THIS IS IMPORTANT!! READ IT IF YOU ARE COMING TO FRANCE WITH BG AND ARE STAYING ALL SIX MONTHS!!
Once you are in France, you will need to get a lovely something called a Carte de Séjour. This allows you to stay here for the entire six months. However, the process was slightly painful, as I didn’t have all the documents I needed properly copied, nor, in fact, all the documents I needed. Also, the workers at the bureau where you get your Carte de Séjour seem a bit harried and not particularly friendly. Contrary to all the rumors you hear, this was the first time I had really encountered this unfriendliness in a full-blown manner in France, and I was unprepared. In order for this process to go more smoothly, I suggest several things:
1. Kevin will give you a list of what you need (including copies) the day or two before you go. Make sure you make copies immediately after he gives you this list. Don’t procrastinate! (I am such a hypocrite. But retrospect knows all.)
2. Buy a stamped envelope and write your local address on it (this is on Kevin’s list).
3. Make sure you have three photo ids. Official ones! With your face exactly in the middle and filling the whole thing. I don’t know what else to tell you, except that they are very picky and whatever you bring could still be wrong. Go figure. Luckily there is a photo booth nearby the bureau if you don’t bring the right photos. P.S. You need picture ids for lots of other things, too, so either bring several or buy them in Paris or right away (at the Opticien, believe it or not) once you get to Tours. Other than for the Carte de Séjour, they don’t really need to be super-official looking, so you can smile and such.
4. BRING ALL OF YOUR IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS AND COPIES OF THESE DOCUMENTS WITH YOU!! THIS INCLUDES VISA AND PASSPORT (COPY OF EACH, THEY ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS) AND YOUR BIRTH CERTIFICATE!! If you forget to bring one (i.e. I didn’t bring my birth certificate to France), it won’t likely be the end of the world…but better prepared than not, especially in a situation like this.
5. Put all of these documents in a separate folder so they are ready when you had to the bureau.
6. Buy yourself a pain au chocolat from one of the nearby boulangeries after you are finished if you feel like a tornado just hit you. Every now and then, chocolate cures everything?
It wasn’t really that bad. You too will survive!
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