So we got them!!! Despite all the tubes being shut in London, despite having to leave the house at 6.45am, despite having to queue up on the cold windy streets of London for two hours, we got the damn visas! Yay for us! We are completely stoked. After months of being in limbo and not letting ourselves really look forward to France just in case we didn't get the visas, it's a fantastic feeling. All those hours of emailing embassies and consulates in NZ, UK and France, posting birth certificates around the world, getting James a new NZ passport in London, filling in countless forms, getting faxes sent from NZ employers, bussing all the way up to London to be at the consulate in person at 7.30am, refusing to follow the official protocol and fly all the way back to Wellington to get the visas... it was all worth it. A long, drawn out nightmare, but definitely worth it.
So we can now legally go to live and work in France from October until December. To be able to stay until May, we can look forward to another round of French bureaucracy, medical checks and forms filled out in triplicate to get our cartes de sejour. I can't wait :)
The visa run was a good excuse for a day off, and we were lucky enough to get two days off. We arrived at the start of the tube strike (5.20pm, Victoria Station). It was completely mental. Half of London was staring at the barriers at the tube entrance, and the other half was queueing for the bus. Very good at queueing these Londoners. All polite and waiting their turn - they should go to India and teach a few queueing lessons.
Of course, half of London (read several million people) cannot fit on one bus. Or even one hundred busses. So James and I began our long walk across central London. I reckon we could have made it in less than three hours. But thank goodness for Emma, who drove to meet us on our way. The roads were chaotic, but we were so thankful to make it to her place in time for dinner!
The next day we went with her to work (it took an hour. I just can't handle cities. Especially not during tube strikes.) We got to mosey around Sloane Square - Remuera and Ponsonby have nothing on this place. It was all Tiffany's, Ralph Lauren, Dunhill, Mont Blanc... We even saw a bleeding Dodge Viper and several of the latest model Ferrari and Lamborghini cruising round!
Back at the National Army Museum, we looked at the exhibits on war and army history and had lunch (and rested our weary feet). The afternoon was more cultural activities - the Victoria and Albert Museum, full of pretty things, and the National History Museum, full of dinosaur bones for James. By 5pm I was well and truly museumed out. It was nice to go home and be able to play with cute little baby John to distract ourselves from the nervousness of tomorrow - visa morning.
I was quite surprised that everone had to wait outside at the consulate. The queue went down the block and round the corner. Everyone else had 'letters of appointment' (we didn't. It didn't feel good not to have one. And we had an hour and a half waiting outside to dwell on it). The letters said you could expect to wait half a day to get a visa. They weren't kidding. I felt sorry for the people with little kids with nothing to do for hours.
Everyone walking past us was speaking French. It was not at all like being in England. It turns out that there is a lycee round the corner and all the French expats live here.
When we were finally out with our visas securely in our passports, we celebrated by going to a French cafe, scarcely believing that we'd actually managed to beat the system and be granted visas outside of New Zealand.
We took a train to Windsor Castle and did the tourist thing before wandering down to Eton to meet Susie (our employer from the Isle of Wight) and Richie (who attends this incredible school). We were given a guided tour. It is just spectacular. These kids have everything. They do have to wear tails, waistcoats and white bow ties to school, but it's certainly worth dressing up for. The chapel was built by Henry VIII and the organ is magnificent. Enormous and hand painted in gold. The vaulted ceiling and stone walls give wonderful acoustics. The dappled light from the stained glass windows - I can so imagine how powerful it would be to hear their world class choir pelting out 'Jerusalem'.
The grounds are immaculate, of course, and the library was almost as well stocked as a university. The theatre was to a professional standard and I am told that their performances are as good as a West End show. The sports grounds stretched for miles. Richie was obviously proud of his school, and so was his mum. I don't want to know how much they pay for him to go there.
All the teachers must live on site, and all the students board. So it's quite a community. Seeing the new wee boys arriving (with their new laptops, scanners, uniforms, sports shoes etc etc) made quite an impression on me, as did the whole of Eton. It seems like a marvellous place, but I feel a bit sad for the kids who started at very different schools that day, who will not have half the opportunities that the Eton boys will have.
So we're off to try and teach some of the normal un-Eton kids at state schools in Cannes. We're not Eton, but I hope we can offer them something while we enjoy speaking their beautiful language in the beautiful Provencal countryside :) Cannes here we come!
