By Capts. Dave and Desiree
After our successful passage to France, we now have been working on getting ready for our winter transition on to land. As some of you may know, we have been working on obtaining our long-term visa to stay in France, which we started with the French consulate in Los Angeles. We were told, when we received our initial approval from the consulate, that's exactly what it was-an initial approval, and we would have to complete our long-term visa when we arrived to France. After much effort, we were able to obtain a "corner" piece of dock space in the port for a week in Nice, hoping to get our paperwork settled, and find the boat yard where we would be wintering the boat in Marseilles.
When we arrived to the "prefecture" (located in the centre administration-yes, that's French), NOBODY spoke any English. I used every French neuron I had acquired over the last couple of years to understand this huge department of bureaucracy. After standing in line for two hours, I showed the woman at the desk our completed paperwork. She asked us for our address, which I gave her of the boatyard near Marseilles. She stopped me then-she said we would thus have to apply in the district of Marseilles!!!
Such is the French bureaucracy, so we rented a car the next day, and off we went.
We were able to settle the "boat lodging" fairly readily in the small Port of St. Louis for the winter. The owner of the shipyard was very helpful, and told us he would assist us in any way. I stopped by the small tourist office, and again, NO ENGLISH. I learned that the prefecture we needed to go to was not Marseilles, but the small town office in Arles (think about dealing with an office in Downtown L.A. vs. Fillmore). A stroke of luck and my survival French led us into that direction. Imagine spending a whole other day in an administrative office in the large city of Marseilles versus a tiny town named Arles (and then getting Das Boot out of their with only wasted time to show for our efforts!). Not that it was THAT straightforward, but after two days more of getting things in order, we gave the gentleman our remaining paperwork in Arles, and at least in theory, we should have our long term visa in one to two months. After our week's effort, we went off to the small island of Ile St. Marguerite-see the twins' entries-for a few days and relax after surviving the French bureaucratic gauntlet.
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