There is stress and then there is French stress. No one can give a straight answer. No one can get a straight answer. And as soon as you get what you think just might be an answer that everyone can live with, it is the correct answer, until it is not.
Everyone has a different experience, opinion, and time frame. I am not talking about how to finesse your golf game or invest in the stock market for a quick profit. I am talking about being at the mercy of an organization called VFS Global. The infamous third party, hired by nations, so that their workforce does not have to do the grunt work of collecting the preliminary information for…
The prized Long Stay Visitor Visa to France
…or any other country that has aligned themselves with this elusive organization. And nobody within this organization is readily available to help you, ever. We have all been victimized by the autobot on the other end of the line, but I can’t help thinking that my Visa for France is more important than whatever situation you are waiting to get clarification on, when you run up against the automated receptionist. We have been warned, coached, and regaled with other’s VFS stories….some sail through the process. We are not. And, yup, pessimist that I am, I knew we would not. (Let’s blame it on the fact I am an adult child of alcoholics)
And so, we pray. To Mecca, to Yaweh, to the Fleur de Lis.
And google every form of VFS Global we can think of. And we scour our receipt, from the Atlanta VFS office, for any other email address or .com site we can. I, for one, obsess. Others state they could track their application with the receipt number the very next day after their appointment. We just get ‘invalid input’. That woman, handling Howard, seemed disinterested. Did she decide to pitch his application in the trash after we left? Doesn’t she know that discarding his passport is a federal offense? I am dreaming and scheming to rat her out. She has ruined everything….and then….
An email: Your processed application is ready for the courier
It was supposed to be couriered to DC the very day we sat in the VFS office. Typical southerners: slow, slow, slow. I will not miss them. But I will take an escargot movement over the pitched passport, any day, every day. All stress aside, we are moving to France!
I just do not know when our Visas will arrive….
P.S. Occasionally I may need to eat my words. And this is one of those times. Our visas were processed in record time. The email pointed to the fact they were being overnighted from D.C. and in to our hands exactly 7 days from when we turned in our applications. All is well, all was well. I just didn’t know it and I apologize to the VFS agent who handled Howard with southern hospitality and aplomb.