Wife and I will be going to France and Italy later this summer and so she will need to get a Shengen visa. Today we went over to Miami to the French consulate to apply and interview for her visa. I had looked online at their website and prepared all documents and copies as specified. Really not much to it compared to what most of us have been through.

When we arrived shortly before they opened we were fourth in line. The first guy did not get his visa because he is an airline pilot and could not leave his passport and did not come with a postage paid mailer. The second group did not bring the required pictures. The third couple were trying to pick up 6 visas which included 4 for people that did not show up for the required "interview" (which is, "yes" your face matches your picture). I noticed the panicked girl behind us in line calling her mother because she did not have the mailer and didn't even know what type of visa she was supposed to apply for while she was trying to fill out the application, and didn't have copies of her documents. I couldn't believe it.

We had no problem at all. All our documents and copies were ready and organized the same way they were for the K-1 and AOS interviews. We will receive the passport with Shengen visa Monday or Tuesday. So folks, there are some practical lessons learned doing the prep work for K-1 and other family based visas.

Or just lessons learned from being able to follow simple directions. have fun in france!

Great to hear that it's really no big deal as long as you follow the rules. Congrats, have fun, and hope to see some fotos....

OK, will take a ton of fotos...
Talked with a friend yesterday about Paris and he tells me Paris is a great city. He said the only thing bad about Paris is the French people!

I'd be more concerned about the falling dollar and how little it will get you in Paris. We're joining the millions of others by doing yet another "staycation".

Paris is an awesome city, probably one of the most interesting places in the world to visit on a vacation.

Wouldn't want to live there though as even a bottle of water and small snack will run you about 5 Euros.

Yes, but it's a really great snack! We spent the last two weeks of March in France, and Irina was snatching real estate newsletters from the kiosks, asking 'can we afford this?" 'Maybe we will sell our house and buy that?'

We stayed in the Hotel Sevigne for a week, in the Marais, wiithin walking distance of two wine shops, two mini-marts, a cheese shop, four bakeries, and two butchers, and then rented a car and drove through Burgundy and the Loire Valley. After two nights of eating over-priced, obviously pre-cooked gunk in restaurants, we decided to shop for meals for the rest of our stay in France. Our experience:

The same bottle of wine cost about the same in Paris as it did in my local wineshop, but there were lots of inexpensive good wines that aren't available over here, so generally we drank quite well for an average of $10 - $15 a bottle, or sometimes less.

Bread and pastry cost maybe twice as much as in our hometown bakeries, but were much, much better and worth every cent and more.

Pate was maybe 50% higher than in the butcher shops here, but better also.

Cheese prices were about the same as in the US, based on some popular cheeses that we buy locally and could also buy in Paris (aged Manchego, Tomme de Savoie). Outside of Paris specialty cheeses were harder to find, but the more popular French 'soft' cheeses were everywhere and cost no more than in the US.

Fruits and vegetables were more or less than in the US, depending on what was in season.

For us, the huge difference in quality of the 'snacks' we were eating was a main reason why Irina would like to move to Paris. (Not going to happen though)

We went to Italy in 2007, by the way, and had a much easier time getting a visa, because unlike the French Consulate, the Italian Consulate did not require a personal appearance, and we were able to do the entire transaction by mail.

The Italian consulate in Miami requires a personal appearance, and charges more for the visa for a Russian than the French consulate.

Now we are spending time reading and preparing for next months adventure. Hope I can recall a little of that French I studied in high school and college.

Paris is the most popular tourist city in the world. You'll hear plenty of English while you're there and most Parisians actually speak/understand a fair amount. Plus, while in Paris, no matter what language people are speaking it just makes sense because they're only talking about a few things -

"Delicious."
"Beautiful."
"Magnificent."
"Can you take our picture please?"

I was able to speak a little French, Spanish, Korean, Russian and a whole bunch of English in the 8 hours or so that I toured the city. It's truly one of those cities that you don't need to have your little pocket slovar with you. Speak what you know, try what you don't, and just go for it!

You're right; I'd forgotten that the Consulates can follow different rules. My comment should only apply to the San Francisco Consulates.

We prepared by playing some beginning conversational French CD's (Pimsleur in this case) in the car. I also took French in college, but I decided it would be more useful to focus on my pronunciation, because primarily I wanted people to understand me; whether I understood them was secondary, because I could always repeat what I thought they had said.

I seldom was able to speak in complete sentences, but I think my pronunciation was acceptable, and I never, in 2 1/2 weeks, experienced any rudeness from any of the French I spoke to. In fact, most people in France went out of their way to be nice to us, which is pretty amazing to me, because there are so many tourists that even other tourists sometimes find them irritating.

Irina, and this is just her personal opinion, thinks that it is much easier for a Russian speaker to learn to pronounce Italian than to learn to pronounce French. Last year in Italy she was comfortable pronouncing Italian words, although she can't speak the language, but this year in France she basically pretended to be mute with French people who couldn't speak English.

Iriina also carried her own guidebooks in Russian. It wasn't really necessary, because my English-language guidebooks (Blue Guides and (Michelin) Green Guides) were much more detailed, and she can understand more than half of what she reads in English, but she enjoyed looking things up for herself in Russian and studying her own books ahead of time.

I've been to Europe before, but it was like a first trip for me, because I was seeing everything again through Irina's eyes, and she enjoyed every minute of every day.

Enjoy your trip!