The Definitive Student Visa Renewal Dossier*

*For my specific préfecture in my specific situation in June/July of 2017. This always bears repeating, but any list of required documents you find on the internet regarding your visa situation even if you find it on the government's website is just a list on the internet. I recommend always, always going in person to your préfecture…

Mornings at the Préfecture

This is a lot harder to do when I actually have a job. Two years ago, I had time to waste an entire day sitting in various chairs, waiting for the wheels of bureaucracy to turn.  This year, I'm writing this post from outside the préfecture, where I've been waiting for about an hour. Let…

Immigration Insanity

It's that time of year! I recently created a shared calendar for our household, and there are three upcoming meetings at the Préfecture scheduled for this week. By meetings, I naturally mean, "ARRIVE AT 7AM TO WAIT IN LINE UNTIL 9 IF YOU WANT TO HAVE ANY HOPE OF GETING TO WORK ON TIME!" I'm…

Do Not PACS Go

Bureaucracy strikes... differently? Exciting news, I suppose : we went down to the tribunal to file for our PACS. There might be a problem with my birth certificate, but we wanted to try anyway. Worst case scenario, we would have to wait a bit longer, and I would have to shell out for a new…

PACS Paperwork

Will it ever end? Probably not! I may have mentioned that E and I are getting PACS'd. That means we plan to enter into "un pacte civil de solidarité," which officially does very little other than legally defining our relationship as a household when filing taxes and taking on debt. We couldn't adopt a child…