Saturday, July 23, 2011

The beginning- Finding a roof over your head

Aristotle said "Well begun is Half done". And what better way to begin than to get some financers for your trip. In the last post, I had mentioned about scholarships. To know more about them, call up the campus france coordinator as soon as you get the exchange seat. You can also check the French Embassy website...it has a list of scholarships.
Students visiting France for a period of more than 3 months have to apply for a long term visa (else the short term/schengen visa). You apply for a residence permit along with the long term visa, which allows you to travel across Europe. Hence there will be no problem.
The French Visa application is a fairly simple process. The only thing which makes it a bit difficult is that you need to show your accommodation proof. If your school provides acco, then nothing like that. Else start looking asap. This is the part which takes the longest, so it is best to get to it first.
There are hostels like India House which offer cheap accommodation. I have taken my residence there and I will post reviews about the same once I reach there. If you want your own apartments you can look up sites like parisrentaparts.com, lodgis.com among others. In France it is compulsary to take housing insurance even when you take up a house for rent. Some places ask for guarantors and your parents may have to give guarantee for the same. But people do manage it, so it should not be difficult. But the only thing which you must be aware about are scamsters- there are many people who post fake houses on the internet and ask for a month's advance. They then abscond with the money. Just double check before taking up any house.
I will tell you about the next steps in my next post. Happy house hunting!

Friday, July 22, 2011

Bonjour!

I am writing this post for people who are travelling or are planning to travel to Paris. This is because I found it very difficult and cumbersome getting all my documents ready for the trip. Then I hit upon the idea, that this blog can be used to chronicle my entire trip and help me give tips to fellow as well as future travellers. Also please comment and give me tips in order to make my travel easy.
First things first- why should students choose to study in Paris? I made mistakes; I should have chosen Germany as it is far cheaper. But there is an easy way out- the French Goverment gives loads of scholarships (which sadly I did not know about and hence did not apply) which will help you cut down on your expense.
And apart from that- It is PARIS- the most romantic city in the world. One has to go there and fall in love with the handsome French, their lovely accent and their quaint cafes. So, I decided to go to Paris:)
I hope I am able to document my travels through this blog. Wish me luck!