Visa continued

So, another thing I forgot to mention about my return in France was that I immediately had some new visa procedures to carry out. First off, I was a bit nervous to come back into the country since I might have been in Europe for more than the 90 day allotment for American tourists. Now, this shouldn't have been a problem, since I have a visa within the limits of its validity. However, after what I did by going to London in order to get a stamp to activate (in theory, since nothing is actually scanned into a computer or anything...) the visa, I wasn't a hundred percent sure that the OFII (the French visa office) was going to accept that. But, my fears for reentering the country ended up totally unfounded. Not only did the guy not realize that I had been in Europe for possibly 91 days, but he didn't even look at the stamps that were already in the passport! He just checked the picture, told me my French was amazing, and then stamped it and let me go. I don't even think he saw I have a visa.

Anyway, after that I waited a weekend then went to the Cité Universitaire to give them all my documents in person. Usually, you just mail them to the OFII, and they send you a convocation for the medical visit (the final part of the visa process after which they give you a residence card, which may or may not be necessary given I'm here for less than a year—I've found contradictory evidence in all the paperwork). I did that before leaving for the conference, but they mailed the documents back to me, asked for more, and told me to bring them in person. So, that's what I did on my brother's birthday, October 27th. I got there at 10:00am for what should have been a very simple meeting. Instead, I waited in a long line until about 11:30, then a guy took my documents, made a folder for them, and then glued my picture to it (can you believe the French government pays someone to do that?), and told me to sit down in a chair for another half an hour.

At that point, I was starting to get a bit nervous. Not because I thought something was going to go wrong, but because noon is their lunch break and I was worried I'd miss mine. Well, at noon on the dot, they all left for lunch except one guy (the one who glued my sticker), who finally proceeded to look at my information. He gave me a medical visit date for December 4th, at which point I'll FINALLY be done with all of this!

And, that is my visa news. Nothing particularly interesting, but I figured I should be as complete as possible with this blog and I certainly don't want to miss any major updates in the visa procedure!