champagne!

On Wednesday night I was invited to a ceremony which wrapped up my journey of becoming a Franco-American. I officially became naturalized in May but because there ain't many of us furrenginers out here in the countryside who go about asking to be naturalized they only have a ceremony once every six months. Mystery Guest and I were invited to go and I really had no idea what to expect especially since some other naturalized  Americans didn't go to their ceremonies. I guess to be honest I assumed it would just be in the main prefecture waiting area! But I did have my fingers crossed for champagne and champagne I got!

We were asked to show up 15 minutes early for  a 6pm ceremony. There were about 30 people there plus their families/friends. But then we were lead out of the main prefecture and to the official residence of the "prefect" (who is basically the head of the "departement" or "state" that I live in).

Classssy! Beautiful tapestries, fairly modern yet tasteful decoration.

The prefect came out dressed to the nines in his military uniform and after a short informative video about being French (the only thing I found odd is that they tell you what it means to be French after you've been naturalized! what if you change your mind???) Then he gave a short speech and the European anthem was played. Afterwards we were invited to join him in singing la Marseillaise. When Mystery Guest asked if I knew all the words (we were given a photocopy of the lyrics just in case!) I said of course not, I know the few key lines but that's it - not that that's a bad thing don't ask me to sing the whole Star Spangled Banner off the top of my head either! (I'll always have a soft spot for the American national anthem, it's just so poetic and not so bloody...)

Then they handed out our new paperwork individually and took back our carte de sejours. I'm pretty sure they read us out in terms of the size of the cities we were from because I was dead last! Some of the mayors came to the ceremony - one even gave a lady a bouquet of flowers!

Then there was a pot, drinks and lots of yummy things to nibble on. Glad to see my tax euros being put to good use - that champagne was tasty!

I'm really glad I went (even though the capital city of our departement is about an hours drive) and that Mystery Guest could join me. Sometimes a ceremony is really nice, it really finalizes something, takes shape and becomes more meaningful than a letter saying congratulations. Plus it didn't drag on for ages, short, sweet and to the point which was perfect. :-)

I was interviewed by the local radio and on the drive home everything just came together. Still feels a little odd to say that I'm French - but in the same way that it feels odd to say that I'm 30 - it hasn't totally sunk in yet.

But I'm sure it will - I can't wait to vote in two presidential elections next year!

It's official! I've got my new birth certificate!

Off to Sark/Sercq on the 4th of July!

Can't wait for my French ID card...

registering

Filling out the form to register to vote! Yippee!!! :)

American cake

For our weekend away near Etretat visiting friends for the long weekend I was in charge of bringing desserts. To celebrate my new Frenchness (received my confirmation letter in the mail today!!!) I brought a bottle of bubbly as well as cookies and a Red Velvet cake :) I was hesitant bringing an American style cake (not worried about the cookies, they've proven themselves time and time again) because they have a tendency of being too sweet with cloying icing. But with all the rage of Red Velvet these days and help from a Jamie Oliver recipe (which I like since it is in grams instead of cups) I busted one out.

The batter was unbelievable, silky smooth and so sexy. I made the cake at home as well as the frosting (cream cheese with real Philadelphia! YUM!) and then put it together once we arrived with some fresh charlotte strawberries from the market on top.

Needless to say it was a huge success, even those who were not the biggest cake fans really enjoyed it and the cake itself was very chocolaty but not too sweet. I had avoided making a layer cake thinking that too much icing would have been overkill but everyone said that next time I should do it :) Happy days.

The weekend was really fun, relaxing and just hanging out. The weather turned into thunderstorms with wild flashes of lightening on Saturday night and then it poured buckets all day on Sunday which was too bad. But with yummy desserts, fantastic coffee and their new "tea machine" we managed to suffer through it :)

Red Velvet - Jamie Oliver (serves 24, I halved it)

Cake
200g unsalted butter, room temp
600g sugar
12 eggs
4 tsp vanilla
12 tbsp red food coloring (I didn't add this)
8 heaping tbsp cocoa powder
600g flour
500ml buttermilk
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tbsp white wine vinegar

Frosting
300g unsalted butter, room temp
600g powdered sugar
450g cream cheese
3 tsp vanilla
lemon zest and juice

Preheat oven to 180C. Line the bases of 2 x 25cm cake tins with greaseproof paper. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, vanilla, food coloring and salt. Fold in cocoa and flour carefully then stir in buttermilk.
Mix the bicarb and vinegar together in a small bowl until it fizzes, then stir into cake batter.
Divide the mix between the two tins and bake for 25-30min until risen and cooked through. Let sit for 15 minutes to cool and then remove from tins and cool completely.

For the frosting, cream the butter and powdered sugar together. Beat in the cream cheese. Fold in vanilla and lemon zest/juice. Chill until needed.

When the cakes are cool top one with a layer of frosting, carefully place the second layer on top and using a spatula spread the rest of the frosting on top.

MilkJam tip: top with fresh strawberries and call it "velours rouge" :)

I've been reborn

That's right this ain't no April Fool's!! I found out that on the 26th of May 2011 I became French and didn't even know it! :)

I just called the Préfecture because my carte de séjour will expire the end of June and I've been starting to wonder if my dossier had just fallen into the dark hole of paperwork... The nice guy I spoke to back in April confirmed everything was validated 4 days ago! I have yet to receive the official paperwork but am officially Franco-American!

I still can't believe it and probably won't until I get that paperwork in my hot little hands!

Time to pop open the champagne!

waiting game

Ever since my conversation with the Préfecture last month I have been obsessively checking the mail...

We live towards the end of a dead-end road and you can hear the cars coming. So then I rush out to see what the mailman has left for me... usually junk mail, sometimes a magazine but never what I'm looking for...

On an anecdotal side note after coming to our house and the neighbor's the mailman stops at another neighbor's house "for coffee" and his car is there for at least an hour... hummm... small town gossip. However that neighbor is elderly and more likely his mother than anything else...

PS made a fantastic new banana bread today - YUM!

fingers crossed

I called the Prefecture this morning to find out if there was any news on my naturalization... (I only called because when I was there in January the guy repeated like 50 million times, if you want any updates don't hesitate to call. Ok buddy if you say so!!)

So he said that the Prefet (locally) made his decision February 18th and then it was sent to the Ministiere (nationally) to be validated. He thinks I should be hearing sometime this month or in May. When I asked if it would be possible for him to tell me what decision the Prefet made he of course said no (which I totally understand since he cannot validate his own decision if I were to hear one thing from them and then the Ministiere who said something else...) but he did say that had it not been favorable I would have already heard (and in which case there is no reason to send it along to the Ministiere). He also said that they have not had a dossier favorable returned to them unvalidated.

So basically it looks like things are good to go, it's hard not to get my hopes up but everything is looking good so far!

Fingers crossed I'll find out soon (so I don't have a panic attack when I open up the official looking envelope I received the other day only to find out that my point I lost for speeding last year has been put back - gah I almost hyperventilated!)

hehe poisson d'avril!

Gotcha good!!

I even got Ksam - she deleted her first comment but let me reprint it to make sure everyone can see:

"Whoa, that is crazy!! Do you have any kind of idea what list it was?

PS. I totally would've been in pyjamas btw."

But no, no visit from the gendarmes, no deportation for me (yet!) and no news on the status of my dossier.

I do have to say that I credit should go where it is due - it was all Mystery Guest's idea! Well his original list was to have me on a terrorist watch list but I thought that might just be a tad over the top. Bravo MG!

surprise visit

This morning I was doing my normal unemployment routine (eat breakfast with MG, surf, watch podcasts... toodle around... eat second breakfast... think about getting out of my pjs and about going to the gym...) when I heard a car pull up in the driveway.

It was the gendarmes which really surprised me. When I answered the door they asked if I was MilkJam - I said yes. They said that they were sent over by the DST to look further into things.

Things???

Yup things. Apparently while in the final stages of my nationality application some flags were raised in regards to my name being on some list somewhere and they just need to double check things.

WTF??

Dude, thank god they were country cops and more curious about the wooden house out here than the American living in it but still it made me really nervous. I mean it sounds crazy but I've got scenarios of deportation running through my head! eeep!!

ch-ch-changes!

Well that's it folks, I've finished work! My time filling in for Bridget Jones comes to an end February 28th but I put my paid holidays at the end of my contract so I could stop work early and not drive that long drive everyday (118km each way for 18 months, I'm a little tired!). So as of Thursday I am on holiday until my contract comes up, then it's time to get another job! The HR does not want to give me a full time job in a local branch because I do not have branch exprience but cannot give me another CDD because I have already maxed out my CDD options. They said they will call me if a maternity leave contract comes up... I'm not holding my breath.

Looks like in March I'll go back to teaching at least for a while but I'm hoping to find something else more long term. At least I've got the teaching to fall back on as well as the unemployment payments. I also planned in a quick 10 day trip to California to visit my grandparents and my dad. Can't wait to see some sun instead of February drizzle!

New development in my quest to become a Frenchie:



The Prefecture called me Thursday afternoon and said that he was very sorry but there was a paper he forgot to have me fill out when I dropped off my application last July... Could I come by to do it? So I gave up my relaxing Friday to drive down to the Prefecture... an hour each way for a 15 minute meeting. Oh well. He was really nice and said that things should be moving along! He thinks its a matter of a mere 2 to 3 months before I get the official decision but he said he thinks there's no reason for me to worry - I hope he's right!

Here's to job hunting and a positive reply from the French government!

Frenchified

Today I dropped off my file to ask to be naturalized a French citizen. I asked for several different reasons, many of them private but mostly because I really feel that France has become my home, its where I became a grown up.

The procedure itself has changed since July 1st. This basically gives the local government much more power over the decision rather than just processing the file. Now the local government gives a yes or no answer, passes along the file to the national government who validates it.

The main reason for this change is that in the past it used to take 12-18 months to hear back. Now because everything is done when you first drop off the file it is supposed to speed up the process and not have the national government re-do all the work that the local government had already done. They said it should cut things down to 8-9 months! If it's under a year I'll consider that progress!

So its all out of my hands now, the guy was really positive sounding and said that there shouldn't be any reason why things don't work out. The only thing I can think of is that I only have a CDD (temp contract) and not a "real" job with a CDI contract but we totalled up all my jobs and in the 6.5 years that I've been here I've worked a total of 5.5 years. Basically all those summers I was between jobs added up to around 1 year but that's not bad.

And now the wait begins... fingers crossed!

that time of year again...

... for all the Administration running around to do! Last Sunday I sat down with my MIL to do my French taxes (let's not talk about American taxes yet...). Normally French taxes are just about the easiest things ever, once you've filed once the forms come to you pre-filled out and all you have to do is verify the numbers and sign it, off it goes!

Buuut since Mystery Guest and I got PACSed last year it made things a bit more complicated. We each had to declare separate "single" tax forms from January 01 to March 11th and then a joint tax form from March 12th to December 31st. That meant breaking down the pay-per-day rate and hours worked per day and then calculating all kinds of funkyness for the month of March. Good news is we will probably get a refund for our combined low salary (whereas I probably would have paid taxes had I stayed single).

Then it was off to tackle my carte de sejour renewal. I had called the sous-prefecture in Cherbourg a couple months ago to ask if I could renew it there, if Mystery Guest was required to come with me, what documents were needed etc. He obviously hadn't delt much with carte de sejours so he was the nicest fonctionnaire ever and called the main prefecture for me! Then he called me back (I know! Gasp!) and sent me an letter containing a list of all the documents needed and a form to fill out and send to the main prefecture. I finally got the list together (needed special stamps to pay for it, new photos etc) and sent it off today. I figured since there was 70e worth of stamps on my application I would send it registrared mail, worth the extra 4e for a little piece of mind I guess...) If they except my meager list of documents (I swear there were only like 5 things to provide, non of them being proof of PACS or anything..) this will be by far the easiest carte de sejour ever!

After reading about Erica's experience, I think as soon as I get a job for next year I'll go ahead and apply for citizenship, that should be a fun paperwork treasure hunt...!

I also found out that I'll have to wait at least 3 months to pass the code again, oh well, more time to study...

Work went well today, I told those very badly behaved 8th graders that the crap they pulled was unacceptable and that all the work we would do today would be graded at the end. That snapped them into place (sort of, it was still amazingly noisy... couldn't hear myself explain something to one of the kids less than 1 foot away...) Tomorrow I finish up with 2 hours and my two favorite classes, the little tykes, they're so dang cute!