Permission to Land

Deciding to move to France was the easy part. I had heard of the Canada-France Youth Exchange Agreement two years earlier from my mother, who had heard of it from a woman she sat next to on the plane. It is an agreement made to facilitate the procedures for extended stays in the other country. There are no administrative fees nor does one have to have a job lined up before applying (as one does for other long-stay visas for France).

The 2E Visa, called the Working Holiday Visa, is the most general as it doesn't pertain to either professional or educational development. Not being a professional, nor a student, this was the one for me.

The application process itself was long but not particularly arduous. I had a lot of paperwork to collect but most of it was fairly straightforward. In October, I had an appointment at the French consulate in Vancouver to 'hand in' my application. You can also mail them in but by going in person, there is the possibility that they'll grant you the visa right then and there.

For something as simple as handing in a manilla envelope, I was totally freaked out. Rational thought told me that there was no reason I would not be granted the visa. Irrational thought panicked at the thought of not getting it and having to face Plan B. Plan B, of course, didn't exist.

But of course, it went completely smoothly and I walked out of the consulate with an official 2E Visa card attached in my passport. I was now allowed to live and work in France for the duration of a year, in my case from January 4 2010 to January 4 2011.

Now I just had to get there.