Day to Day Travel Diary, October, 2013
After about three weeks in the United States, we have returned to France.
Carol and JB, bundled up, overlooking the Snake River in Wyoming
The original plan, when we left a year ago for France, was to return to the US in September for our annual trip to Wyoming. This is where we make believe we are cowboys at the TrangleX Ranch, in Moose (really!), Wyoming.
So, since we were going to be in the US anyway, we made plans to visit friends, do a few doctor appointments and stuff like haircuts with our “real” stylists, who actually know which hairs are supposed to be cut.
We could not wait to get on the plane to Toulouse. We left the US on September 28. We knew that on September 30 we had an appointment at the Prefecture du Lot, sort of the county office building, , to renew our visas. This was one day before our long-stay visas expired!
The idea in France is that you can stay here with this special “visa de long séjour” for a year, and then every year you have to get it renewed. If you do five in a row, then you can apply for permanent residency.
At the end of August, we had previously visited the Prefecture and met a great woman in the office where they do this visa stuff. We did the first 30 minutes of the meeting completely in French, and at one point we ran into a word we did not know. She said, in English, “I think the word you want is ‘s’habiter’, which means ‘live at'”. At that point, the cat was out of the bag, and we knew that in actuality, she also spoke English!!
As it turns out in France, and a lot of places, you do the best you can in the language of the country, in this case French, and if the other person speaks a little English, sometimes you use that. And between the two languages, you make it to the end!
Long story very short, we had had to get “original” or official copies our birth certificates in the US (this is the long story – we had misplaced them). This took us a lot of effort and expense. So now, with our second visit to the same woman, we were old friends!
She looked at them for 30 seconds, said “OK”, and finalized our applications. We will return in the beginning of November to get official rubber stamps stamped on our visas to last for the next year.
We have moved into a new house, between Cazals and Gindou. Address-wise, we are officially in Gindou, a bustling metropolis of 80. We have met the mayor, and a few other people, which means we know about 10% of the people in the city, uhhh, village. Gindou actually has a jazz festival and outdoor movie series in the summer which is quite well known.
The countryside is still incredibly beautiful here, of course. The fall colors are starting to show, and the surrounding hillsides are dotted with farm houses.
Upon arriving, one of our first priorities was to find a vendor for firewood. The issue here is that you need to have good oak that has be “seasoned”, or essentially dried out, for at least a year, without being rained on. A good reference where to get firewood is like gold. As the fall progresses, good firewood gets harder to find.
You can see some pictures of our firewood being delivered, and the final cleaned up result of our “wood cave”, which is sort of like a “man cave” but there is no TV or beer.
We also got a new spark screen for our fireplace. Hopefully this will help to keep our little house warm, cozy and safe for the winter.
Click for October, 2013, page 2.
Posted November 2, 2013 by JB Leep (Google Profile)
Daily Diary in France, French Visa, Cazals, Gindou, France, Carol Martin and JB Leep, November 2, 2013