Getting our visas

We spent the following weeks figuring out the visa requirements listed on the French consulate's website, filling application forms, getting ID pictures for the whole family, making flight reservations, gathering documentation, making copies of bank statements, health insurance, our handy-dandy rental contract, even sworn letters promising we would not look for jobs while in France. 

Since there wasn't a French consulate in Seattle, we had to process our visas through the consulate in San Francisco. We showed up at the consulate with all our documents on the day of our appointment and waited to be called by one of the consuls for the interview.

The interview was actually the guy asking for all the papers we were supposed to bring, except he asked for them in a different order from the way I had them, so my job was to produce them as quickly as possible and, especially, with confidence. Our consul was okay, not rude but not friendly either, and no chit chat happened during the so-called interview.

Another applicant who was at the window next to mine was not well prepared and it seemed his consul was losing patience. I think the real purpose of the application process is to see how many people can actually figure out what they need to submit and then approve those who actually show up with everything right the first time.

Once I was done handing over papers and the guy was happy with everything, we were told that was it and that we'd eventually hear back from them. It was a relief to leave the consulate having submitted our applications successfully, and we spent the rest of the day being tourists in San Francisco.

Their website said it could take up to a month to process our applications. Although we didn’t think our visas would be denied, the waiting was stressful because you know your whole plan hinges on having them approved. Fortunately we did not have to wait that long and exactly a week later our visas arrived in the mail. We jumped up and down out of excitement—we were really moving to Paris!

That was the last hurdle and with our visas approved we could focus on getting ready for our move. We planned our arrival for the last week of August, about a week before school started so that we'd have enough time to settle in, fight jet-lag, get our bearings and the kids' school supplies.