And ... it's a new year!

Hello everybody. It has been a long time, uh? :)

The holiday season came and went quietly. Nothing particularly blogworthy or interesting happened around here as far as I know, and it was nice to have a little time off to just kick back, so that's what I did. Hope you all had a nice few days to rest over the holidays, too.

I couldn't resist starting the new year with another picture shamelessly stolen from the Chronicle's website, just to show what kind of weather we're having lately. No snow in Bay Area, although the temperature could almost allow it! It's been really really, freezing, especially at night, and especially when the wind starts blowing ... But I didn't come back to talk to you at length about the weather.

Right now, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank those of you who have written me lately, usually to ask for advice on how to get started in the States, and other similar questions. It's always nice to hear from people and hey, let's face it, it *is* flattering when someone comes to you for advice. Unfortunately, I don't really have any answers to offer.

To tell the truth, I have been living in this country for so long that by now I am almost completely disconnected with much of the French culture and have *no idea* of what it would take to get started here again, coming from France.

The immigration law in existence when I initially applied has probably changed a great deal in all these years, so even if I were to explain the process I went through, chances are it wouldn't do you any good. In fact, I would suggest that no matter what an individual may say to you out there, just take the information as a starting point, and then run that information by a *reputable* lawyer to see if it's reliable. Seriously, I mean it.

To get started and obtain general word-of-mouth information, check the forums like entresanfrancisco.com because they have a lot of traffic and someone is bound to have asked the question you are thinking about before and answers are probably already posted.

AGain, I really appreciate the e-mails, but please understand that it's very difficult to answer sentences like "tell me ALL about your life in the States from the beginning" or "I just graduated from ... and I want to go live in the States, what do I do next?"

That's about all I'm gonna say on this first post of the new year. I hope everything is going reasonably well for each and every one of you out there.

Peace, TF