Wednesday, 30 July 2008

We left Mount Isa on the Wednesday night flight. It has been a hectic last couple of weeks getting things organised. And even up to the last few hours before our flight we were still hauling stuff over to Mum and Dad’s to store for us. It was sad saying goodbye but mostly exciting thinking of the journey ahead.

We plan to stay a couple of weeks on the Gold Coast/Brisbane visiting Andrew’s family before flying to Sydney (to visit my sister) on 11 August 2008 where we’ve booked a unit in Bondi Junction to relax and wait for our passports/visas to turn up. Little did we know the long stay visas were going to turn into a major drama. The French Embassy wasn’t happy with our travel insurance (which was the complementary cover which you get with a platinum mastercard) and we had to buy another policy. They also wanted to know exactly where we were going to be residing for the full 12 months in France. This is a bit tricky because we plan to be travelling around to other countries in Europe as well. Luckily our landlord was willing to make the changes to our rental agreement.

We made 2 trips to the Consulate office in Market Street Sydney to ask what was happening or if they could tell us anything. They were apologetic but could not offer any time frame. We explained that we don’t live in Sydney and we were in rented accommodation and we would have to change our flights and all our travel arrangements but there was nothing they could do.

So the morning of our flight arrived and still no visa or passport! Can you believe it! It was very stressful.