First Impressions

Well, we've been in France more than a whole month now!  We're getting a feel for life here and how to fit in.

When we arrived here we were worn out.  With only one night's sleep in 48 hours of travel, we were running on pure adrenaline.

As the van pulled into the Ark, Christiane (chris-ti-AHN) and Robert (roe-BEAR), one of the founding couples of the Ark at Guenvez came over quickly to warmly welcome us.  "The Americans are here!" Robert laughed, "You are a mystery to us.  Everyone says, 'What's the news of the Americans this week?'  They think you are a phantom, but now you are here!"

Elisabeth welcomed us into the middle apartment of a "triplex", the same apartment where we stayed 2 years ago when we visited for a week.  There we found the two large rolly suitcases we had sent in August, full of all the winter items we thought we wouldn't need for a while.  HA!  We had no idea in August that we wouldn't meet up with the suitcases again until chilly mid-November.

Reading the community
schedule and rules!

The first two nights we went to bed at 8pm and woke up tired at 9:30am the next morning!  We all took turns waking in the middle of the night for an hour or two, but even the kids just shuffled around and eventually went back to sleep.  Our bodies were so confused!

We spent Friday through Sunday shifting our bodies' schedules and setting up our little nest.  We moved furniture around and unpacked the bags we had mailed to find our favorite clothes again.  We hung indoor laundry lines and cleaned out cob webs.  Our house began to feel like a home!

And so, we find ourselves in the French countryside, eating food grown in gardens we can see from our window and cheese from cows we visit in the back pasture.  We have easy access to three different types of long-fermented sourdough bread, baked fresh twice weekly in a beautiful stone oven where we can visit anytime to see what new process Nico is learning.  Water flows to a tap in our apartment directly from the source: a spring on the farm.

A heavy dew falls at night and, through our large back windows, we watch each new morning unfold as the rising sun burns the dew off plants and dries the mist from the air.  Our little apartment is super insulated and almost air-tight, with the added benefit of being "insulated" by other apartments on two sides. The aforementioned large south-facing windows give us the gift of free, natural solar heat that we dont have to work for.  We have a wood heat stove, but even with nights down to the 40's F we haven't had to fire it up often.

Here's what we will do with any photos you send us! :)

Monday through Saturday, a bell rings at 9:30am and everyone stops what they're doing and meets on a porch behind the main barn.  We sit on wooden benches and look out over a field as the sun rises over the tree line, or watch the rain fall in waves over the great expanse of the field.  We sit in silence, read scripture, sing, and recite the liturgy together.  On our first day joining this worshipful gathering, I didn't know what to expect.  After a short silence allowing everyone to arrive and settle in, Benoit began singing, "Allelujah".  The other voices joined in and shifted together between unison and harmony.  The sights surrounding us and the sounds of their voices were all so beautiful!  I found out later that the song was The Magnificat, and they gave me permission to record them singing!

Several members of the community singing the "Cantique de Marie",
which we sing every morning at the 9:30am prayers.
This is the view we have, on a (rare) sunny winter day!

Did I make it all sound pretty good?  :)

Of course, there are some other realities to mix in.  We don't have a bathroom or hot water in our apartment.  (The composting outhouse is very close and well-taken-care of... it really doesn't stink!  We use a mixture of bran and sawdust to hide the sights and smells of what lies within.  A hot water heater is housed in the barn where the shower lives... whew!)

Sweet people!

One of our most difficult challenges is found in the long-standing community schedule.  Monday through Thursday the community meal is at 1pm.  At this time I would hope to be in the midst of our naptime routine!  But, as I have a tendency to "hermit" away, I have really tried to push myself to figure out how we can fit into this rhythm.  I feel like I have to fight the boys to sleep by 2:30pm and then fight them awake at 4pm so we can have a reasonable bedtime at 8pm.  They easily and naturally sleep for around 2 hours, so I'd prefer to put them down by 1:30pm so they'd naturally wake up by 4pm without the fights.  In addition, the "mother break" I've gotten used to is nearly cut in half!  This all makes me very sad.

The sun's got a regular ol' desk job here: rising shortly after 9am and setting around 5pm.  Neither Nico nor I have ever lived this far north of the Equator, and it's really different!  We can go stargazing at 7am!  We just passed the winer solstace, so beginning now, we'll eventually go from needing candlelight at our 8am breakfast to our alarms sounding well after the 4am sunrise, and from candlelit dinners at 6pm to the bedtime routine finishing long before the post-10pm sunset.

It rains a ton here, often while the sun is still shining.  I think part of each day is dedicated to precipatation, so much so that Nico likened this climate to a rain forest.  Humidity is often quite thick, and to prove it, one night I hung clothes on the line in our house.  We had a hearty fire, which, per my previous six years of experience, I assumed would dry the clothes in a few hours.  However, in the morning we awoke to still-damp, sour smelling clothing on the lines!  Did I mention the house is nearly air-tight?  New systems and understandings must be formed!  Any suggestions, Johnstons?  :)

Since we're surrounded by healthy gardens, we're also surrounded by healthy spiders.  They manage to pop up anywhere, dead or alive, and seem to easily grow hand-sized.  (Well, Moisés' hand.)  My childhood training included developing a mix of fear and disgust of such helpful little creatures, which I've begun overcoming in the past several years when I lived in my basement on Madison Street and as I work in gardens.

The hand-sized fellows come in two categories: wispy house spiders and thick, chunky, muscly-looking ones that you're sure just want to jump on your face.  Now, I don't want a house full of the wispy ones, but I can get over them pretty quick.  It's the chunky ones that require some serous inner work.  When I see one, we usually both groan that each other exist, then we look at each other straight in the eyes, all of our eyes, and attempt a friendly "hello".

I met eight-legged Sir Alaric in the outhouse our first day here.  (If you know where his name comes from I will put a slice of raw, stinky cheese in an envelope and mail it to you.)*  Every so often I glance at him when I enter the tiny space to remind myself that we're friends and he hunches low, threatening to gnaw off my ears.  Now Frida, on the other hand, I didn't meet right away.

Frida lives in the shower, which I haven't yet confirmed, but I'm pretty sure they purchased off the movie set of one of the Saw films.  Hand-sized wispy spiders line every corner where two walls meet, or where a wall touches the ceiling.  Disclaimer for the community: The shower is not being kept up well at this point because it was always meant to be temporary.  In the next few weeks they'll finish building a new, beautiful, red pine shower room that looks as if it's jumped out of a spa magazine.

Long about my third or fourth shower, I walked to the uninsulated barn while the morning was still dark.  I noted how beautiful the frost sparkled on the grass in the light of my headlamp, then shivered as I realized I'd be showering in frost conditions.  I entered the shower stall cringing, as usual, and Frida and I immediately caught a glimpse of each other and gasped, having to get over each other's existance.  She acted as though she was not bothered by me for a little while as she pretended to repair her web, but she eventually grumbled her way to the wall behind the shower curtain.

"She's probably been here every time," I told myself, nonchalantly, "She doesn't want to hang out with me either.  All my other showers have been just fine with her hiding there behind that curtain."  I went on verbally encouraging myself until I realized that if anyone else was in the barn they could probably hear me talking to myself through the plywood and foamboard walls, and as I was still new here, I should probably quit.

So, I hope I've given good evidence that we're in a pretty even mixture of paradise and challanges.  I would like to share one final story to give a joyful picture of the sweet community here.

On December 6th, we had a surprise special guest at lunch.  Marion, one of the short-term folks here with a year-long commitment, appeared at the door to the community kitchen in a red suit with white trim, a bushy white beard, and a red bishop's miter.  Looking like a cross between Santa and the pope, it was Saint Nicholas!  I learned later that day that Santa Claus doesn't exist here as I know of him, and that Saint Nicholas comes on the 6th with little goodies for the children: simple sweets and an orange.  Christmas day is reserved for family gift exchange without the additional gifts that have passed through the chimney.

Marion has had past acting experience and had the French-speakers rolling with laughter as she sifted through a large old book, looking for the names of the children in the community to give them each a witty message of encouragement and a light-hearted challenge, specific to each person.  Saint Nicholas spoke in some kind of accented-French to each child, beginning with the oldest.  My boys watched every other person get a comedic speech and a goody bag until their turn, and they were delighted to be included in the festivities.  Yanni, the youngest and therefore the last one, didn't really know what was going on, but was squealling and bouncing with joy and anticipation until it was finally his turn, which filled all the rest of us with laughter and joy.

We know it is hard for our families (and Malakai and Philo Wettig) to not be able to see Yanni at this stage of life, but you can all be sure that he's being thoroughly enjoyed here, as a little squishy mascot should be.  :)
_______________________________________________

*Just kidding.

Introduction, in photos!

Here's our house layout.  Click on the photo to see it larger.

Looking down from our loft bed towards Moisés' bed and the play area.

Breakfast!  Looking toward the kitchen.
I'm accidently in this photo!  :)

Our loft with Yanni's crib and shelving underneath,
and Moisés' bed to the side.

Here's our front door.  The small window to the left of the door
is our kitchen.  The other windows look into the two other apartments.

Here's the door to the community kitchen with three bedrooms off of it.
The path to the right takes you to our front door.

Looking away from the apartments, you see the composting toilet and the
barn which houses the washing machine and a refrigerator for leftovers.

Here's the south-side of the apartment building,
with nice large windows to soak in the sun!

Brussel sprouts, or choux de Bruxelles,
are very popular at the farmer's market.

French people love leeks, or poireaux... we had leek pie for Christmas!
And I think I'll get the recipe, it was delicious!  Ha!

We visited some friends of the Ark who have children about
Moisés' and Yanni's ages.  They have a fancy modern house.
This net hangs over the kitchen.

Joel is travelling around France in a tiny house built on a wagon,
pulled by two horses.  He's overwintering at the Ark.
Moisés and Nico are invited to ride or drive the horses on Saturday afternoons!

Nico and Moisés fix up his bike!!

I'm typing on a French keyboard!

And we're off!!
At the Arlington, VA train station.

We're in France! Can you believe it?

We arrived Thursday afternoon, November 16th, not a minute past my projection in the previous post.

Ana Maria and Germán, Nico's parents, dropped us off at the train station in Arlington, Virginia last Tuesday afternoon with our two sweet children and seven pieces of luggage, which consisted of: two hiking backpacks, two small rolly suitcases, a briefcase, a small bag of food, and Moisés' backpack of fun and entertainment.  I counted these items constantly as we entered and exited each location we came to.  Seven bags, two children, check!  Seven bags, two children, check!

We made it without problem to NYC and walked the six city blocks to Nico's cousin Andrew's apartment.  On the way we passed Madison Square Garden, where (what's left of) The Greatful Dead were having a reunion concert. Nico chuckled at the scene: there he was, in a sea of Deadheads, but rather than joining them, he walked through them wearing an Amish hat and with a wife and two kids in tow, on his way to a Christian monastic community in France.  Back in college, if Nicolas had seen a snapshot of the present scene, it would've been more akin to a weird dream than a possible future reality.

This is the only photo I took of our visit with Andrew.
You can't see Andrew or the skyline anywhere! :(

Expecting our arrival, the doorman at Andrew's apartment building gave us Andrew's key and we lumbered our seven bags and two children into the tiny bachelor pad and "made ourselves at home", as he had invited us to.  Shortly, after his 20 minute walk home from work, Andrew arrived and treated us to a Peruvian chicken dinner and an 11th story rooftop view of Manhattan Island, lit up in every direction as far as the eye could see.  (Nico says: Thanks, Andrew for your warm love and great hospitality.  We love you, primo!)

The next morning Nico squeezed in a visit with our friend Jorian (of Farfields Farm) who lives part-time in Brooklyn, while the boys and I took an adventure to find long socks for Yanni at several mainstream clothing stores near by.  It was a disappointing discovery: all that's "à la mode" for toddlers these days are ankle socks and chilly calves.

In researching transportation from Andrew's apartment to the airport, we found two options: a pricey yet convenient shuttle, or a very affordable yet busy subway.  Obviously we wanted to choose the cheaper option, but it seems that metro trains are not prepared for people with luggage, even though they have stops at airports and train stations.  We would be travelling mid-day, not rush hour, but Andrew warned us that the system is busy no matter the hour.  Nico and I weren't feeling confident to brave the subway alone with seven bags and two children, but we thought it was worth a try with an escort if we could find one.  The Brothers and Sisters, a nomadic Christian troup, currently have a base in NYC, so of course we called 'em right up!  One brother quickly and generously agreed to help escort us to the airport.

Nico and Yehuda found the boys and I back at Andrew's apartment after our sock adventure, and we all had a quick lunch of leftover Peruvian chicken, tidied up, and headed for the subway.  We found that it was, in fact, quite crowded, and we were very thankful for Yehuda's help.  Furthermore, Yehuda knew the routes!

Here's what happens on a long
NYC subway train ride at nap time.

Yehuda left us at the subway stop connecting to the Airtrain, a train which (logically) rides to and around the airport, and which was incredibly less crowded than the subway.  I felt like a simpleton country bumpkin on the Airtrain!  Moisés' and Yanni's eyes were glued to the window, and so were mine!  We drove past terminal after terminal and saw dozens of airlines inscribed on unnumbered airplanes.  We rode past runways and hangers and saw planes taking off and landing.  Anyone could tell me, "Duh, that's an airport. They're normal and everywhere," but I was lost in amazement at what humans can do!  And I still had yet to board one of those gigantic machines that weighs tons and still manages to magically float up into the air and over the ocean at time travel speeds, but you know, no big deal.

At terminal eight we said goodbye to the Airtrain (literally: Yanni said, "Bah bah tain") and found our way to the baggage counter  to check our heavy bags and obtain boarding passes.

Next came the line where you awkardly take off your shoes and belts and empty your pockets, but only if you're between the ages of 12 and "old".  Or, as an overhead television claimed, you could pre-register on the internet and skip the TSA line, not having to check liquids or take your laptop out of it's bag.  What?!  So are the rest of us just playing some goofy game, sliding our personal items around in square plastic bins for all the strangers to see?  What's the point of waving the beeping magic wands around some of us when the young, the old, and the well-prepared remain to be feared?  They could have anything!  They're making it to foreign countries with their cheap pocket knives and shampoo!

Our flight left NYC at 5:30pm, right on time, and Moisés giggled the whole way as we taxied to the runway and took off.  By then it was dark, so we watched the twinkling city fade to black as our plane slowly moved along the red line between NYC and Paris on a GPS image playing on the seven television screens within view.

I hoped we could get four hours of sleep before landing in Paris at 6:30am, local time, to begin a new day six hours earlier than usual.  Moisés and Yanni didn't quite amass four hours.  I only got about two and Nico didn't do much better.

We landed in Paris and suddenly everyone was speaking French.  Our next steps were to get our seven bags and two children from the airport to Gare Montparnasse, one of several major train stations in Paris.  From there we would be taking a train heading to Quimper, the last stop on the train line heading west.  Someone from the Ark would find us at the train station in Quimper to bring us the last leg of our long journey to the community.

In the airport's metro stop, we bought and punched our tickets for what we thought was the only train leaving the airport, but as we descended the stairs to the platform, the list of destinations flashed up on an overhead screen and Gare Montparnasse wasn't on the list.

Nico peered in a nearby car of the waiting train and asked (in French!) if we could use this train to get to Montparnasse.  The passengers waved indifferently and couldn't help us.  As Nico and I regrouped wondering what to do, a friendly Parisian popped his head out of the next train car over and asked us in his French-accented English, "Do you need 'elp getting somwer?"

He confirmed for us that this was the only train leaving the airport and told us we could change trains with him later, as he would switch to a train that passed through the Montparnasse station.  I found a seat with the boys while Nico and the man checked the route map to decide which of several stops we would use to change trains.

Just before the doors shut to begin our journey into the heart of Paris, a woman boarded and overheard Nico and the nice man discussing train change options.  She joined our clan and quickly became the leader when we discovered that she makes the trip from the airport to Montparnasse regularly.  AND she was planning to catch our same train from Gare Montparnasse into northwestern France!  She claimed Chatêlet was the best station to change trains, so we all agreed.

As we zipped underground toward Chatêlet, we realized it was rush hour and the spacious seat we had chosen when the train was empty was now packed in tight on all sides, blocking us from the exit.  The crowd separated us from the friendly man and woman from the airport and we started to feel uneasy about how we would disembark at our stop with all seven bags and two children without causing a major scene.  After our effort to have a local escort and avoid rush hour on the NYC subway, we hadn't considered these two factors for the Paris metro train, and found ourselves lacking in both categories... Oops!

Two unrelated passengers near us noticed our deliberating and pointing toward the upcoming stop flashing on the screen.  One said to Nico with the same dry wave as the first people he'd spoken with, "Oh, your stop is next? Don't worry, we'll 'elp you."  We couldn't tell by their tone what - 'elp - meant, but as we stood and prepared to disembark, they jumped to action!  Each grabbing a rolly suitcase, they hollered in French to part the sardines and we cleared the doors quickly together with all seven bags and two children!  Before I could even muster a full "merci beaucoup", they smiled and turned around to join the crowds entering the train.  This wasn't even their stop!!

Busy people rushed around us in every direction while we quickly put the seven bags and two children in the proper order to lumber along.  As we began to move forward, we looked up and who did we see, but the friendly man and woman who helped us at the airport metro stop!  They waited for us!  We re-banded together and the woman led us all seamlessly through the gigantic Chatêlet station, which turned out to be the metro center of Paris.  We had to punch our tickets three more times and pass corridors splitting off in all directions.  I'm sure we slowed them down a minute or two, but with their help we probably cut in half the time it would've taken us to figure it all out ourselves.

As our family and the woman prepared to disembark the train at Gare Montparnasse, the man from the airport who still had a number of stops to go, smiled at Nico and told him, "Welcome to this country.  I 'ope you 'ave a nice stay."

I thought that the woman would surely feel her job was done once we arrived at the Montparnasse metro stop, but she walked with us to the very end, showing us which exit to take to avoid extra stairs, as she had a backpack and rolly suitcase of her own.

At the "main line" junction she gave us a tip that our train would probably leave from a platform between numbers one and eight (there were nearly thirty platforms spread over a couple of floors), and the number wouldn't post on the screen until twenty minutes before the train's departure time.  We said our goodbyes, feeling that even a hearty, "merci beaucoup beaucoup" wasn't nearly sufficient, and parted ways for our two hour layover.

We were given some serious gifts in our trainsition through Paris between the two people from the airport and the two on the metro train.  We praise God for the peace we had through the confusion and difficulty, and bad timing!  We had gotten a local escort on the NYC metro even though it wasn't rush hour, but we hadn't even seen what was coming when we found ourselves in the middle of Paris' rush hour.  Without so much help our story could be very different, and I'm thankful for the story of blessing that we have.

At Montparnasse.  Moisés and Yanni each show their
favorite dried fruit from Mimi's now world famous granola!

In Gare Montparnasse, the two children and I found a station restaurant where we guarded the seven bags and ate Mimi's (my mom's) homemade granola in million dollar yogurt cups from the airport.  Nico ran around the nearby streets of Paris and found an internet cafe, a place to change dollars to euros, and, would you believe it, LONG SOCKS for TODDLERS.  Practical people, the French!

Our four hour train ride from Montparnasse to Quimper put us all right to sleep, as anyone could imagine after a night of two to four hours of sleep per person.  Finally, when we arrived in Quimper, we counted up all seven bags and two kids, and entered the train station to find a friendly face!  Benoit (bun-WAH) from the Ark had come to pick us up in the farm's "truck", a tall van that has seats for six people and space in back  for countless crates of fresh veggies... or seven bags of luggage.  And he had car seats, perfectly appropriate for a twenty-two-month-old and a five-year-old, by my American car safety understanding.  As it turns out, Benoit's wife, Elisabeth (eh-lease-ah-BET), had asked folks she knew nearby if they were finished with any baby items and rounded up the two car seats, as well as a high chair, crib, toys, books, and training potty.  Wow!

We weaved through the roundabouts heading out of Quimper, a city with a population only slightly larger than our very own Harrisonburg, Virginia.  The scenery turned country, and in about twenty-five minutes we came around a corner and I recognized buildings!  Benoit turned into the driveway and we had arrived at the Community of the Ark of Lanza del Vasto at Guenvez, looking very similar to my memories of this place almost exactly two years ago to the day when we visited for four days.

Here we are in our new apartment, the seven bags (plus two
more we had mailed in August), two kids, and all!

For me it was a funny mix of feelings: joy of accomplishing what we had worked and prayed so hard for over the past year and a half or so, and overwhelm of the reality we found ourselves in, due to said accomplishment.

We have been treated so generously here already.  I look forward to being held by the slow and steady rhythms of this mature community life over the next year.

Movin' out!

Here's the story of a lovely mama
Who was bringing up two very lovely boys.
All of them had hair of brown, like their mother,
The youngest one in curls.

Here's the story, of some travel drama,
Each embassy with troubles of their own,
There were four of them, travelling all together,
Yet they were all alone.

Till the one day when they got some airplane tickets
And they knew that it was much more than a hunch,
That this group must somehow leave the country.
That's the way they all became the Beret Bunch.

The Beret Bunch,
The Beret Bunch,
That's the way they became the Beret Bunch.

_____________________________________________


Well, we missed the boat, again.  We've missed boats from July through November.  There's one starting the journey today with several 4-person rooms empty, and without us on it.  It's a long story (like all my other stories), but basically the price soars above our peak price range, and they don't negotiate prices, even if it means a room crosses the ocean empty.  The price is double that of the last two boats and the next one, if we want to wait another month.

Here's our updated itenerary.  Yay, a plan!!!!

Tuesday, November 14th
12:57pm - Depart by train in Alexandria, VA
5:22pm - Arrive in NYC
Stay with Nico's cousin Andrew

Wednesday, November 15th
5:30pm - Direct flight to Paris

Thursday, November 16th
6:30am (12:30am EST) - Arrive in Paris
10:56am (4:56am EST) - Train to Quimper
2:36pm (8:36am EST) - Arrive in Quimper and be picked up by l'Arche friends!

Long-stay visa to France? Yes!!!

Yesterday afternoon our passports arrived in the mail... and sat in the mailbox for the next 7 hours! Yesterday was the first day we haven't heard the mail truck enter the neighborhood and then watch it drive around the streets until it came to our mailbox. We left the house just before mail time to visit Nico's cousin for dinner and go trick-or-treating in their neighborhood with her son, close to Moses' age. She lives close to an hour away, so we returned home at 10pm to tuck kids in bed, put the house back in order, and... check the mail!

Nico ripped open the self-addressed-special-flat-rate-priority-mail-express-envelope and I dumped the contents on the table: 3 US passports, nothing else. No note, no letter, nothing. This was actually at least a little encouraging, because the first time there was a note to tell us why we were denied. No note, no denial? We flipped through the passports and there in each one was a shiny, fancy visa sticker for October 27th, 2017 through October 27th 2018, one full year!!!

I can't tell you how joyful this was. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Our waiting was over!!! We thanked God that we had an answer and that the answer was yes! We double and triple checked the visa sticker to make sure it was still existing in each passport and re-analyzed the dates of approval! We called a handful of people that wouldn't mind hearing this big news at 10:30pm and later! We will never celebrate Halloween the same! :)

My mom pointed out that we received our answer exactly four months, to the day, from when we left our house in Harrisonburg. A few days before receiving our visa, I was given God's perspective on our wait. We have been so blessed in the past four months. True joys and spiritual growth in the midst of the difficulty of not knowing what will happen or when anything will happen; to be in limbo for what has felt like ages. We thought our visas would arrive by the beginning of August, and between the beginning of August and receiving the visas yesterday, our faith has been stretched and deepened. And as we move forward and make plans to leave (in a week or so) we're already beginning to forget how hard it has felt to be waiting.

To everyone: you have prayed for us and supported us in so many ways! Thank you!!!

Final days of waiting...?

After our appointment on September 22nd, we were hoping to hear from the French within the following two weeks, the response time the French embassy's website claims for American passports.  We then spent some time with my family in Richmond, waiting each afternoon for a phone call from my in-laws saying our passports arrived at their house.  Two weeks passed, then three weeks.  Three and a half weeks in, I boldly called the embassy and asked about our situation.  The lady who answered the phone for "other departments" (which I called because, as you may remember, the visa section doesn't answer phones) was surprised we hadn't gotten a response, and after mentioning a computer crash possibly being the culprit, told me to send an "urgent" email to the visa section and she would ask about us.  I was to call her extension back after 2:30pm that day to find out what she learned.  I was elated with the hope of getting some real information.

While I was on the phone upstairs in my parents' house, my mom, Nico, Moisés, and Yanni gathered downstairs in a circle, holding hands, to pray for my phone call.  My mom prayed, then Nico, then at Moisés' turn, he prayed, "God let someone answer the phone, not just someone, but someone."  And as he repeated the sentence again, I had finished the call upstairs and ran in the room, not knowing his prayer, and hollered, "A nice lady answered the phone!!"  I was met with the most joyful laughter and jumping from everyone, feeling that Moisés' prayer was answered!

I called back at 2:30pm, and the nice lady told me that she spoke with "the man in the visa section" (the angry man?!) and he said they would answer an email, but would not give information over the phone.  They finally emailed back two days later at 4:42pm on Friday.

Dear Madam, 

your file is still being processed; the passports will be mailed back to you in the envelope you provided as soon as possible. 

Sincerely 

Embassy of France
Visa Section

I was so sad with this response.  My "urgent" email briefly shared the realities of our situation and how long we had been waiting.  I longed (and still long!) for any information about where we are in the process and why it has now taken double the projected processing time.

In the meantime, we let our travel health insurance (which the visa and l'Arche both require us to have) begin on October 6th, because we thought we'd hear from the French any day and get on over the ocean.  When I got that email response from the French last Friday, I was particularly sad because we were losing money each day on health insurance we weren't able to use in the US, and didn't know how soon we would be able use it.  I emailed the health insurance company my sob story on Friday evening, telling the straight truth and not embellishing a single thing in this sobbiest of sob stories, and asked if they could reimburse me for the policy since we couldn't use it and we were on an endless wait.  I said we would certainly purchase their insurance as soon as we know we're going, so they wouldn't lose a customer.  They responded at 8:38am this morning that they could fully reimburse us!!!  What a gift!  Their quick and helpful customer service is a light to me in these dark times!  So I recommend to you, Seven Corners, if you ever need it.

As of yesterday, we are now at Nico's parent's house in Northern Virginia, waiting each day for our passports to arrive in the mail.  His parents are leaving town for a couple weeks, starting Thursday, October 26th, so we will be holding down the fort as we ceremoniously watch the mail arrive each day between 3pm and 6pm!  I will record our findings daily on this page so you can join in our seemingly endless wait.

Monday, October 23rd Nothing Tuesday, October 24th Nothing Wednesday, October 25th Nothing Thursday, October 26th Nothing Friday, October 27th Nothing Saturday, October 28th Nothing

Monday, October 30th Nothing Tuesday, October 31st OUR VISAS HAVE ARRIVED: ONE FULL YEAR IN FRANCE ACCEPTED!!!!!! Halloween 2017: For the Melas Blanton family culture, this day will be set aside to the Lord, for celebration!

Transitional Limbo

From from the last week of June to the middle of October, we've been in the longest transitional limbo of our lives!  What have we been doing, besides the legal documentation roller coaster?

Well, we've been staying positive.  We are so grateful for all the support we've received from so many family and friends.  We've had a pretty serious roller coaster ride, going up and up and up thinking the travel plans were falling into place, then hitting the surprise peak of a hill and drifting down and down and down to a low point on the track, where everything starts to look hopeful again, so we go up and up and... down and down and... over and over again...

I've written pretty detailed posts about a few places we visited, but the rest of our time (mid-July to now) has been a mix of visiting family and friends.  Here are some highlights!

We celebrated my cousin Ann marrying Gregg in Richmond, VA.
Congratulations again!!!
Photo credit: The Tuckers Photography.

We went to our 32nd (or so) annual "Blitchington, etc beach week" at
Sunset Beach, North Carolina.  Here are my parents with my boys.
Photo credit: Grann and Granddaddy

The Youngs joined us to the Smithsonian Zoo in Washington DC.
Here are some sweet people posed with a metal otter statue.
Photo credit: Grace Young.

Nico and his step brother found creative ways to
pass our time in Springfield, Virginia.
Video credit: Germán Perdomo

We got to celebrate Moisés' birthday with my side of the family...

...and then again with Nico's family!  Abuelita made some delicious birthday pancakes.

We celebrated with Matt and Hannah
at their wedding in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
Congratulations again!!!
Photo credit: Matt

We joined a small Harrisonburg crew to view the total solar eclipse!
Due West, South Carolina
Photo credit: Rachel Farrell

We visited Harrisonburg for a few weeks and
watched the rebuilding of Madison Street's bridge.
Photo credit: Rachel Farrell

We did arts and crafts!
Here are Moisés and Abuelita in Springfield, Virginia.

Nico got a sailing lesson from my mom, and then took me out for a spin!
Lake Gaston, North Carolina
Photo credit: Grann and Granddaddy

I've finally got some time to update this blog,
and it appears that it's mostly read by people I know...

SNL skit or my real life? Sketch 3: Letters from the French, more Tragedy from the Greeks

We've been through the wringer, as they say, in our adventure to obtain legal documentation to enter France, going to every length not to compromise our decision to only represent our marriage with a church certificate.  Ultimately, our story below and in the previous two "sketches" I wrote can be summed up as trying to put a square peg in a round hole, as far as the church certificate versus state license is concerned.  Nico has written an article explaining our inspiration for not obtaining the state marriage licence, such a common, normal document.

This blog post picks up from our separate experiences with the Greeks and the French, intertwining our experiences with each, chronologically.

The Greeks

Nico had a meeting in mid-June with the Greeks, shortly after the discouraging one I had joined him on, to turn in the final paperwork for his passport.  He brought up the topic of our our marriage certificate again, and they looked up the word "Mennonite" in Greek.  To their surprise there is a word for it, "Mennonitis", but they'd never heard of it.  Mr. Gatos said he would do some research to see if the government could accept a Mennonite marriage certificate and would let Nico know.

Because... who wouldn't want to go
to Greece for two months?
Image found in online search.

Nico called a week later to find out what the timeline would be for Mr. Gatos to give us more information, and was told that Mr. Gatos was on vacation in Greece... for the next two months... and no one had taken over his position while he was gone.  The receptionist gave Nico the first available appointment with Mr. Gatos, on September 6th (don't forget, this phone call was made at the end of June).

The French

We left the French embassy, and the most stressful appointment of our lives, the morning of July 12th, 2017.  The official embassy website claims that visa processing "takes around 2 weeks for US citizens", so we felt hopeful to get our visas in the mail soon-ish.  We had planned to go to Richmond for my cousin's wedding the following weekend, and then join my family on a trip out-of-town, so I had written Nico's parents' address on the pre-paid envelope that would return our paperwork.  My mother-in-law, Ana Maria, promised to call us as soon as anything came in the mail.

One week and two days later, on a Friday afternoon toward the end of July, Ana Maria called... our special-flat-rate-priority-mail-express-envelope had arrived at her house!  She opened it up to find our passports and a single sheet of paper.  She read the letter aloud in French, which she happens to speak.  As she read the first sentence, she trailed off... we had been denied!  A box was checked denoting why (translated from French): "You have not provided proof that you have sufficient resources to cover your expenses of any kind during your stay in France."

Right, we only had proof of full health insurance coverage, our own bank statements, a letter of full support from the l'Arche community, and as a formality, Nico's parents wrote us a letter of sponsorship to cover any unforeseen needs, with their proof of income attached.  How many financial resources is one required to have to live in France?  The website doesn't say, and when I wanted to ask for guidance before our appointment, I was blocked on all sides.

We were unable to move forward immediately because all our paperwork was in DC and we were still out-of-town with my family.  A week later, when we arrived back at Nico's childhood home in Northern Virginia, we immediately gathered the paperwork for an appeal.  Another family member gladly jumped in to help us as an additional sponsor and we mailed all the new info to the office in Nantes, France, which is called, "the Commission of Appeals against Decisions to Refuse Visas to enter France", but you know, CRRV for short.  We found the cheapest price of the speediest mailing options, a delivery method which promised to complete in 2 days, by August 3rd.  The timeline for a decision to be made on an appeal is two months if they grant it to you with an "express reply".  But if they deny your appeal, which they call an "implied decision", they don't ever bother to let you know.  So, we started waiting.

The Greeks

At some point in the whole mix, Germán (pronounced haer-MAN), Nico's step-father, shared with us that back in the day in South America, marriage was strictly a religious institution.  When the government wanted to start keeping track of marriages for legal purposes, the people just saw it as a legal "copy", if you will, of their own real, actual marriage certificates.  They continued to marry in the church, and if they needed it at some point, they would get a government record of their marriage.  This perspective was intriguing to me, and I thought I could come around to viewing our own situation as similar.  However, it was still important to me that our legal record would have the same date as our marriage certificate, not a new current date.

Nico felt like he was also willing to make the concession if the state would recognize the legitimacy of our church marriage.  He kept imagining a scenario where a Congolese couple entered the country as refugees.  When they get to the border and are asked if they're married, they say, "Yes!" and hand over any written proof (their marriage certificate in the front page of a bible or handwritten or whatever).  The American officials take it and translate it into their own legal language.  Nico felt that if the government could do that for us, he would be ok to move forward, though the whole thing was certainly a compromise we had to discern in community.

Nico did some research on the phone with the Vital Records office of Virginia, in Richmond.  A helpful man told him that it would be "no problem" to back date a marriage licence, especially in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County with all the Old Order Mennonites nearby.  We had to turn in any documents proving our case to the Harrisonburg city courthouse by the 3rd Wednesday of the month (August 16th) and they hold hearings for legal changes and updates a week later, on the 4th Wednesday (August 23rd).

If we obtained a state marriage licence, the Greeks could draw up their version of it, and it would be smooth sailing for us to get to France.  (And we still had hope for literal smooth sailing if we could catch a boat across the Atlantic in early September!)

The French

Two weeks and five days after we mailed away our visa appeal, we were back in Harrisonburg for our marriage license court appointment.  A letter arrived at our Downstream Project house.  It was an official-looking letter in French.  It could only be one thing: an appeal response!  The letter had arrived on August 22nd, but I didn't find it until the morning of August 23rd, no joke, the actual day of our court appearance for our marriage licence.  This was "hilarious" because if the French accepted our visa appeal, the marriage licence wouldn't be necessary.  Before we left for our hearing, I quickly typed the text of the letter into Google's translator and found the following message, written most politely:

I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of the appeal received on 03/08/2017 and to inform you that it has been registered under the number indicated above with reference. 

I would be grateful if you could send me a copy of your signed appeal before 04/09/2017.

And after a few more logistical notes, they ended with a flourish:

Please accept, Madam, the expression of my highest consideration.

Shoof, I wish the angry man at the French embassy would switch to writing letters from his little window, rather than bludgeoning applicants with spoken words.  Despite the letter having been saturated in high esteem and ultimate respect, I was confused about the text.  Were they really asking for me to send them a copy of something they were so proud to have just received?  Certainly they have copy machines in France.  Come on, throw me a bone!  Make a copy!  Or perhaps, they could lay out the visa appeal process somewhere on the website so I would know to send multiple copies.  Throughout the whole French visa application process, I found myself constantly saying, "If they would just tell me what to do, I would do it," and this was no exception.

The Greeks

The big day had arrived, August 23rd, and Nico and I dropped off our kids with the Farrells and found ourselves walking up the courthouse steps and finding our names on the digital screen next to the appropriate courtroom.  We sat on the hard wooden pews in the courtroom and waited through a list of cases that needed to be put on a schedule for later, then we were first on the list for the hearings.

We approached the bench and Nico respectfully explained our case.  The judge looked down at us from his tall, walled-in seat and sarcastically drug us through the mud, "So, are you saying you just got your friend to marry you in a backyard somewhere?  And you want me to do something about it?"

Here we are getting married by a friend
in a backyard on September 3rd of 2011.

And the truth is, we could certainly frame the situation as he suggested, though never with such animosity.  Ron Copeland, the ordained pastor that married us, is our friend, and the Muddy Bikes Garden listed as our wedding location was Tom and Margot's backyard.  But this was such a startling response to have from someone who had read the information that we turned in at the court, which consisted of a very formal letter from us and another from Ron, both notarized, and a copy of Ron's ordination certificate and of our marriage certificate.  Nico had crafted our letter, heartfelt and succinct, describing why we didn't have a marriage licence, why we were wanting one now, and why we were requesting the original date of six years ago.  It appeared that the judge had made up his mind that he wouldn't help us before we arrived and we had no chance.

The judge had been congenial in all conversations previous to ours, I know because I was watching to see what kind of mood he was in.  He kept repeating to us how he "couldn't rewrite history" as it wasn't his job, and after more verbal criticisms in a disdainful tone, we were dismissed.

But he wasn't asked to rewrite history.  We were married on September 3rd, 2011.  We were pretty shocked at this response since the manager on the phone at Vital Records in Richmond had thought this would be a simple process, and that we wouldn't be the first case they'd seen of this kind.

The French

Back at Nico's parents' house immediately after our court appointment at the end of August, I shared the text of the appeal response letter we had received in Harrisonburg with my mother-in-law, and emailed it to my French friend Emilie and to Elisabeth (pronounced without the "h" at the end) at l'Arche.  They all basically agreed that though it's perplexing, I should just send the CRRV another copy of the same thing I'd already sent.  Elisabeth offered some ideas as to why they had such a baffling request (translated from French):

assumption 1: the service that received the appeal did not forward it to the other service that requests confirmation signed receipt ... assumption 2 they lost the document ... assumption 3 they have the document but want to check the validity by asking you for the copy signed, and at the same time check your motivation

Ah, bureaucracy!  I decided to sneak around on the internet to see if I could find contact information for the CRRV.  After a bit of probing about, I found an email address and a phone number!  I emailed them a short simple message (Ana Maria helped me translate it to French, of course!), asking what exactly they needed and if we were expected to mail them our passports, which we felt pretty uneasy about.  Spoiler warning: They never answered my email.  Then Ana Maria, Nicolas, and I discussed the best time to call the office in France.  We decided to hit them at 10am French time, which calculated to a painful 4am our time.

The next morning, our alarms went off and we gathered, bleary-eyed, in the computer room where we laid out several documents for reference, and pulled up several more on the computer.  We dialed the number and the ring tone began, all of us now feeling fully awake as we waited for a response.  Well, the phone rang, and rang, and rang, andrangandrangandrang.  We let it ring for 10 minutes.  No live human or recorded voice ever answered.  Nico tried again a few more times, at half-hour intervals.  All we ever got was incessant ringing.

So, I did what I could.  I put together several documents, with an extra copy of everything, and mailed it away on August 25, set to arrive no later than the 28th.  To keep our options open, Nico suggested that I make new visa appointments for all three of us, me and the two boys, at the French embassy in case we needed them, since there is no cost to book or cancel appointments.  When I browsed the appointment calendar at the end of August, they had availability on Friday, September 22nd, so I grabbed up three spots, happily planning to cancel them later.

The Greeks

We were feeling pretty discouraged by the beginning of September, almost to the point of cancelling the Greek embassy appointment on the 6th, because, what could they really do for us at this point since we didn't have the state marriage licence?  I decided to put some stock in the appointment and dress the whole family up real nice.  I felt like there was so much red tape in the rules and regulations, but ultimately these organizations were made up of regular, thinking, feeling people.  And we were regular, thinking, feeling people, too.  Certainly when they saw us they would think we were such a nice family they would just accept our marriage certificate, right?  :)  Though it may be naive reasoning, it was at least fun to have the four of us together on an adventure on the metro into town.

We made our way to the tiny waiting room which was more crowded than the previous time I was there.  After waiting six or eight minutes, Mr. Gatos popped his head out from behind the locked door to call us in.  When he saw we had brought sweet, cute children along, he got a concerned look on his face and said, "Oh no, I think you better stay out here," and he only let Nico in.  So much for appealing to the human within the system!

The good news of the appointment was that, while on vacation in Greece, Mr. Gatos had gone to the appropriate Greek government office in person to ask if they could accept a "Mennonitis" marriage certificate!  Yay, we were so thankful!  The bad news of the appointment was that they would not accept it.  However, Mr. Gatos had an idea for Nico.  "All we would have to do" is get married in a Greek Orthodox church.  But what that translates to is: first we'd need to gather several pretty specific and unconventional documents in the US... and then we'd need to go all the way to Greece... and then Nico would need to get "chrismated" (aka, confirmed) in the Greek Orthodox church... and then they would marry us... and then the boys and I would officially be considered dependents of a Greek... and then we could go to France.  At the time, this was our best option, ha!  So we began to gather the documents.

The French

This photo progression shows how it feels to be stuck at the French visa section.*

By the Monday before our Friday visa appointment, there was no hope in sight for the visa appeal, and gathering the documents for the Greeks appeared like it would take too long, though we would at least die trying.  Each document had several time-consuming bureaucratic steps, so it seemed wise to attend our second French visa appointment on Friday, September 22nd.  I mournfully began gathering and perfecting the necessary documents again.  I was thankful I could re-use some documents from the first appointment by amending the date.

Besides going through the work for another appointment, I was super sad to pay the application fee again.  It felt insulting to have to pay those people twice.  However, on Tuesday of the week of our appointment, Nico was offered a drywall and remodeling job from one of his parents' neighbors, and when all was said and done, the job paid for our appointment and a little extra!  This was a gift from God.

A few notable things about the second appointment were, yes, the angry man was working in window number two again.  And, yes, I got called to his window again.  I think he was having a good day because he was not as mean as the first time, though still rather unpleasant.  He typed in my passport number and said he remembered me, and I wasn't sure if that was good or bad.  I started my appointment this time by firmly saying that I wanted to apply for myself and my two sons.  He then asked me for three documents which were neither asked of me in the first appointment, nor had their absence been the reason for the rejection of our original application.  The three documents all had something to do with the father releasing the children to travel, and of course we didn't have them prepared.  There is no information on the website about what to prepare to apply for a minor, whether they're travelling with two parents or one.  The angry man said we could prepare the documents and bring them back if we could get there by noon, reminding us of the same time crunch we were given at the first appointment.  I should point out how nice it is that they allow us to leave and return when we don't have the documents that they don't tell us we need.  How much worse would it be if they didn't have this... helpful flexibility...?  We charged over to Nico's aunt's office, and she saved the day by allowing us to use her computer and printer, and then we rushed back to the French embassy to turn it all in.

When we left the embassy the second time that day, I happened to look through all the leftover documents to see what was taken during our appointment.  Mostly I just had extra copies of everything, then I found a seemingly important form that supposedly needs a stamp from the embassy before entering France, where it is to be turned in at the immigration office nearest to l'Arche.  Ana Maria and I went back and forth over whether this was necessary since it wasn't asked for.  We didn't want to take any chances and we weren't far from the embassy, so we rushed back, again.

The angry man acted like including the forms with our application wasn't a big deal, but said he would add it to my file.  So, either he's right or the website is, but unfortunately they're opposites.  Why hadn't it been taken?  Could they have rejected us for not having it?

The two month cut off to get a response from our appeal ended on October 3rd, so we can assume or "imply" at this point, October 12th, that for some unknown reason, our appeal was not granted.  Additionally, as of this writing, we have not yet heard back from the September 22nd appointment, so we're just sittin' on the edge of our seats...!

___________________________________________________

*So... we decided to wear these Old Order straw hats to the embassy.  Please, before you judge us for masquerading as Amish to gain favor by a foreign government, put yourselves in our shoes, as members of a religious minority making decisions that do not compute in a highly scrutinizing civil society.  We found it difficult to explain to government officials that we had a church marriage certificate rather than a state licence, when they didn't already have a box to put us in.  "Mennonite" means about as much to the average French person as "Pastafarianism", a comical parody religion from the 21st century.  This second visa appointment was our last chance to get to France, and after having been treated poorly by judges, ambassadors, secretaries, and telephone operators alike, we made this decision to try to give understanding to our cause.  Though we are Anabaptist, we are not Old Order and will likely never be, but we hoped that straw hats would at least give some frame of reference for our diplomat to see, even if it is a few big steps away from the Anabaptists we really are.  In retrospect, perhaps this was a bit of a stunt; God forgive us if our motives were false!

We didn't wear these hats while inside, but as Abuelita and the kids were waiting, they started playing with them to pass the time and took these wonderfully adorable photos.

SNL skit or my real life? Sketch 2: The Visa Appointment

Our looming appointment date arrived: July 12th, 2017.  We were required to have separate appointment times for each person applying, whether they were an adult or a 1-year-old, and since no one answers phones or emails to tell me how long each appointment would be, I spaced them 30 minutes apart, hoping that Nico could take the first kid and I could take the other after I finished my own appointment.  Wondering if 30 minutes was enough time to complete one appointment and go to another in the strict French embassy environment was one of many little butterflies flappin' around in my stomach.

My mother-in-law dropped all four of us off at the drab, unfriendly front gate of the Ambassade de France.  We approached the window and handed over our appointment tickets for approval, and our licences as collateral for an entry pass.  After we filed through the metal detector, we were ushered up a street within the embassy to the cheerless 80's era building.  My butterflies sensed how close we were and started fluttering around even faster.

Actual posters of intimidation on the walls of the French embassy. Images found in online search.

Inside the building, the visa section was a room perhaps one third the size of the DMV, but otherwise just like it.  You know: rows of chairs and windows at the front, pull a number and watch for it to pop up on the digital screen.  There were huge posters on the wall advertising "3 years imprisonment and a € 300 000 fine" if you are caught "buying or carrying a counterfeit product" in France.  But how would I know if something I bought was counterfeit?  I decided I just wouldn't buy anything in France and dismissed the new butterflies that were trying to join the congregation in my stomach.

While we waited, we could hear everything everyone ahead of us was saying.  This was partly because the room was so small, and partly because there was thick glass between the applicants and the interviewers, so everyone had to yell their information through the tiny round grate in the middle of the window.  We heard the mumble of the interviewers' voices and then hollers of: "I'm a student!"  "Yes, I have family there!"  "Here is my plane ticket!"  "I plan to stay 8 months!"

The words of the interviewer in window number two were loud enough to be understood from the room, and he was apparently not having a good day.  His gruff voice interrogated rather than questioned and his scowl lines were permanent.  I sighed, certain I was bound for this man's window.  As my sweet children bopped up and down our isle and experimented with what would happen if they pushed the water cooler spigot down, I began to breathe slowly and meditate on the peace of Christ to prepare myself to be patient and kind.

There was a buzz and the digital red numbers on the screen changed.  Yep, my number to window two: the angry man.

I calmly picked up my documents and walked to his window.  "Why do you want to go to France?" he asked me sharply, as if annoyed at my very existence.  "My family and I are visiting a community in France," I began to tell him and the whole room behind me, not sure how specific he needed me to be.  He scowled and cut me off, "We have lots of communities in France.  What is this community?"  I started again, "It's called the Ark of Lanza del Vasto, they're a Christian monastic..."  He was already disinterested and asked for my documents.   I passed them to him through a slot in the window and took the break in his questions to ask one of my own.

The French embassy website lays out the process whereby someone can apply for a visa as the spouse of a French or European Union national, which includes almost as many documents as I had to gather to go as a regular American.  We did not go this route because we would need our church marriage certificate, the same document the Greeks had already refused, and we didn't want to risk being refused by the French since their visa required a steep application fee.  Not to mention, the Greeks had warned us that if we got a state marriage licence now, after the birth of both our boys, the government could not recognize our children as true sons of a Greek national.

However, a short time before that day's appointment, I had actually received a reply to the email I had sent to the embassy weeks before, asking a few questions to clarify the visa application process.  Having picked up in the text of my email that my husband was Greek, they ignored all questions and replied that an American spouse of a French or EU national could enter France without any paperwork, as long as they registered with the immigration office within three months of arrival.

As calmly as I could, I explained to the disgruntled man that I was married to a Greek and we wanted to know which of these two sources were correct.  He took my printed email and went to ask his manager.  When he returned, he pushed all my documents back through the window and told me that the information on my email was, in fact, correct, and washed his hands clean of me saying we only needed an official marriage certificate from the Greeks to send the immigration office in France.  The irony of this was that we already had difficulty acquiring exactly that document, which is what led us to apply for the French visa in the first place.

Balancing our two little buddies in the back of the room, Nico heard the whole thing.  He rushed up and asked the man if I and the boys could just apply as regular Americans anyway, which I was too nervous to have thought to say.  The man explained in a single curt sentence, obviously considering our well-being, that it would be more beneficial for us to go as family of an EU national, then turned his eyes away from us toward his computer to cut off communication and call the next number.  That was all.  Our turn was up.

We sheepishly sat back down in the long rows of seats.  As I organized my papers back into the briefcase, we discussed the situation in hushed voices.  I had booked this appointment two months ago and it had been the first available.  The security guards don't let people in without an appointment, so if we left we might not get back in for two more months.  It became clear to us that if we wanted to talk to the visa officers again and really stress applying as regular Americans, we had to do it today.  Nico suggested I get another number.  My butterflies had multiplied and were flying around so furiously that I was almost shaking as I reached for another number.  I don't know if anyone has ever gotten a second number at the French visa section, and I was sure that if the ambassadors thought someone might, it would have certainly been outlawed with a poster on the wall.

Nico and the kids exited the small visa section room to wait in the large entryway just outside, where they could be a little louder and move around a little more.  I sat and waited, praying and breathing slowly to attempt some sort of serenity.  The buzzer sounded and the numbers changed on the screen until I saw that mine was next.  Oh whose window will I get?!  BZZ.  I looked up and the dreaded window number two was flashing next to my ticket number again.

"NOO!" my butterflies wailed from within me, silent to the room around us.  I pasted on a calm face and as I stood up I made eye contact with the angry man.

"NOO!" the angry man wailed from within the window, not hiding his scorn from those waiting in the room.  He jumped up waving his hands to shoo me away, butterflies and all, and to further clarify hollered, "I'm done with you!  You will see the manager!"  He sat back down and quickly began pushing buttons on his computer.

Keeping my calm face, I also sat back down and sorted out my emotions.  Not the angry man but the manager?  Wonderful!!!  I would love to speak to the manager instead!  A couple more numbers buzzed through, giving me time to wonder if the manager would be nicer.  Did the manager train the angry man in interrogation skills?

Window number three's applicant finished and my number buzzed up.  My butterflies continued to fly around so frantically that I made a mental note about where the bathroom was and wondered if I should leave my documents behind in the window or try to gather them if I had to run.

The manager was the same person who had confirmed the information in the printed email I had given the angry man, so she already knew a bit of the situation.  Keeping myself composed, I explained that we wanted to apply as Americans even though my husband was Greek.  With a baffled look she shrugged and said, "I guess you can do that."  I was caught off guard by her nonchalant answer, having gotten used to the strict rules and curt responses of the French.  Quickly regaining myself, I started pulling out documents to give her before she could change her mind.

She took all the documents I provided for myself and the boys and gently asked some clarifying questions.  Her manner of communication, including actually listening to my responses, was a relief.  There was no more angry interrogation.  By the end of the interview I was surprised that I felt close to peaceful.

Necessary visa application item, listed as optional
on the official embassy website.  Don't affix the
stamp and mailing label before you turn it in!
They like to do it themselves.
Image found in online search.

Finally, with all the papers in order, she requested, "Give me your self-addressed envelope and I will then send you to my colleague to get your fingerprints and payment for the application."  The website said you could either pick up your passport in person or bring an envelope and they would mail the passport back to you.  My parents-in-law live very close, and since the required envelope was very specific and expensive, I thought we could easily just come back and pick up our passports.

"Oh no, we don't do that anymore.  You have to have an envelope," the manager told me flatly.  Boy, these people love to keep surprises up their sleeves!  I asked if I could go get one and bring it right back.  "Sure," she replied, "if you can get it here before noon."  It was about 10:45.

I gathered my things and went straight out to Nico in the lobby.  "They accepted the application!" I happily announced, then told him the news about the envelope.  I kept the kids since I wasn't sure if they needed to get their fingerprints scanned or not, while he called his mother to purchase an envelope before she returned to pick us up.

The manager's colleague turned out to be the angry man, who was now strangely indifferent to me, perhaps since I wasn't bothering him with a visa application.  Yanni was feeling like he wanted to be held while I was getting my fingerprints scanned, and the angry man suggested I put him down to use two hands to position my fingers just so, and then apologized that I had to put the baby down...!  At last, to make it all final, I handed him my payment hoping they wouldn't take my money for an application they already knew they were going to reject.

I walked the boys out to my mother-in-law's car and traded them for the fancy envelope.  When I returned to the angry man to pass off this missing piece to my otherwise complete application, he looked over everything to make sure it was ok, then turned to me and said, almost amiably, "Alright, you're free as a bird."  Or maybe a butterfly?  :)