How Not To Do Your French Visa Part 3

​After cooling off considerably, I realized I needed an option other than going back to the US to get my visa. The more I dug into what I need to do to get one, the more I was convinced I was making a mistake.
 
There were numerous problems with going back to the States. We could either consider Moez and I going together, or just me going and staying with my parents. Neither one of them seemed to present a good option.
 
If Moez went with me, we would go to Virginia. We would need a place to stay for at least a month – but more likely longer. This means we would have to purchase an open ticket, which were always more expensive. Lodging was an issue as well. No one wanted to rent a place less than six months, except corporate housing, which would cost $5,000 plus a month.
 
If I went alone, I would need to have an open ticket as well. The more I researched the requirements in D.C. as opposed to Houston, the more I was convinced I was not going to have all the required paperwork and would need to return. This is actually fairly common for the French. They give you a list, which you then fulfill, and then they say: “no we need this too.”
 
For example: the requirements in D.C. and Houston varied. In D.C., the person needed $40,000 insurance coverage – in Houston it was $50,000. In Houston, one needs a criminal background check, but no letter from one’s employer. In D.C., the criminal background check isn’t needed, but the employer record is. In both places, you needed to be a resident to do your visa in that state – but only Houston required the proof of residency. The list of differences was varied enough that I wondered if they knew they represented the same country. My biggest concern, however, was that they all needed the requirements the other one listed, but they simply didn’t list them so that one would need to come back again. This means more time.
 
Additionally, if I decided to do my papers based on a French resident-card holder, I would need to do something with my marriage license. I looked and looked and couldn’t really figure out what I needed to do. I think we need to register our marriage at the embassy; they need to do some sort of official search; and then we would be entered into some marriage registry in France. From there, we could apply for papers based on our marriage. They warned this could take months – which means a year with the French.
 
On top of everything else, I would have to get right back on the airplane in May to visit my parents in order to escape Ramadan. There was just no good solution.
 
Consequently, both Moez and I agreed we needed to stay longer and see what we could do here. Although I knew I couldn’t cancel the tickets, Moez encouraged me to look and see. I was shocked to see that I could in fact cancel them – for the first time since I had used this company in 20 years!
 
Realizing this was a good sign, and encouraged by the blue skies that weren’t happening in Europe, we made the decision to try again with the idiots at the private company, just to see if I could even get to the embassy. Even if these nitwits would do everything to prevent me to getting to the French embassy, at least we could stay in Tunisia cheaply for the next two months before I could go back to France. From there, I could stay a month and then be off to the USA to do my visa there. I was reassured by both D.C. and Houston that it would only take a maximum of 2 weeks to get my visa from there.
 
Then again, it is France.