30.09.11. How Chris's Love For France Grew At The Expense Of Italy.

As of yesterday, Thursday, 29 September, 2011, I am a French resident. Don't get too lathered up over this: my license to wear berets and not work beyond thirty-five hours per week will sunset next July, unless I can find a good reason to have my residency permit extended. (And I just might, ho!) But even so, I now have my work visa, my entry stamp, and my sticker from the French Office of Immigration and Integration (pictured below), and with their powers combined, I am just as French as Dominique Strauss Kahn. Though I really need to work on developing my sexual advances. 

This watershed moment occurred after one final sprint of administrative hurdles: a chest x-ray at the hospital; a general check-up at the Center of Preventive Medicine; and a visit to the French immigration offices, where I presented the whole of my bureaucratic and medical paperwork. Upon handing this stack over, I received my sticker and became official.

It was, looking back, a lengthy process, worthy of the finest wines and cheeses. There is no getting around this fact. I applied for my teaching job on January 1. I was accepted in April, and received my work contract in July. In August, I went to San Francisco to apply for my visa, which I received a few days later. I arrived on French soil on September 8th, and now, on the cusp of October, during this finest of Indian summers, the thermometer refusing to dip below 30°C, the last pieces have finally fallen into place.

But, for all of these hoops through which I hopped, the roadmap always remained clear. I was kept always informed of the procedural steps coming up, and as long as I had my paperwork in order, I never encountered any problems. And, perhaps most striking, everyone I met along the way seemed truly happy to be working with me. Maybe this had to do with my being an American who actually speaks fluent French; my impression is that there aren't too many of us around. But I will never forget the nurse yesterday at the Center of Preventive Medicine, who weighed, measured, and checked the eyes of a room full of Spaniards, Russians, Indians, and Northern Africans, and one American, in less than an hour, resorting to gesticulation when necessary, and never losing her smile. As she told me afterward, "I am the fastest person in the world. I travel to the four corners of the world in a single afternoon, without leaving my office!"

Now, contrast this process with my attempts last year to extend and formalize my presence in Italy. I had willing employers, but they were an agglomeration of individuals, rather than a single entity, and so I found myself in an administrative black hole. Nobody seemed capable of telling me what steps I had to follow to extend my visa or obtain a new one. My documents expired, I lost my chance to rent the most ideal writer's studio I have ever seen, on the top floor of an apartment building in the city center of Pavia, with a balcony looking onto the duomo, and I left the country.

I admit that I'm comparing pesto and béchamel, given that here in France I am part of a teaching program, whereas in Italy I was working freelance. Yet my friend in Italy who does work as a classroom teacher, and who is on contract with the public school system, has worked two years without having his paperwork in order. He arrives in Milan in the fall as a tourist, works throughout the school year, and departs from Milan in the spring for the US. Because he enters and leaves through Italian airports, which operate with the same arbitrariness and liberty as the public schools, the federal government, and the entire country, he is never questioned. And so he proceeds, floating in this administrative void.

I, too, might have found myself in this situation were it not for my girlfriend, who threatened to turn me in to the authorities as an illegal immigrant. (For my own good, naturally.) But I listened to the voice of reason, which led me north to France.

Now I have become an official resident. And I have found peace. At least until November, when I'll have to start researching my options for fall of 2012.◊