a Visa before so I don’t really have anything to compare this to but our experience felt insane.  Marc, however, was not surprised.  He felt it was all very typical of French bureaucracy.  First off, we had to schedule appointments with the French consulate online, not by phone, not by e-mail, not in-person.  It had to be online and the problem was that there were no appointments available.  The website clearly states that you should give at least 2-3 weeks for the turn-around time and mind you we were only at 6 weeks out.  We tried to get appointments for at least 2 weeks with no luck before we started to freak out.  At this point Marc started e-mailing the consulate hoping we might get a response.  After several attempts we finally heard from someone assuring us that more appointments would be available soon.  Marc checked every couple hours over the next day and finally more appointments appeared on the screen and he quickly grabbed 3.  The website instructions state that every Visa request must have its own appointment! We received 3 appointments for August 8.  We had changed our flight to August 24 so again the turn-around time was not much but at least we had our appointments.  

With the 2 weeks leading up to our appointment we meticulously got all the paperwork in order, following the instructions to the T.  We promptly arrived 30 minutes early on the day of our appointment with 3 separate stacks in order and ready to be submitted.  Every box was checked and yet we were still nervous that we may have forgotten something.  We patiently waited for the consulate to open.  Went through security and waited for our name to be called; I had the first appointment.  A very kind French woman called me to the window and was willing to complete all 3 of our applications at the same time.  So far things were off to a good start.  

As she starts to proceed through our paperwork she abruptly stops, flips through the paperwork several times, and then switching to French starts asking Marc questions.  She calls over a Supervisor who proceeds to ask further questions of Marc.  With my limited French at this point I’m only understanding about half of what’s being said but I could tell that things were not looking too good.  Finally Marc stopped corresponding with them to bring me up to speed.  Apparently our American marriage certificate was not enough to show that we were married.  They wanted to know where our French documents were.  What French documents?  We didn’t have any French documents and let me point out that no where on the website did it say we needed French documents!  Marc hadn’t filed our marriage, or for that matter the birth of our children, with the French Consulate and so as far as they were concerned Marc did not have a wife or kids!!  (I guess I kinda screwed up on this one - Marc) With a 6-month processing time, taking care of these documents was not going to be possible before we left.  At this point we were definitely starting to panic. What now?  

The ladies who were helping us informed us that there was another option.  Rather than getting visas as a spouse and children of a French national we could go on tourist visas.  This would still allow us a year in France however now we would have to pay for the visas, show health insurance for the year, a notarized letter stating that I promised not to work in France, and enough funds in the bank to support a year in France without work!  That last one was impossible.  The Consulate expected us to show $2000 per person per month for the extent of the trip.  If only we had that much in savings.  The Consulate was willing to get started on the Visas while we got the rest of the documents in order.  2 weeks and 2 days left before our flights  Ugh!!! 

We left there feeling the pressure to figure this out and fast.  That afternoon we purchased emergency health insurance for me and the girls, about $1000.  Then we were back on the phone with Marc’s brother asking for his assistance in basically assuring the French consulate that he would be the financial sponsor of me and the girls.  Thankfully he was able to do this for us and overnight put together all the necessary documents!  Another reason this trip would never have been possible without the generosity of Marc's family.  I typed up a letter promising not to work in France and found a notary who was willing to meet me at 9pm to notarize the letter.

Short side note here about my experience with the notary.  We agree to meet after work at the local Starbucks.  I beat her there and realize that the Starbucks is closed.  So I call her and we change our meeting to the Peets a couple of blocks away.  She was running late and didn't arrive for another 15 minutes or so.  When she got there we exchanged pleasantries and set-up to do the notary, which at this point she discovers that she has forgotten her notary book at home.  She asks if I could wait for her to go home, get the book, and return.  Ummm, No.  Instead I suggest I follow her to her home, which she agrees would be fine.  I follow her home and she quickly takes care of the notary.  What was going to be a $60 notary, rather than the usual $10, because of the "convenience" of having her meet me, actually ended up being free since she felt bad she had forgotten the book.  I arrived home exhausted but relieved that finally all the documents were complete, scanned, and off to the Consulate.  Now we just had to wait and hope we would get the Visas before our flight.

The week before our flight we had still not received them.  I honestly was half expecting that we would have to drive to the Consulate on our way to the airport to pick them up. However that was thankfully not the case.  The Friday before our departure they arrived!!  Relief is not a strong enough word to express how we felt.  Finally the task was complete and without much time to spare!

Preparing for a Year Abroad

Of course there is the romantic idea of spending a year abroad and then there’s the crazy-ass reality of actually making it happen.  Not to mention the time crunch we had given ourselves.  Not intentionally but it just so happened that by the time we put all the pieces together to make the decision it was mid-July and in order for us to get there in time for the girls to start school it meant we had about 6 weeks to put the entire plan into action.  There were many times when I wasn’t so sure we could do it. Here's how we did it.

Step 1 – Tell Our Jobs

I'm not sure that I've ever seen Marc as anxious as when the moment finally arrived for him to tell his boss.  We both knew that we had to be ready for our bosses to let us go.  We had to take the leap. Most people are not afforded the luxury of taking a year sabbatical and then returning as if they had never left.  Imagine our surprise, and relief, when both Marc's boss and mine informed us that they would allow the leave of absence and would hold our jobs for us until next summer!  That certainly takes some of the financial pressure off of the question what happens when we come back. Step 1 was a success! 

Step 2 – Change Our Flights

We had already decided that we were going to go to France this summer for our vacation.  At the time though that was only a 2 week vacation and we were scheduled to leave on August 1st.  Well as much as 6 weeks was a stretch to get everything in order, 3 weeks would have never worked.  So we had to call Swiss Air and change the flight.  $1700 later we had a new leave and return date.  Ouch!! But I guess we can count that as a success.

Step 3 – Get Our Visas

This was one of the most stressful tasks of all. I've decided to give it it's very own post.  To be continued......

Step 4 – Find A Renter

Next, we had to find a renter for our cottage and inform the renter of our house that we were going to have to raise the rent in order to cover the mortgage, insurance, and property taxes while we are away.  Thankfully he was willing to absorb the increased rent and we were fortunate to find a renter within a week of alerting our friends that we were looking for someone.  We were especially excited to find someone who wanted to come out to the Valley in order to have their kindergartner go to our amazing Open Classroom.  Win-Win.  Step 4 definitely a success.

Step 5 – Minimize Our Expenses

Here's where the rubber meets the road.  We are heading to France with minimal savings and non-paid leaves from our jobs.  The plan is for me to continue my online nutrition counseling practice so I can make some money while we're away but the need to streamline our expenses is critical.  First, we decided to sell one of the cars.  This would reduce our car payments to just one and lower our insurance.  Then we had to go through bill by bill to decide which ones we could cancel while we're away.  One of the biggest expenses in France would have been lodging.  This would have been cost prohibitive for us if it wasn't for Marc's brother and sister-in-law offering us a home to stay in for the year free of charge!!  We will also need to buy a car at some point but for now will go by foot, bike, or bus.  Thankfully we will be within walking/biking distance of the girls school.  We also had to find someone to manage our home while we're away.  A property management company would have been somewhat costly so instead we "bribed" one of our dear friends and gracious neighbors to be our go-to person on the ground with the promise of French wine and other treats when we return.

Step 6 – Pack Up The Entire House

In order to avoid the cost of a monthly storage fee we've decided to streamline all of our belongings to fit everything in our 10 x 12 storage shed.  This required quite a bit of cathartic purging, which hopefully we won't regret when we return home.  Let's just say that by the end we were throwing away or donating a lot.  My amazing packer of a husband actually made the rest of it fit.  It's hard to get the full effect but here's a glimpse of what the storage shed looked like when we were done.

Step 7 – Pack A Year’s Worth Of Necessities
The last and probably most emotional for the girls was deciding what to bring with us to France. At first we considered shipping some items, like winter clothes and toys, but dismissed that idea once I discovered it would be roughly $150 per box.  So that left us with 4 suitcases, 4 carry-ons, and 4 backpacks/bags.  Tears were shed and at one point my oldest daughter, Lola, declared that "she's overwhelmed and just can't take it anymore".  In the end we paid for one extra suitcase ($85) and squeezed in as much as we could into a total of 5 suitcases, 4 carry-ons, and 4 very full backpacks/bags.

At certain points the promise of an amazing adventure ahead of us was not enough to off-set the complete chaos and stress we all felt in those last couple weeks before we left.  My youngest daughter, Teah, tearfully asked at one point "do we have to go to France, I don't want to go anymore". Not to mention the roller-coaster of emotions involved in saying good-bye to all of our friends and family. But despite all of this we did it.  We packed it all up, we rented the house, we said our good-byes, and we left for France.

Why France?

After the initial (insert surprise emoji here) response from telling our friends and family that we had decided to go to France for the year the first question is why?  Let’s start by saying that my husband, Marc, is French and his entire family still lives there.  Although we’ve gone to visit many times it has never been longer than 2 or 3 weeks.  I have always been lucky to be close to my family and have grown up believing in the importance of family.  Once we had kids it occurred to me that a 2 week holiday every other year with Marc’s family was never going to be enough for the kids to feel really connected to their French family.  Once we had kids it also occurred to Marc that he wasn’t going to be able to teach them French.  The back and forth between French and English was too much.  As much as he tried to only speak French in the beginning it quickly defaulted to English until eventually it was English all the time.  The final piece was a bit of a mid-life crisis I suppose for Marc.  After being at the same job for over 20 years he finally decided that he needed a break.  He was burnt out and his heart was no longer in it.  So with those 3 ingredients it became clearer and clearer that France was our solution.  It would allow a break for Marc, an opportunity for the girls to connect with their French family, and an opportunity for me and the girls to finally learn French.  The decision was made and now the gears were set in motion to actually make it happen.