Arg!!

Well that didn't take very long. As noted in my previous entry about immigration one should be wary of lines that move too quickly. It often means that the people in front of you, and thus you, are likely to receive a no.

That is what I got today. A big fat NON.

Looks like I will be making an unexpected detour to the French Consulate in San Francisco. They are lucky that I happen to like that city and that I happen to be going to the states for Christmas anyway. The problem is that I entered France as a tourist. It is impossible to transition from a tourist visa to a resident visa. So I need to go back to the US and visit my closest Consulate (a 2 hour flight from Seattle, thank you very much) and apply for a Visa D Long Sejour, famille ou conjoint d'un Français in person. Once I have that little sticker in my passport I can fly back to France and then I can ask for a resident visa.

"But Mary, what about the 6 months worth of rent receipts they asked you for? What about all the time you wasted waiting for those?!" you say? I know. Believe me, I know. Apparently that only applies to people married in France. If you get married to a Frenchman in France you have to wait 6 months before you apply for the visa to prove that you are not only married but that you survived living together in France for half a year and are therefore surely in love and worthy of a resident visa. Alternatively you can ask for a fiancé visa, which you have to apply for in person at the French Consulate in the States, then fly to France get married and then you can ask for your resident visa right away. 

However, if like me, you were married in the states, you have to have an entry visa in your passport before entering the country, period. Then, and only then, can you ask for a resident visa. Why the workers at the filtering counter of the Prefecture de Police failed to mention that when I first visited them in August? I can't say.