Everyone planning on staying in France for longer than 3 months needs to apply for and successfully obtain a long-stay visa through the French government. The application process is simple, especially for people like me who have a pre-approved work contract through the government: a 2-page application form, immigration form, work contract, and ID photo are all that you need to present at an interview at your local branch of the French consulate - mine was in Boston. You go in person for an interview that you must schedule no more than 90 days before your departure, but need to book the appointment for sometime after you receive your work contract (we were told to expect to get our contracts in the mail anytime between the beginning of June to mid-August). The whole visa issuing process is supposed to take only 2 to 3 weeks, thus I figured that booking an appointment on August 6 - a whole six weeks before my intended departure date of September 14 - would be more than enough time. When you go for the appointment, you can choose to leave a pre-paid, self-addressed envelope and your passport with the consulate, so that way they can affix the visa in your passport and just mail it back to you when it gets issued, or you can make the trek back to the consulate yourself to pick up the visa in person. Since I had to make the 2-hour journey to Boston from Westfield for the appointment, I didn't really feel like going back a second time when I could just receive my documents by mail like I did the last time I needed a visa, so I left an envelope...
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| The State House in Boston |
Four weeks go by, and I start to wonder where the heck my visa is. On the consulate's website there is a link to check the status of your application, and every time I check mine, I am told "Your application is still being processed. Please check back at a later date." After emailing the visa section of the Boston consulate four times, both in English and in French, I start to become frustrated/even more worried when no one answers me back. The only phone number for the consulate brings you to a phone tree, which only further directs you to email addresses you can use to contact the consulate - the ones I had already unsuccessfully tried. Time is ticking down now: my passport is essentially being held hostage at the consulate, no one is responding to my inquiries, and I am becoming more and more stressed out; there's no way to travel to France without a passport, never mind trying to work without a visa upon arrival.
To make a long story short, after contacting the woman in charge of the TAPIF program who works at the French Embassy in Washington, D.C. (one step higher than the Boston consulate), state representatives, congressmen, and even an immigration specialist at the Governor's office, I learn that there has been a "personnel change-over" during the summer at the consulate in the Boston, and since nobody there knows what they're doing, all I can do is wait. I was assured that I would get my visa in time for my departure, as the paperwork had already been sent to France and approved, thus the only thing they were waiting on was to physically print the visa (which looks like a big label), stick it inside my passport, and to have the Consul of France sign it.
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| The Zakim Bridge, as seen from the Charles River in Boston |
Flash forward to the Monday before I am slated to leave: still no visa. At this point I enter full panic mode, knowing that since I left the envelope, after the visa gets issued it still has to be mailed back to me, and thus could further be delayed by the USPS. More phone calls to D.C., and my contact there is able to speak with Boston to ask them to hold my visa/passport in the office so that I can drive out to pick it up as soon as it is ready. Late Tuesday afternoon (9/10), a mere 4 days before my departure, I get a much anticipated phone call from Boston - my visa is ready for pick-up, and I can go there between 2:30 and 3:30 pm any week day to get it! Finally!
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| View of Boston and the John Hancock Tower from the observation deck atop the Prudential Center |
On Wednesday morning (9/11) my aunt and I hop in my car and head out to Boston once again to go pick up my passport - so close I can almost taste it! Feeling optimistic and less-stressed now that I know I'll have my passport in time to leave, Aunt Wendy and I spend a nice morning strolling through Boston Common, had lunch on Boylston Street, and finally reach the consulate for 2:30 sharp.
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| Aunt Wendy & I enjoying a stroll through Boston Commons before my visa pick-up appointment |
I approach the counter with my ID and the woman heads over to the big box where all the completed visas are sitting, rifling through to find mine. Unsuccessful, she leaves the room and goes out back, at which point my hands start to get all clammy - she didn't have to go anywhere special to find everyone else's visas...
The minutes tick by and finally she comes back to her computer on the other side of the bullet-proof glass window separating the two of us. In thickly French-accented English, she says, and I quote, "It appears we don't have your passport or visa here." Obviously a bit flummoxed, I ask for clarification - afterall, I got a phone call from someone at the consulate telling me to come pick my visa up, an email saying the same, and the status from the visa application website finally got updated...
"Eeets in zee mail," she says. In the mail? I was told there was a hold on my file explicitly saying NOT to mail it, so I explain how I spoke with DC and they spoke to their contact in the Boston office, confirming the fact that they wouldn't mail it. "Yes, I know because I was that contact person, but we mailed it anyways...Next!"
Thank God for that glass window, because I'm pretty sure I morphed into the Hulk when she said that and would have vaulted over the desk toward her at that point...I had all I could do not to burst into tears of frustration right there in the office and sadly made the long journey back outside to find my aunt. At this point, I was completely disgusted, discouraged, and really annoyed, and as I trudged across the street to rejoin my aunt in a park, I felt like Ralphie's dad in the following scene from the movie "A Christmas Story," sputtering an incomprehensible spew of obscenities....
After 5 minutes of angry tears, we resigned ourselves to the fact that all we could do was hop back in the car, drive all the way back to Westfield, and have faith in the good ole' US postal system that my passport would make it to me in time for my flight on Saturday...
Thankfully, at 5pm on Thursday afternoon, less than 48 hours before my flight to France was set to take off from Boston, the mail truck rumbled down my street and delivered my passport & visa back to me!!! Never have I felt so relieved. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this ordeal is the most stressful part of my entire moving-to-France experience, because I don't think there's any possible way I could survive being that stressed out again! I was aware that France is known for its crazy bureaucracy, but never did I think that I'd be so personally affected by it. In any case, my adventure can only get better from here on out!
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