We ‘think’ we have all our paperwork in order as requested on the French Visa application form.

That is except for Mick’s Police Record Check …

…… and the letter from our doctor saying we are fit enough, for our age, to cope with this adventure. I drafted a letter for our doctor to that effect and we collect them next week.

The police check can take 15-20 days so I’m not panicking yet.

I have read other advice about this process and have gone to some further trouble of preparing supporting evidence for why we actually want to do this.

It includes a covering letter explaining our goal to spend 12 months in France house sitting and detailing our experience doing just that in France on three different occasions. It also details our financial capability to manage should we not be successful in finding an assignment when our first one finishes at the end of February.

The fact we have changed our residential address recently needed to be explained, or so I thought, so I’ve included information about that as well.

We may not need this second bundle of paperwork, but I don’t want to risk it.

So how much has this process cost us so far?

Just over $1200AUD, even with super cheap flights, but there will be a bit more for transport in Sydney plus transport to and from airports.

Police checks $196

Passport photos $33.90

Tiger Flights $250

Accommodation in Sydney $327

Marriage certificate $56

Birth certificate $56

Visa application €99 each $322

What if this doesn’t work?

What if we don’t get a Visa?

Of course we’ve thought of that and we have a Plan B.

Basically, we will do what loads of young(er) travellers do when they want to spend a year in Europe on holiday, and we’ll play the Schengen Game.

I’ll admit I knew nothing about the Schengen Agreement until a few months ago when we decided to embark on this adventure. Many of you will know about it, but I bet there are some of you who are scratching your heads.

Twenty-six European countries, as listed above, are part of this agreement which essentially states non-Europeans can spend 90 of 180 days in one or more of these countries without a visa. After the 90 days, and they don’t need to be consecutive, they must leave.

For us, we will arrive in Europe on 11th December and so we will spend 21 days of December, 31 days of January and 28 days of February in France getting to, and undertaking our house sitting assignment – a total of 80 days. We will then have a maximum of 10 days left to spend in any one of those 26 Schengen countries from March 1st up to 9th June 2019 (180 days after we first arrive).

Then our 90 days in 180 days can start again.

Our idea is to visit the UK and Ireland during this part of the year (if we don’t get our visas) – or even Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus or Romania – the other European countries not part of the Schengen Agreement. I’ve seen house sitting assignments in each of those countries. But, we have to be sure to get our passports stamped as we leave France. This does not always happen but we’ll have to ask ……

……politely.

I did mention in my last post I’d explain more about why we are flying to France via Amsterdam. We will be flying with Korean Air via Seoul. The price for the tickets was excellent and although we have booked a return ticket, as required by the French Visa Application, our return date is in August 2019. We don’t want to return then, but the cost of changing the date will only be $200AUD each, which is very reasonable.

I’ll keep you posted about our interviews and the outcome in November.

In the meantime, we are enjoying exploring our new area. We actually will be house and pet sitting for most of next month for our son and daughter-in-law and plan on visiting Noosa quite regularly, once the school holidays are over.