Prefecture

We had an early wakeup to get to the Prefecture, otherwise known as "The Place Where Hopes and Dreams Go To Die," by 9 am. We were picking up the kids' DCEM paperwork. While we were there, we inquired about the status of our own application, which we had done in May and never heard anything back from, despite two inquiries from our immigration attorney.

The woman looked up our files and said, "Hmmm, your applications haven't even been opened yet. Go to desk 1 and they will help you."

So we went to desk 1, took our number, waited in line, and got to another clerk behind another glass window. We explained our situation and she looked it up in her computer. "I'm sorry, I can't even access your files from my computer. Go to desk 2."

So we went to desk 2, took a number, waited in line, and arrived to the clerk. We explained our situation, and she said, "I'm sorry, this is the Ukriane desk; we cannot help anyone else. Come back in the afternoon and see if someone can help you then. But we warned--there will be tons of peope in line."

So we got into line--yes, in line at 10 am waiting for the Prefecture to open back up at 1 pm! We were not the first ones in line. We were outside, no water, no shade except a pexiglass cover that probably heated as much as it protected.

I sent an email to the immigration attorney because without the paperwork that they had requested (twice), we wouldn't be able to return to France after our family reunion next week in Wales. I let her know that we were waiting at the prefecture and that, almost 2 months in, no one had even begun to look at our application.

And then...mysteriously...we got an email notification from the visa & immigration website at 10:51 am. After some crazy rigamarole to access the website--involving walking Ivy through the process over the phone--we learned that the temporary travel authorizations that we had been waiting for had arrived! I think this was not coincidence. We quit the line and headed home (we had sent the kids home long ago--no sense in making them wait, too). We are good for a few months, at least!

I had intentions to go for a swim this afternoon but I got caught up in work. Then I had to bring Zari to her anesthesia consult in advance of her wisdom teeth extraction in 2 days. She came down with a fever today and was miserable...but we decided to go and we'll reassess tomorrow afternoon.

We watched Zoolander with the cousins tonight. I haven't seen it since it first came out. Quite fun.