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?  :)