Visa Update

So a real quick update on our Visitor and student Visas. We both were approved for our visas. It was very stressful opening the envelope from the French Consulate. We were both very nervous to know if we had met the qualifications or not to live in France. I took a breath of relief when I saw my approval for a six month stay;However, Jessica had a bit of a scare since the consulate had made an error and distributed her the incorrect visa and cancelled it, but the correct student visa was on the next page approved. After receiving our visas in the mail we went ahead and purchased our plane tickets and we leave on January 12th and are scheduled to arrive in Paris at 9:35 AM on the 13th of January. We will then take the train from the airport to Amiens and check in at our hotel. The next day, January 14, we will move into our apartment.
       Until we take flight we will be moving in with my dad and step mom. We will be out of our current apartment December 15th. It is hard to pack up and get rid of everything you have surrounded yourself with for the last 3 years, but we are excited for what the future has in store for us. Till next post safe traveling!

Galveston Vacation: Day 2

So I know there has been a big gap between postings, but we had a lot of things go on in the past two weeks. So on day 2 of galveston we went to one of our favorite mansions on the island Bishop's Palace. We went for the basement to attic tour which gives you tour of the entire house, different than the first and second floor tour we went on a year and a half ago. Another benefit of this tour is we were allowed to take photos of the interior of the house. The tour was amazing and we highly recommend it to anyone who is in Galveston.
        After we finished the tour we went to eat at Fisherman's Wharf. We got great service as usual and the food was delicious! Jess had a surf and turf with a filet mignon and lobster tail with a side of basil risotto and asparagus. I had a seafood fondue with crab, gulf shrimp and lobster. After lunch we went back to the hotel to relax for a bit. We had some excitement back at the hotel when the hotel staff forgot to mark what room we were in and we had some guests walk into our room. After that got settled we headed out for dinner at a local little pizza shop and then drove around the island. We finished the night off with a visit back to Bishop's Palace to take some night photos and then headed back to the hotel and packed so we could head back home and wait patiently for news of our visas to France! Safe traveling!

Galveston Vacation: Day 1

So after our short stay in Houston we drove down to one of our favorite holiday spots, Galveston Island, Texas. We arrived a little earlier than expected so to kill some time before we could check in to the hotel we drove down to the Strand District to eat lunch and walk around all of the little shops and of course visit our favorite candy and chocolate maker LaKing Confectionary. For lunch we returned to a Sushi restaurant we first tried about a year and a half ago called Sky Bar Steak and Sushi. The Sushi was just as good as we remembered and being the only people in the restaurant we got great service. Being done with lunch we headed down one block to Strand street to begin our walk down Strand street and visit some of the shops. Our first stop was LaKing Confectionary because Jess loves their royal pecan Clusters so we stopped in to get a few as well as some sour candy belts.

They also make some great ice cream sundaes and milk shakes, but being the middle of the day with a cool breeze we passed on the ice cream. Shortly after we had our treats in hand it was time to head back towards the Seawall Boulevard and check into our hotel. Shortly after checking in at the hotel we noticed their was a minor mistake with the room, but we quickly got it sorted out and got a new room which was exactly what we were looking for. We had planned to go to Fisherman's Wharf for dinner; however, once we had began to relax in the hotel room we realized just how exhausted we were so we decided to try the new restaurant in the hotel parking lot called The Gumbo Diner. For dinner Jess had a Greek salad and I had one of their cheeseburgers with fresh cut fries, and since we are on an island we got an appetizer of 6 oysters which were served on a half shell, but they were cooked in a char-grill oven with Ricotta cheese filled shells.

They were pretty tasty, but the food overall was decent but for the price we decided to mark this restaurant off of our list for future visits. That was the end of any excitement for day one, we just decided to stay in, hang out and plan our adventures for day 2.

Visa Interviews

Hello all,

So today Jess and I had our consulate interviews. Earlier I wrote that we thought it would just be me interviewing this Friday, however her CampusFrance document was sent ten minutes before we needed to cancel her appointment. Gives a sense that this move is meant to be. So we were late coming into Houston and checked in to our hotel around 11:30 PM then we worked on getting her paperwork around. Luckily our appointments were scheduled for mid morning and the hotel was only around the corner from the consulate. We got into the visa department no problem and only had to wait about thirty minutes before they called us for our interviews.  Both of our interviews went very quickly with minimal questions about our documents that we submitted. The interviews really are just turning in of paperwork, the consulars did not ask any questions about us except a few questions to understand the documents we were turning in. Unfortunately they can not tell us then if we got the visas or if we were denied, but since they had no issues with missing documents or any major concerns about the paperwork so we will take that as a positive. Also during both of our interviews the people interviewing us made small talk and joked around with us, so  think we will get some great news in about ten days or so. After we left the consulate we immediately headed down to Galveston to relax and enjoy the beach as well as do some sight seeing at some of the oldest houses on the island. Safe Traveling!

Visa Preparation!

So for the first true post I am going to just share our experiences getting ready for the visit to the French Consulate in Houston to obtain our Visas. So we are in a few unique situations because we are each going for a different kind of visa which means some of the documents we both have to get and each of us have our own documents we have to get. So to start off Jess is getting a student visa since we are going over to Amiens, France so Jess can finish her french degree. We scheduled our Visa appointments around a month ago to make sure we could have plenty of time to gather the information the consulate wanted and to make sure we had plenty of time, but of course some of the paperwork took longer than we expected so we are thinking we might have to make two trips to Houston.

              The first visa I will focus on is the student visa. This visa, which Jess needs,  has fewer document requirements than the long stay visitor visa that I have to get. It should have been easier for us to gather her documents, but the school was not as helpful as we had hoped. In addition, the process with CampusFrance is taking way longer than expected so it has pushed her off of the original time table. However we have done everything we can and are waiting on two documents that are out of our control so we are just waiting to see if we need to reschedule her visa appointment. 

            For my visa I had to obtain several other documents such as non criminal certificates, verifications of bank funds, deed to an apartment in France, letter promising not to work, and proof of health insurance while traveling overseas. These documents took a long time to get but I was fortunate enough to be able to deal with private sectors in France unlike Jess so it all came together a little quicker. The only initial stumbling block was the deed to an apartment, but we found a great short stay company to work with and got an apartment. Everything else after that was simply time and a little bit of money. 

            My Visa appointment is at the end of this week and then it should only take about 10 business days to find out if I am approved or not. We are leaving for Houston and staying in Galveston for two nights after the appointments to relax and celebrate having the visas completed, or almost. The silver lining in having to potentially go down to Houston twice is if I don't get approved the first time I have a second chance. Also, I look forward to being able to help anyone who needs to get a long stay visitors visa in France. Safe Traveling!

Welcome!

Welcome!

This is a brief introduction to explain the purpose of my blog. My wife Jessica and I (Matt), are starting a new journey studying abroad overseas in just under two months; therefore, this blog gives us a new outlet that will allow us to share our experiences without limiting them to 160 characters or fighting for Facebook newsfeed space so all of our family and friends can keep in touch. Also, this blog will hopefully share some information about what we've had to go through such as acquiring visas, more on that later, to get to where we want to be. We will be updating regularly with pics, stories, and anything else we feel is worthy of sharing. Hope you enjoy!