The Details, Part 1: How to Get a Visa

When this whole journey began, I sought out other people's opinions and experiences, just as many of us do when we enter uncharted waters.  Those of you who know me (Rebecca) know that I have been in school for about 22 consecutive years.  Leaving school temporarily to travel was certainly something I thought about, particularly when I had a bad work week, but then always pushed out of my head, mostly because it seemed like a logistical nightmare.  Well, it is.

So when I applied for the job in Poitiers and got it, I asked others for advice.  How did you go about finding a place to live?  What did your partner do while you were abroad?  How did you get a visa?

Overwhelmingly, most of the people I talked to seemed not to remember the exact logistics of the process.  They said things like "Yeah, it was really tricky."  Or "Jeez, it took forever."  But when pressed for step-by-step explanations, it seemed that most people had deleted the details of the trauma from their memories.  "How could they forget something like that??"  At least this is what I remember thinking.

But now I realize that it isn't that the details had been forgotten, it's that these details remained thoroughly opaque throughout most of the process.  And sadly, though I had hoped to record the details of my application process so that they might benefit some future applicant in the same position, many of these details remain obscure to me.  However, in the spirit of open source information sharing, I will attempt to provide a rough timeline of the process (at least as Jeff and I experienced it).  Stay tuned for Part 2...