Since 18/4 to 4/5 is the school's holidays, with the girls at their grandparents' home,
Im also on holiday from work for 2 weeks
And sadly, almost half the holiday is gone with me doing nothing
I was supposed to take the time to practice my french
but I guess motivation is not my best friend
The only achievement will be collecting my carte de sejour!
So basically, I was given a 1 year family visa in March 2014
which is a sticker in my passport that no one ever checks it
even when i took flight or train
In 1 of my older post, I wrote about how we went to renew my visa
before we went to Singapore
Basically, I needed to ask for an appointment 4/5months before the visa expired
Then the appointment to give all the documents, get a temp visa,
and to collect the visa after 2 months
Finally, the day arrived that my visa was ready for collection
Unlike previous visa, it will be in form of an ID card
Since we think that it will be a simple collection process,
husband did not go with me for the collection.
The letter indicated that my card will be ready for collection from the friday 17/4,
so the blur us thought it was only to be collected on Fridays
haha
Anyway, i did went to collect last Friday, as the coming Friday is a public holiday,
I was little unwell and didnt managed to get out of the house as planned (like 830am)
Only managed to drag myself out at 10am.
Based on previous experience, where the queue to enter is long, even at 8.30am
I was sure I will be stuck in a long queue to enter and collection
That it will end up be the lunch time where I will need to wait till the afternoon
Surprisingly, there was no queue to enter when i arrived at 1035am
However, there was a lot of people standing, sitting, squating area the area of collection
I went to the ticket machince to get my number, 168... sounds lucky?
But the current number was 98!
So, i decided to sit at the stairs like many others around
While painfully waiting for the number,
Okay, its quite fast, less than 5min for a number.
A lady came out of the collection room, and spoke to everyone
well, in french and so soft that i have no idea what she was saying
but everyone started to pass her their numbers and collection letter
i assumed that she was collecting the papers to look for the cards first
so that the queue will be faster.
Before I could cut through the crowd to pass her my document,
She went back to the room.
About 30mins later, she reappeared and repeated the process
So, I managed to pass mine to her.
But i realised it didnt really matter, because some people still hold on to theirs,
and bring in when their number arrived.
Oh well, Im just being kiasu
At 11.45am, the number was 140+
Husband was sure that i was to leave the building during the lunch time
and return after lunch time to continue my queue
while im still hoping that i need not waste 1hour of lunch time loitering
and i do think if it will be close for lunch, they will stop the number taking etc
as lunch time is really like IMPORTANT here in france, opps
At 12.10pm, the number was 150+
Maybe because lunch time was near, or the effect of the earlier collection,
the number started to move faster and it was finally 168 at 12.20pm!
So, i went in to the collection room,
gave the necessary stamps (which is representative of 106eur cash)
sign the acknowledgement slip
and walk out of the room with my card proudly
like everyone else did previously
The crazy thing is,
the issue date of the card is February 2015, the date of our appointment,
its valid for 1 year, means at the end of the year, i will need to repeat the whole process
So, the real validity of the card is only about 7 months???
Oh well, I am just happy to have my card,
although is no different from the visa sticker in my passport,
I just feel better to have a card that at least indicate my marriage name.
Till now, im still wondering whether the collection office closes at lunch..
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