Times are a changin

Following my new French driver's license, I am going to receive French nationality. I have to go to Lyon on Tuesday to pick up the document that says I am French. Oh, and you might have noticed that I said "going to Lyon". I no longer live in Lyon. Well, technically. I started a new job in Geneva Switzerland about 1 month ago and things are going pretty good, except for the fact that I have lost 1 month of French holidays. In France I had 2 months, now I only have 1 month:(

Val is still in Lyon working for the time being. But, oops, I don't think I have mentioned that she is pregnant! Yep, number 2 is on the way. So much too talk about and so little time to talk. Val be moving here after we sell the apt in Lyon and she goes on maternity leave. All will hopefully occur around December. That way she will have plenty of time to work out the details since she will benefit from a good portion of her salary without having to work for a couple of years. Gotta love France!

Anyway, at the moment I am staying at Val's father's place in the upstairs apt. He is also allowing me to borrow a car for the moment until I buy a new one which is hopefully soon. His car is 20 years old and has already broken down twice, once crossing through the border check and a second time right after passing through a toll booth. Both were really shitty timing but what can you do.

So to sum it up for the first half of 2010. French driver's license, check. French Nationality, most likely complete on Tuesday, check. Pregnant, check. New job in Geneva, check and hopefully towards the end of the year an apt in Lyon sold and a new house near Geneva.

By the way the photo is from today. We went hiking at Les Houches. I definitely recommend it. The view on top is incredible. The Mt Blanc and 3 seperate glaciers. In addition, the mule made life easy for me.

I also added some new photos on the left in the Photos on Picasa section.

French Naturalization Procedure

Since I am on a roll today, here is a little update on the process I am going through to obtain dual citizenship (French/American). Finally after 4 years of living here and being married to a French citizen I have the right to request dual citizenship like my son who already has it. Lucky him. So back in July I presented my dossier. Basically it takes one year to go through an approval process and yesterday, I cleared the last big hurdle.
Valerie and I had a interview with the National Police. They needed to verify that we lived together and that I have a job and can speak the language. Speaking was the simple part however, I also had to write a paragraph that he dictated to me. Talk about miserable failure. I am really bad at writing in French and even worse when someone is dictating the French to me. Anyway, apparently that didn't affect the outcome. He said he was going to pass along an approval from the National Police and he even told me where to get the best pizza in town. Pizza came up in the interview as my only religious belief when he asked me if I was part of any religious cults. So now all I have to do is go get a pizza and wait for the response from the immigration. Assuming all goes by next July I should be a French/American citizen.