Yesterday we got good news. Our resident's cards are ready to be picked up. When we turned in our applications and documentation on September 3, the woman we met with told us we might well get the convocation or "summons" to come back to Blois and pick up the new cards early in October. She seemed very efficient, as well as friendly and helpful, and this early notification that our cards are ready just underscores all that.
The reason I was so stressed out by this whole process — especially when we couldn't even get an appointment before early September, even though we started the process a month earlier than the official instructions said we needed to start — is that I'm going to North Carolina in three weeks. This will be my first trip "home" since my mother passed away in February 2018. I was worried that my trip might be jeopardized by the resident's card renewal schedule. I had already bought non-refundable plane tickets and paid 50% of the price of a rental apartment in N.C. for my stay when everything threatened to go haywire.
But the most important factor was this one: I had also invited an old friend who lives in California to come and spend a week with me on the N.C. coast. Sue has been a friend for more than 40 years, and she has visited Walt and me here in Saint-Aignan three or four times over the past 15 years. For years, Sue had told me she would love to see the N.C. coast one day, after seeing my photos of the place and hearing stories about it over so many years. Finally we had a plan for a trip there together, and now a silly administrative snafu was putting the trip at risk.
Sue had already made her flight arrangements for the trip as well. As I may have said before, the last few times I've flown off to the U.S. from Paris, the immigration agents at the airport have asked me to produce not just my U.S. passport by also my French resident's card before they let me go board my plane. Everything is computerized nowadays, and I assume the agents can see on their computer screen information showing that I live in France. Fortunately, I've had the resident's card with me each time and was able to show it to them.
In addition, in two different airports in North Carolina over the past few years, when I was checking in and registering my bags for flights, airline agents have questioned me because I am flying to France without the normally required return ticket. U.S. citizens aren't allowed to travel one-way to France unless they have either a return ticket or a long-stay visa issued by a French consulate in the U.S. To stay in France for more than 90 days, you need to prove to French authorities that you have the financial resources to stay here without needing to look for work. Getting a work permit is a long, arduous process, and seeking employment without one is illegal. In my case, once I showed the airline staff my French carte de résident, they knew I was legitimate and let me continue my travels.
There you have it. I was really worried that the resident's card process might force me to change my travel plans and sacrifice the money I had paid out for airline tickets and an apartment rental. Sue's trip would be jeopardized too. Now I know that won't happen. Walt and I will go pick up our new cards at the préfecture in Blois early next week. I have now booked a rental car and paid the final rent installment for the two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo on the beach at Morehead City where Sue and I will stay. Wish us luck with the weather — the last thing I want to happen is for another hurricane to strike the N.C. coast right before or during our trip.
Wonderful news! Now you can continue your travel plans without stress. I hope you have a great time showing Sue your North Carolina coast.
ReplyDeleteIs October still within the hurricane season? Or can hurricanes happen any time of the year?
ReplyDeleteIn Hartford, Hereford, and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen. ;)
DeleteHurricane season runs from June 1 to November 1. There are often hurricanes in October. One of the worst storms we ever experienced in N.C. was Hurricane Hazel, which hit the Carolina coast in mid-October, 1954. I was just 5 years old, but I remember the damage it caused. Two trees blew down in our back yard as I watched from the kitchen window. Bricks were flying through the air as the wind blew harder and harder and damaged the chimney of the two-story house next door to ours.
DeleteCouldn't resist the Hartford, Hereford, and Hampshire bait: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Bl_AGu-sfw
DeleteIt was such a wonderful musical. Apparently they're doing a Broadway revival of Music Man with Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster. Starting in October.
Good news about your CdR, always a relief when the préfecture doesn't mess you around too much. Enjoy your trip to NC. Good idea to go back and have a plan like catching up with a friend, so you can focus on that and mark the occasion. There is a definite and perceptable tightening of border procedures even within Schengen. I'm hearing lots of anecdotes. We had our IDs checked on a suburban bus in the Pyrénées, close to the border with Spain. I was able to use my new CdS for serious (as opposed to just ID for getting a discount at the swimming pool for example). The gendarme read every single minuscule word and took forever to hand it back, but never said a thing (apart from 'bonjour' obviously...).
ReplyDeleteCouldn't you have just shown him a British passport? I asked before and I still wonder how you qualified for a carte de résident permanent. In my case, it was because I had already had one 10-year carte de résident and I'm over 60 years old. Walt couldn't qualify because he is not yet 60. So his card will be a 10-year model one more time.
DeleteKen have a great trip. May the water be warm and your seat upgraded.
ReplyDeleteI've had good luck with Delta flights non-stop between CDG and RDU over the past few years. A lot of the time the flights, especially the returns from RDU to CDG, have not been full at all, so you could get very comfortable. I don't sleep much on planes, but I enjoy watching movies and TV series during the flight. And taking pictures out the windows when it's daytime. As for the N.C. water being warm, well, I don't plan to go swimming in the ocean, though the idea is tempting.
DeleteOh, this is great news, and I'm excited for you to be making this trip with your friend Sue!
ReplyDeleteI met Sue through her cousin Cheryl (you probably remember her as a blog commenter) in Paris in the summer of 1975. Cheryl and I were both grad students at the U of I in Champaign. Sue had moved to California after she graduated from the U of I in the late '60s. We became really good friends, with Walt too, in the late '80s and through the '90s. We all spent the Christmas holidays together every year for more than a decade, and with Sue we often went camping in national and state parks along the California coast or up in the mountains (Yosemite etc.). Thinking about that time almost makes me homesick for California, but I'm even more homesick for France when I'm in the U.S. than vice-versa.
DeleteTalking about Cheryl, I thought about her earlier today when I went to the post office which is across the street from Le Troquet, an upscale gourmet restaurant where Cheryl, Walt and I had lunch several years ago. Time flies! Give my best regards to Sue.
DeleteThanks for the info re hurricanes. As usual, I'll keep my fingers crossed .
That's good news, Ken! What a relief that your expectations regarding your trip to the USA now do not have those threatening limitations!
ReplyDeleteSo glad you can make this trip without the worry about your resident's card.
ReplyDeleteSuch good news, and that sounds like a good trip. Glad Sue can get to see the Carolina coast at last.
ReplyDeleteFor chm and any others, a good site for tracking watery weather is nhc.noaa.gov, the NOAA hurricane page. Very matter-of-fact, no clickbait alarmist headlines, just what it's doing and where it's headed. I find it quite reassuring when all the commercial sites are shrieking.
I find that site one of the most useful weather sites when these storms are threatening.
DeleteEmm thank you very much for the link. Very matter-of-fact, indeed!
ReplyDelete