The Long Road to Residency: Planes, Trains, and the 'Photomaton'

Setting the Scene: Its 7am, far corner table of a chic hotel breakfast room

Setting the Mood: A new band, Khruangbin, that I've come across recently via new acquaintence

NB: This post is more of a travel story than anything!

Coucou de Strasbourg!

I’m sitting in the breakfast room of the Tandem Hotel, booked with the last, gasping remnants of some bonus Qantas frequent flyer points, in the utterly charming eastern French city of Strasbourg.

The space is effortlessly chic—modern yet warm, with dark walls, sleek lighting, and the kind of thoughtful decor that makes you wonder if you should finally invest in non IKEA furniture (that, of course would also depend on actually having a place of residence Zachary).

To top it all off, three highly conversational budgies are chirping away in the corner, as if to personally announce that yes, it is indeed morning, and yes, you will be indulging in one of the best hotel buffet breakfasts you've ever encountered, and YES, you will need two cups of caffe au lait.

But why Strasbourg? Weren’t you just in New Zealand?

Mais oui, mes amis, you are not mistaken.

Just days ago, I was on the other side of the world. A 15-hour flight to New York later, I was thrown into a blur of bagels, window shopping, practice sessions, drinks, and donburi. I squeezed in a brisk, cold morning run around Central Park—because apparently, I make questionable choices in the name of attempting to improve my health—before squeezing onto another 10-hour flight to Vienna (via Brussels). After a brief recovery period in Linz, offloading Tim Tams biscuits and Whittakers chocolate to fellow ex-pat friends, I hopped on a train, weaving through Nuremberg and Frankfurt, before finally arriving in Strasbourg.

Blurry-eyed, jet-lagged, and running on fumes, I collapsed fully clothed onto the hotel bed and slept for nine uninterrupted hours. Glamorous, non?

All this... just to take a single photo in an automatic Photomaton—the final step for my future French residency card.

The Great French Visa Adventure

For the past year, I’ve been living in France on the Passeport Talent visa—a special visa designed for freelance artists like myself. (Side note: it still feels surreal to type that out, almost as surreal as writing "Performing Artist" on my New Zealand arrival card. Small joys.)

It’s an incredible opportunity. You apply based on your artistic credentials and future contracts in France, and in return, you get the flexibility to work in any field between gigs. Initially issued for a year, it can then transition into a multi-year residency permit.

For this Kiwi, that warrants a long, slow exhale of relief.

Because, unlike many of my European colleagues, I have no golden passport conveniently passed down through the generations. No ancestral loophole granting me a free pass into the EU. My family tree—sprawling as it is, with roots in Scotland, England, Ireland, France, Italy, and even China—somehow managed to fumble the bag on keeping any of those original citizenships.

Oh, great ancestors—was it really so hard to stay Italian for your opera-singing great-great-grandson? Maybe sock away a little generational wealth while you were at it? Seems just a little short-sighted...

Jokes aside, the Passeport Talent is an incredible pathway to life in Europe. And let’s be honest—it’s a pretty cool name, right? A Passport for Talent. Feels vaguely like something from a Wes Anderson film.

Strasbourg Main Station → Basel

Post-breakfast (and after bidding adieu to my new feathered friends), I hopped on a train heading south through the beautiful Alsace region, bound for Basel, Switzerland, to visit a friend before making my way back to Austria.

The last time I was in Switzerland was in 2017. Equally jetlagged, equally ambitious, I somehow thought it was a brilliant idea to land in Rome, immediately take a train to Zurich, and watch three operas in two days.

The results?

• Opera #1: Eugene Onegin → Slept through most of it, left after act one...

• Opera #2: Salome → Fell asleep before it even started missing the entire thing...

• Opera #3: Il Barbiere di Siviglia (starring the incredible Larry Brownlee) → Spent the entire performance fighting off sleep like a Looney Tunes character with matchsticks in my eyes.

I then stumbled out of the theatre in a jetlagged haze, managing to spend a small fortune on some wildly overpriced train station food, and promptly got on another train bound for Italy for lessons.

Ah, the reckless optimism of a younger, melatonin-gummy-free traveler...

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From a chic breakfast nook in Strasbourg to a fleeting visit in Basel, this part of the journey has been a whirlwind of trains, time zones, and tiny victories.

I wandered the Swiss streets just long enough to sample Läckerli (a delightfully chewy spiced biscuit that dares your teeth to keep up, not to mention your ears trying to understand the swiss dialects!), catch up with a good friend, and—as one does—find myself singing 9 high c's and more in an impromptu audition that I absolutely did not plan for.

Somewhere between dodging jetlag and chasing residency paperwork, I was reminded that life as a freelance artist is equal parts chaos and serendipity. One moment, you're asleep in your clothes after a 10-hour train ride; the next, you're dressed up in black velvet singing for a panel in a country you hadn’t even planned on visiting until two days prior.

C’est la vie, non?

Thats all for now!

If you like reading these, and want to keep up with my travels please go back to the main blog page and pop in your email address to get updates!

Next part of this crazy life will be taking me through Austria, and on to Berlin and who knows what else in between!

Z