Prologue: Getting my French Student Visa

Hello, and a very warm welcome to my first blog detailing what my life will be like in the South of France! But before I share some beautiful photos and incredible stories, I need to get there, which means I need the proper authorization to go there…I must get my visa!

The visa process was honestly a bit of a journey: It took multiple months with multiple milestones that I had to complete. The first few steps centered around applying for my study abroad with CampusFrance (Études en France). I was able to these steps  in the middle of the night over the course of a few weeks at the start of my semester. To support me, IES Abroad provided many asynchronous resources on what buttons on the form to click, and what I should put into each box to ensure this goes smoothly. A week and a half later, I received an email telling me that I was good to go to apply for the next step: applying for a Long Stay Visa through the French Government’s website.

For me, this is the step where I encountered a large amount of anxiety. This comes from the fact that I do not live in a city with a French Consulate or a VFS Global Application Center (the company that the French Embassy contracts out visa processing for). For me, it was not as easy as getting a quick subway ride to a downtown location, as I had to travel to another state (technically a territory, but that is me being a poltical science major) to submit my documentation.

As a result, I was put in a situation where I had to travel out of my way to get my visa to study abroad; a case of travel-ception! What ended up working out well for me (and my wallet) was to tack this trip onto some existing travel I was doing, in my case, back home for Thanksgiving. Instead of my simple direct flight home, I had a bit of an adventure ahead of me:

1. My first step was to go get three early morning city buses to an airport a few counties over from where I lived. This step was only done to save roughly one hundred bucks on airfare! 
2. A  quick 90 minute commuter flight from a small regional airport to the nation's capital, D.C! Once I arrived, I was there early enough to get breakfast at the Tatte Bakery Chain and do some homework that was due before the holiday. 
3. A few quick metro rides to and from the  Visa Center, after dropping my bags off at Union Station.
4. An evening Amtrak train back home. Thankfully, I had enough time after the appointment to not only get a DC Bagel Sandwich for lunch, but also to grab a book and study at the Library of Congress for a few hours and work on an essay. 

The actual process at the visa center was cordial, professional, and unremarkable. There was a small security screening once I got inside, and when I was there  it took over an hour once I got there for my number to be called…but that is just life. I recommend following the instructions that IES Abroad and the French Government provide to the letter, and printing extra documents, all single-sided in color. Most of my interactions with the staff were them asking, do you have documents for this, and me pulling out what I have printed. 

I received my passport back in the mail less than a week later, ready to start my onward adventure!