The original plan was to leave France again in January when my visa expires, work 3 months and then come back for a couple months until we figured out what to do next. Without a visa, I'm allowed to stay up to 3 months at a time but only twice a year. Or, on and off for a grand total of 180 days. Even if I extended my visa, by signing up for more classes or getting married, I still would not have the money to stay past its expiration date, so leaving for the winter was something we already knew would happen.
So I was finally finding things to do with my long boring days.
I found 2 volunteer agencies:
One is casual, come whenever you can, directed by an American woman, we bring lots of flowers to nursing homes and sit with all the old ladies and help them make little bouquets to have in their rooms. Sometimes these old women are funny, there's one who always wants to pose for a picture with her flowers. Sometimes its sad, some women are so old and they tell me they're too tired to hold the flowers, one lady cried, saying she can't do anything anymore, and she just feels like dying. Its heartbreaking.
The other is very formal, I had an hour and a half interview (in french) to see if I was qualified. Its an association that hires volunteers to give companionship to elderly sick in the hospital. I was supposed to start Oct 29th
I even got a call back from the parent/student organization I had offered my English services to. I got an interview to be the teacher (paid) of an English conversation workshop for high schoolers every Wednesday.
I found an English speaking expat (foreigner) group. Mostly women, most of whom are what you call trailing spouses, like I essentially am. They meet several times a week for various activities.
But then we took a look at my bank accounts one night and realized that, with the travel plans we already had, I couldn't afford to stay until January. After doing lots of math and budgeting and talking we decided it was best for me to leave before the holidays. I called up my manager at Stanford and my travel nurse recruiter and we quickly set up a contract.
The new plan is: I'm flying back to the US November 30th, staying with my parents for a week and starting back to work in California on December 7th. The contract goes all the way until March 29th, which was part of the original plan. I'll just be gone 5 weeks earlier than I wanted but 4 months of paychecks will help us immensely in the long run.
This had a negative effect on a few of my job/volunteer prospects.
The formal volunteer agency that I had to interview for was disappointed to hear they'd have much less time with me but still tried really hard to get me in on a team of volunteers because she really wanted me. But in the end she called me and said it wouldn't work, it was just not enough time to really integrate well.
The teaching job I actually almost had. It was to start Nov 4th and they were willing to have me for just 1 month. But when she called me to offer me the job I was in England for the night and my phone didn't work. When I got back the next day and called her back she had called someone else to do it and this person would be there for the whole school year.
One good thing, almost 2 months ago I posted in french craigslist to be an English tutor and just today someone finally responded. She's a college student and her English is actually really good so we decided to turn it into a language exchange and she'll help me with my French too.
I will get to see Adam twice during those 4 months I'm gone. He is coming to visit me in the US in January. We'll meet in Florida and stay with my parents, his mom and stepdad are coming down to Florida too. So everyone will get to meet each other.
Then in February Adam has a business trip to Vietnam so we're taking the last 2 weeks of Feb to go on vacation in Southeast Asia. We've had a hard time deciding what to visit, you really can't go wrong there. The tentative plan is a little island hopping in Thailand, visit Angkor Wat in Cambodia, and end in Southern Vietnam (the meeting is in Ho Chi Min City), where Adam's dad will meet us since he lives in China.
So I'm gonna keep you hanging like at the end of a chapter of a good book. That was just part 1 of our changes in plans. There's another change in plans but its still way too complicated to post about. So that will probably be decided and announced in late winter or early spring.
And before everyone starts making assumptions, no, I'm not pregnant! There are other exciting things in life besides that.
