French Residency

This is just a quick update to let everyone know what has been going on. I will try to go back later when I have more time and write more about my holiday and put up some photos and stuff like that.

Basically I went back to sydney (via china - more on that later) to sort out all the paper work for my french residency and to apply for my visa. The hard part was supposed to be over - I already had the permlission to work in France (My company applied for that in March), I just had to get a visa. It was supposed to take 2 - 3 weeks and I should have been back in France by the 1st of June but my file was held up in Paris and I didnt end up get my visa until the end of June.

I finally got back to France and thought I could start work straight away but as it turns out I had to have an interview and a medical exam and sign a contract with the french government promising to integrate into french culture (very similar to the "australian values" crap John Howard is trying to introduce in Australia). Anyway I was given an appointment for 17th July and I couldn't start working before then. So in the mean time I spent a week in Bordeaux staying with a french friend of mine (Sandrine) at her parents place (more on that later too).

So Yesterday was the day of my "welcome to france" and I spent several hours at the department being shuffled around to watch a video about life in france, have a french language test, an interview and a medical exam. In the end I finally got my certificate to start working, so here I am back at work two and half months after I left.

I still have to go to the prefecture next week to apply for my residents permit, and in september I have to do a full day of "Civic Training". But basically I now have the right to live and work in france for pretty much as long as I want to.