Now We're Legal!

Yes, we have permission to stay in France for another year.

 

There is a ritual we must go through every year: request permission to stay for another 12 months. Today we submitted our documents, and were told we’ll have our Carte de Séjour in a month or so. Yah! To celebrate we went to one of our favorite Places in Montpellier, Place de la Conourgue, and had a glass of Prosecco.

 

The newly-renovated Place de la Canourgue on a quiet weekday

This annual ritual can be quite stressful. The worst part is setting up the appointment, which can only be made on-line. Appointments are doled out in a rare and seemingly random fashion, so snagging one requires checking often. Not so hard, until the weeks slip away with no available appointments as the expiration date of our visa approaches.

 

It wasn’t bad this time around, and we moved to the next step, collecting documents. Financial records, proof of residency including our rental contract, copies of various official documents. Exactly what will be required is a bit of a mystery, and the fear is always that something will be required that we don’t have!

 

The appointment itself is sort of a cross between going to the DMV and visiting the dentist: dull bureaucracy mixed with fear of what might be found.

 

But this time all went well. We’d been in the building for a total of about 25 minutes (half of that spent waiting) before we were out with door with our récépissé, the receipt that will serve until our cards are ready.

The slightly famous unicorn statue in La Place de la Conourge

             Our Night at the Opera

And that night we furthered the celebration at the Concert de rentrée, marking the end of the summer and the return, or rentée, to “normal” (i.e., post-vacation) life. Traditionally, everyone in France goes on vacation in August. These days there’s quite a bit of vacation action in June and July, as well. But come the first week of September, folks are back, the kids are in school, and the routine begins again.

The Opéra Comédie/Berlioz in Montpellier

 

So this concert was a sort of tip o’ the hat to the September return, and the first event of the season. This concert was held at the old opera building, and I must say we went not so much for the music as for the chance to see the inside of the opera. It is a mainstay of Montpellier, holding down one end of the city’s main plaza, the Comédie, but we’d never been past the foyer.

 

Just for comparison, the somewhat more ornate Palais Garnier in Paris (image from Google Images)

Built in 1888 (according to the date over the stage), the building has an almost-opulence that shows a good effort with limited funds. Once over the initial amazement at the rich interior, our first thought, as we took our seats on this warm September afternoon, was that air conditioning had not been invented in 1888. It was quite warm inside! But we were thrilled to be there as the seats slowly filled, the musicians came on stage and tuned up, and the conductor’s baton fell.

 

Interior of the Montpellier Opéra Comédie

 

The fabulous ceiling and chandelier of the opera building

                    

                    Around Town

COVID is still big news here, as it is everywhere. A few months back Emmanuel Macron, président de la République française, announced that cafes, restaurants, museums, concerts, and other events would open again, but no one would be allowed entry without a pass sanitaire, a health passport, showing they were either vaccinated, or had a negative result on a COVID test no more than 72 hours ago. Over 114,000 people immediately took to the streets to protest; nearly a million more signed up to be vaccinated.

 

 The protests are on-going; before COVID the Gillet jaune protestors had Saturday afternoons reserved for their increasingly-violent protests against new taxes and things in general. The lockdowns shut off those protests, but these days they are back, now full of anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers. In fact, we get weekly emails from the US Embassy in Paris warning us of potentially-violent manifestations (demonstrations) all over France.

 

It makes France seem like a violent place, but as we learned in Paris during the COP21 talks in 2015, street protests are a sort of national sport in France. We just avoid the appointed spot for the manifestation around the stated kick-off time and go about our business.

Meanwhile, we noticed a line forming outside one of the tents set up for COVID testing; mostly young people. And I realized the strategy: if you can't or won't get vaccinated, just get a test before going out for the night: a negative result, and you're allowed in! Starting October, through, the tests will no longer be free. So the test will add another $30 to a night out. Vaccination, on the other hand, is free...

 

A COVID test tent on a main street in Montpellier

 

 

The weather is still warm, but cooling, with no danger of the feared canicule (heat wave). But summer is clearly ending, with shorter days and quicker twilights. The leaves haven’t started to change yet, but some trees are looking rather tired. And the calendar of events here in Montpellier, both musical and cultural, is filling up.

 

There is an upcoming guitar festival, lasting a month with venues both here in Montpellier and in surrounding communities; next weekend is Les Journées des Patrimoine, a celebration all over France of culture and heritage. Many municipal and some private sites that are not normally open will have a sort of public open house, inviting us common folk in to admire gardens and architecturally significant buildings that normally are closed off. We have a map of some 30 or more places; we’ll have to select them carefully, as there certainly won’t be time to visit them all.

 

 

 

Beyond that, towards the end of the month we’ll be going to Nice (the French city over on the Italian boarder) to see our expat friends Mark and Mary, who are considering moving there after several years in Paris. We were going to take the train down, but we’re hatching another plan: rent a car, and after Nice, keep going east to Italy… and Venice. Maybe stop in at the lakes (Lago Maggiore), re-visit the Dolomites? Plans are forming, stay tuned!

 

Expect to see some changes in the blog! We will be changing our hosting from Blogger to WordPress, which I expect (hope?) to give more flexibility in formatting and presentation. The good news is, we expect to see some interesting changes; bad news is, transitions are always hard! 

Stick with us though, and we’ll work through it.