Month: July 2016

So…the next step in preparing for our adventure was to get our long-stay visa for France.  I spent a lot of time carefully assembling all the required documents and we made appointments at the Consulate in Chicago because it was the most convenient for us to get there from Chautauqua.  What I did not realize was that each Consulate only accepts applications from certain states.  Needless to say, we were disappointed to have gone all the way to Chicago only to be turned away!

We now have appointments in DC in August (they handle Maryland residents, which I guess we sort of still are …we have MD driver’s licenses…).  We can do this in a day trip and this will still give us enough time to get the visas before our planned launch date of September 19.

The best part about our Chicago trip, though, was visiting Ray Hofmann and Tori Simms, our former neighbors on Patterson Park.  They live in a gorgeous arts and crafts style condo in the Uptown neighborhood.  It was great to catch up and Rick had a chance to get his ‘cat fix.’  We walked to dinner at Appellations in the Andersonville neighborhood.  There is so much lovely architecture in Chicago.  It would have been nice to have more time to explore, but we flew back to Buffalo on Wednesday afternoon.  Onward!!

As I’ve talked with friends about our plan to shed possessions and travel the world, I’ve promised to create a blog through which you can follow us on our great adventure.  Here is the first installment.  I promise they’ll get more exciting…

We have accomplished a lot in the last several months in preparation for our Nomad Year(s).  We sold our house in Baltimore (settlement was July 15), gave away an incredible amount of furniture and stuff (to friends, our children, the Butcher’s Hill Flea Market and the new owners of our house), and put the rest of our things in storage.  We even found a storage facility for what is left of our wine.

We are spending the summer in Chautauqua, as we have for many years and it has given us time to sort through things like how to handle our mail, how to apply for a long-stay visa (more on that later), and deciding what we REALLY need to carry with us (much less than we originally thought!)

MAIL:  Beginning in April, I diligently called every company that sends us mail that we no longer want to receive and asked them to remove us from their mailing list.  We immediately saw a decrease in the junk in our mailbox.  We then registered a change of address with the Post Office to our P O Box in Chautauqua.  At the end of our time here, we’ll change this to a P O Box in Bend, OR, that Andy has agreed to monitor periodically.  Since we do all our business and banking on line, we don’t expect to receive much snail mail…

LONG-STAY VISA:  We learned that one can apply for a long-stay Visa (up to a year) for France.  This will allow us to travel throughout the Schengen Zone pretty freely and should also allow periodic trips back to the US without the need for anew Visa.  The process is not easy.  We have to appear in person at the French Embassy or at a full service Consulate and bring with us a whole list of documents.  We have our appointment on July 27 in Chicago (since this is closest to Chautauqua) where we’ll have a chance to visit our old Baltimore neighbors, Tori & Ray, who’ve agreed to put us up for the night.

WHERE WILL WE GO FIRST?  Paris, of course! We’ve secured an Airbnb flat in the Marais (4th arr) from September 20-October 23.  It looks like a nice space and we know it’s a great location.  Lew & Pat Mastrobuono will join us in Paris toward the end of our time there.  And we really hope that many other friends will do this as we move around. (We’ll keep you posted through this blog).

Stay tuned and let me know how I can improve this modern means of staying in touch.