It’s going to be a bumpy ride…

This is what we’ve come to expect about EVERYTHING in France!

Because there’s no shortcut, no easy path, no road map, no playbook! Just sink – or swim!

I heard a new term this week – “Cultural Fatigue.” Makes sense to me! When every interaction is accompanied by a sense of “Do I know the right words? Do they understand me? Will it work?,” and being on high alert 100% of the time, it makes you emotionally and physically exhausted!

Vagabond Journey says the continuous course corrections of switching cultures wear you out. “They make you lose your bearings in a place, and it takes energy to find them again. You cannot travel on auto-pilot, you can never just ” act” … you must think first then act, always. Being challenged in what would be the simplest of interactions at home … wears you out. Facing the same challenges day after day creates fatigue.”

After our Visas expired in January (because apparently three months wasn’t enough time for them to do the paperwork we had submitted), and our EXTENDED Visas were issued (and even a French boss from work had to get involved because the French bureaucracy couldn’t get it together), we FINALLY received our Titre de Sejours (long-term foreign residents permits) yesterday – so we can officially travel in and out of France until October 2020. And we were LUCKY! Our permits were randomly issued for three years…several other expats’ permits were granted for only one year and they have to renew it every single year. Same rigamarole. 600 euros later (expatriation isn’t cheap!) and one more thing checked off of our list…