French (Re)Connection

This week marks my final week living abroad, abroad. This is to say that I have been living in the US for the past 7 months, but will now return back to Paris.

I have deeply enjoyed my time here in North Carolina, it's been refreshing and easy to live here. Obviously the lack of a language barrier goes a long way, but the people I have been working with have been a top shelf sort of professional.

Returning to Paris will be a mixed blessing. We return to renew our VISA's, but this renewal process comes three months after our initial VISAs have expired. This means that returning home could be troublesome.

We will be arriving at the French border control with clearly expired French VISA's in our passports, and very little in the way of compelling paperwork to justify our entering the country. Anyone reading this that is already familiar with border control agencies, regardless of nationality, are likely already cringing at this state of affairs as these agencies aren't known for their easy-going approach to their work.

Now granted I hold a Canadian passport, which tends to get me a lot of wiggle room throughout Europe as we are largely considered on the face of things the lovable tourists. I quite often get waved through checks in a number of different countries with little more than a glance at the ID page.

However, should a diligent control officer be manning the post, one who looks at all the details, My wife and I will likely be invited into a quiet little room in the back of the airport to answer lots and lots of questions. Questions that I rely on my companies HR/Legal team to back me up on.

With luck this won't happen. With luck we won't be rejected entry at the border and life in France will pick up right were we left off last summer. And if you know me well, you know that I am a lucky sort of person.

Yet I can't help but be mildly disturbed at what is pretty much a blind run at the border, all thanks to the lack luster support I have been given for all my VISA dealings from my company.

In the end though, it will be great to be back in Paris, at least for a while. I will get more physical activity again, more walking and a wonderful Parisian spring to enjoy.

In my last 7 months in the southern US I have gained a staggering 30 pounds (soundly negating the steady weight loss I was experiencing in Paris).

I look forward to walking to and from work each day, and eating a whole lot less fast food. As much as I have enjoyed my ability to call up and order a pizza and coke again, it's clear I have abused this ability. ;)