Now, you and I both know that le joli bungalow translates to the pretty bungalow, not the jolly bungalow, But the lure of a transatlantic pun is irresistible and joli is one of a handful of adjectives that precedes the noun in French. Let’s embrace it.
In less than a month. I will be in France, not on holidays, but beginning my new life there. Much of the decision process and the preparations up till now took place off the blog because I was slammed by deadlines that were not of my own making. I’ve gotten through the worst of it all, or the best of it all depending how you want to think about it. I have my which will give me the right to live for one year in France and also to renew that visa annually. The Great Moving checklist is shrinking in length and I’ve had to re-copy it a few times so that I can see what remains to be done in the midst of all of the things that are crossed off. Now I love technology as much as anyone else, but when I’ve got a project that is staring me in the face with deadlines with a lot of desperate things that don’t connect to others or don’t have precursor in other tasks, my favorite form of a list is a big flip chart page with everything handwritten on it the position of items has significance to me. I get a bit of a thrill to be able to cross off either line items or entire sections. That’s just how I do it.
I may have spoken before on the French love of paperwork and bureaucracy. I have a secret love of forms that are well filled-out. I think I’m starting to develop the same pride and reverence that the French apply to the various dossiers or files that you need to complete different requirements, or perhaps my survival skills are just kicking in.
My master work of dossier was my visa application. It had spreadsheets and documentation for pages and pages. I was afraid it wasn’t going to be enough, but I got the visa. I wonder if they made allowances from me being anAmerican amateur.
Now I’m in the midst of another dossier and this one is my application for a French bank account. At this point, I’m going to tell you: don’t believe the horror stories on the web about how difficult it is to get a bank account. start the process before you leave your home country.
This is one of the principles that I live by, a personal Mantra.
I never knew it was supposed to be difficult, so it wasn’t.
Bear with me as posting has been sporadic due to the intense focus on the move.
