BETWEEN THE BAGUETTES, NUMBER 1
🥖 Between the Baguettes 🥖
A small nibble from French expat life
NEW FEATURE
Introducing a new feature to the blog: Between the Baguettes, small nibbles of our French expat life in between larger blog posts. So, keep an eye on your email for the baguettes, and know that a brief update is headed your way.
VISAS
This week’s major agenda item was to register our visas with the French government. If you’ve never seen a visa, it’s printed on your passport and looks like this:
REGISTRATION
Registering is important because it starts the time clock for several items: when eligibility for the French health care system starts; when completion of the exchange of drivers’ licenses must occur; and when it is time to apply for the next one-year visa. Until Russ and I reach the five-year mark of residency, we are only eligible for renewals of one-year increments. At that time, we may apply for a five-year or ten-year residency or potentially dual citizenship.
Since Covid, this process occurs online, but despite an “English” option the reality is it must be completed in French. For example, instead of indicating your status as “married” in English, the word “bride” pops up. Pretty confusing. And although my ability to read French far exceeds my comprehension of aural French, Russ and I opted for help from our hand holder group Renestance for this key task. Sarah, who also assisted us with our visa applications, walked us through the process. In less than a half hour, we were registered!
DOSSIERS
We are now officially French residents and eligible to enter the world of French bureaucracy. Next steps are to begin the process of assembling dossiers for our drivers’ licenses and health care system applications, all requiring a list of documents to verify our existence. Wish us luck!
Love how this mini blog turned out! The baguettes are perfect(now I’m hungry for a loaf,lol) Congrats on an important task accomplished! I’d say dinner celebrations are in order.
Cheers ~ trish b.
I agonized over this post more than I do over a regular long blog! So your comment is much appreciated!!!
Leslie
Leslie: At least you didn’t have the Medicare fun I had. Or did you before you left?
I will get that joy from abroad!
So happy to see this. I’m sorry I missed our chat last weekend! Looking forward to the next!!!
Xoxoxo
Kats
Love you! Catch you next weekend!
Leslie
What a whirlwind! So happy you are successfully navigating! Love the updates!
Hello from Montpellier…miss our breakfast gatherings!
❤️Luv it!
Just got up to speed here as you transition to the dream life! Love the photos and all the details of your challenges and endeavors. Nice job rolling with it as you “get with” the culture and acclimate! I wish everything shut down on Sunday’s here too!
Enjoying another Sunday – it does take some getting used to but I’m sure it’s good for us! Thanks for checking out the blog. Love you!
Your rookie mistake post was hilarious (sorry – but I was laughing WITH you, not AT you, I promise!) 😉 Oh how I miss that bread….
It’s okay to laugh at me…I was laughing at me! Thank you for reading along!