French Visas

In order to live in France for the school year, we need visas.  And in order to get those visas, one must apply in person (if over 12) at the nearest French consulate.  So, here we are, a few blocks from the French consulate.  In San Francisco.

A fun trip to San Francisco wasn’t really on our list of things to do before we left, but once we got the assignment to head to Albertville, we made our visa application appointments – which can only be made at least a month in advance – and here we are.

This morning Matthew and I and Axel flew into Oakland and, always making an adventure out of saving money, took the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) train from the airport to downtown SFO.  We are in a sweet little hotel in Little Saigon, but less than a mile away from the French Consulate downtown.

Axel did so well on his first flight.  He and I took a nap after an early morning.  And he loved the train across the Bay, ate for the first half, the half where Mommy and Daddy didn’t realize we were headed the wrong direction, and slept the second half, when we were finally headed west.

We got off the train, walked to our hotel, where they let us check in a little early, dropped off our bags (we are so proud of how light we packed – a backpack and a rolling briefcase, plus my purse) and headed to get some lunch.  We found an awesome Burmese place just a block away, then came back to rest for an hour before setting out to practice our route for our morning appointment.

The walk was a breeze and Axel loves riding on my back in the carrier.  After we found the consulate, we jumped on a streetcar and headed to the Fisherman’s Wharf.  It was fun to walk around, see the tourists (and be one!), and eat some delicious sea food – crab cakes and clam chowder.  We even took a moment to check in with Idaho – Amelia and Levi are hanging with some family back at the house, so they are in good hands.

Now we are resting back at the hotel.  We are also supremely grateful for the cooler weather!  I never would have thought, being a Washingtonian, that I would need to go to California to cool off from being in Idaho, but it barely got above 70F in SFO today and it has reached 100F nearly every day in Boise for the past three weeks!

Tomorrow morning, if you think of it, please be praying for a smooth appointment with the French consulate.  They will go over our millions (well, almost) of documents and see if we are fit to live in their country for a year.  Hopefully, they say yes and we will get our visas in about a week (seeing that the last two families we know to have applied for the same reason in the past month have gotten theirs back in a week).

Then tomorrow evening we fly back to Idaho and resume packing, sorting and getting our house in order to rent.  We are making great progress in all of those areas and the house is really coming together.

If you are getting this by email, check out a couple of pictures from today on my Instagram feed, located on the right hand side of our website.  Thank you for your prayers and thoughts as we countdown these last thirty days in the US!