Junior year of college I studied one semester in Italy. This was 20 years ago, in the early days of the internet, and so once I gathered all the necessary documents, I woke up early one morning to visit the embassy. December, 6am, huddled in an extra coat for hours on a Midtown sidewalk waiting for office hours with an ever-lengthening line of fellow beseechers. Luckily I had everything required, and didn't suffer an invented whim of the interviewer. I surrendered my passport for a few weeks, then repeated the pre-dawn vigil to retrieve it, now graced with an iridescent green-gold student visa.
Fast-forward to now. I want to improve my French, to build a full life, comprehend the culture, and communicate with élan. I am formally and legally saying, "Hey France! I like you a lot, let's hang out!" For several months the response was, "Hmm, yeah. Or maybe just fuck off?"
Bureaucracy in France is pretty notorious. I get it, it's hard being so cool and sexy and smart, with everybody fawning over you all the time -- especially scads of overeager international students. But did they have to resort to such tactics as:
- hiding the log-in page on the application website
- requiring a resume and letter of intention written in French, when you are applying to learn French
- requiring the signature of the mayor of the town where I'll live
- employing a smarmy for-profit third party to process the paperwork, with a useless and kafkaesque helpline with operators that neither confirm nor deny even the most basic information, so that eventually you break down and eat the cost of multiple visits to Chicago, and finally after twisting in the wind to breaking point you receive your visa the day before you are supposed to fly to France...
'Tis such stuff as green card marriages are made on. But in the end, I made it. I get to stay a whole year, during which I hope to continue trundling about with and consuming the contents of my cheese-filled rucksack on a more local level, and with an expert guide and partner.
Lots of nice fun things also happened, like beach picnic and fire
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