What's a Visa?

I almost wish I didn't know. But it just so happens it's the ticket to the lifestyle I have in France. You can work in France without one, but you don't get all of the perks like a nice work contract, health care, government rent help, vacation pay, knowing you won't be forbidden to come back if caught working, etc.

The visa process is grueling and tedious and must be done from outside of France. First, one must have a work contract within France. (However, good luck getting one before receiving a visa.) Then, one must fill out numerous applications, take mug shots, send everything off and wait for a reply. Once all of the paperwork has made its way over the ocean and back two or three times, one must then go to the nearest French Consulate, which may be a plane ticket away. Once at the consulate, paper consulting, verifying, and fingerprinting takes place. If one is lucky, one will leave with a visa glued into one’s passport.

In my case, the paperwork never arrived. There was a glitch in the system somewhere and I was left to wait on the San Francisco consulate hold line purgatory for hours before making panicked phone calls to France in the middle of the night and waiting for that vital fax to come through. Somehow, magically, it all worked out in the end, but it still leaves me in a nervous sweat to think about it.