Paris is an iconic city, there's no denying it. It’s the city of lights and of romance. The city of culture and debates, good food and good wine, beautiful people and places to see. The allure of grand museums, quaint shops, and delectable treats scattered throughout the city's 20 arrondissements make it a premier tourist destination for many. I will never forget my first day in Paris: the sun was shining, the air was crisp, and as I hopped off the bus at Invalides station, I felt like I was off on a grand adventure.

Now coming up on my third anniversary in this bustling city, I can safely say that I had no idea of the journey I'd truly embarked on.

I arrived in Paris that fateful September morning with the intention of soaking up all that French culture had to offer over the next 12 months. My one-year Masters program guaranteed me an easy escape from a life I'd grown weary of in Canada. The plan was to get reinvigorated creatively and come back to Montreal stronger than ever the following year. However, life happened, as it often does. After interning at a production company during my studies, I was offered a job. Could I really turn down professional experience in a major European city?

During my first year in Paris, I'd also joined the local biking community. I became obsessed with my fixed gear and tried to learn as many tricks as I could. In the end I only ever did manage to lock down the barspin, the fakey and the bunny hop, but it was enough to get noticed by French sportswear brand Coq Sportif. I ended up performing my staple tricks during one of their fashion shows - yes I threw a barspin on the catwalk and yes it was terrifying - and participated in their national campaign for the 2011/2012 season.

It was right around the time of the Coq Sportif photo shoot that I handed in my visa request. Being hired at the production company meant that I would have to change from the student status I currently held to a workers’ visa, or "Salarié" as they call it in France. Being a Canadian from Quebec, everyone around me pretty much assumed that I would get my new visa without any issues. "It's just a formality" they all said. "No one turns down Quebecers." But I couldn't help feeling just a little bit worried.

On December 18th, 2010, the Arab Spring began. The revolutionary demonstrations occurring across the Arab world at that time meant that many students originally from countries like Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia opted to extend their visas in the countries they were studying in. Those graduating searched for jobs in the hopes of changing status and getting some valuable work experience. This didn't bode well with the French government. Surprising, you might say? When you consider that entire political campaigns have been built around the never ending debate over who is and isn't allowed to stay in this country and work, I answer: not so much.

Hence my worry. It turns out I had good reason too, as the government put the "Circulaire Guéant" into place just a few months before my request to change visa's. Grégoire Truttmann, a member of the bureau of the Union Nationale des Etudiants de France (UNEF), one of France’s most important student unions, explains the circular in the simplest terms : "The ‘circulaire Guéant’ reduces the opportunities for foreign students to get a work permit after their studies in France. It’s an ideological battle fought by the government as they want to prove that immigrants cost the state and take the jobs of the locals."

Talk of the circulaire and the difficulties it imposed on international students started making the rounds in the media. Debates ensued about how the government was using the Arab Spring as an excuse to tighten it's laws and refuse Arab students. When I expressed my concern that I might get refused as well, I was often told that being a blonde-haired Canadian girl from Quebec, I had nothing to worry about. This always made me feel uncomfortable. Of course I wanted to stay, of course I wanted to get my visa, of course I wanted to avoid any hassles. But I certainly didn't like that the government might use Arab Spring as an excuse to rid itself of young, newly educated and quite motivated immigrants.

The debate never did get resolved. Even today, despite a number of amendments that have been made to the circular, there are still racist echoes and insinuations surrounding the document. Upon my return from Montreal after the 2011 Christmas holidays, I received my rejection letter from the government.

I wasn't surprised, but I was shocked nonetheless. There are no words to express how bizarre it feels to be rejected from a country you've spent the last year living in. How could the government allow me to come, and then not allow me to stay? Paris, this city that pushed me to new creative heights, this city that allowed me to discover new facets of myself, this city that presented me with new and exciting opportunities and encounters on a daily basis - it all of the sudden felt very foreign to me, like the first day I'd arrived.

This time I didn't feel like I was setting off on a grand adventure. Instead I felt like I didn't belong anymore, like I wasn't supposed to be here. I felt a strange numbness for the first few days following my rejection. I’d look around at everyone going about their daily routines wondering if I’d ever get back to that comfortable place.

That I was being pushed out against my will made me want to stay even more. The production company that had hired me wasn't ready to give up without a fight either. So we went to see a lawyer, and started putting together a new case.

At this point, my student visa had expired. When you're waiting on an answer for a new visa, normally you are given a special document that allows you to be on French territory during the time it takes to process and answer the request. Since I had already been refused, I no longer had that document and found myself fighting very grey legalities. I could stay in France while I waited on the second visa request, but if I left there was no guarantee that I would be allowed back into the country upon my return. I was an illegal alien of sorts, a term I had only ever attributed to those who would appear on the news after they'd been discovered stowed away in boats just off the shores of places like Vancouver and Miami.

I never did get an answer. And while the Paris prefecture told me that my request was still being processed, my lawyer explained that no response meant an implicit second refusal on behalf of the government. Right around that time, the Coq Sportif campaign launched. My face was plastered on billboards all over Europe with friends sending me sightings from as far away as Denmark and Italy. It was especially surreal because the campaign was based on cyclers representing their countries. Everyone who had participated had their name and national flag printed next to their face. Oddly, when I saw my face up in one of Paris' metro's, I discovered a French flag in the place of what should have been a Canadian flag. Irony at its best.

Frustrated and desperate I started looking at other options. My boss gently explained to me that he couldn't continue with the case. Things were taking too long (as is often the case with the French system) and with an implicit refusal now registered, it could take upwards of nine more months to sort everything out. I scoured the internet looking for answers and ended up finding a group of local students petitioning the Government for a change in the circulaire. I went to one of their meetings and explained my story. They seemed to think that I had a good case. Because the circulaire was continuously debated in the news, journalists were often contacting the student group for testimonials. A few weeks later I had a full page story in Le Monde, chronicling the ups and downs of my situation thus far. The comments on the newspapers website ranged; there were as many people telling me to pack up and go home as there were people telling me I should wait it out. I got many encouraging messages on Facebook as well. I went on to do a few more interviews for TV new stations and the radio, but still nothing was moving. It was July 2012 at this point and all of Paris was preparing to head off on their yearly mass exodus to the beaches and sun of the south.

I decided that I wasn't going to let my illegal alien status stop me from having a little fun myself. I just had to be intelligent about it. Thanks to the European Union, I could travel most anywhere I wanted, as long as I moved by car. I ended up spending a lot of time at Belgium music festivals and German bike gatherings. While I never had any hassle, it was slightly terrifying every time we would drive by a "Customs" sign on the road...

End of summer and still no answer. I expected things would start moving again once the city woke up from its summer slumber, but I was wrong. My roommate convinced me to go see a new lawyer with her in the hopes that someone whose specialty was immigration policy might be of better help than the general practice lawyer I had gone to see originally. If I have learned anything over the last three years, it's that lawyers are seedy. The so called "immigration specialist" seemed to have all the answers but wouldn't give them to me unless I paid 80% of the lawyers fees up front. His answer also involved leaving France and reapplying from Canada, which seemed like a costly solution especially considering he could offer no guarantees. I quite literally had not a penny to my name at this point either, so even if I’d been up for trying, I could have never paid my way back to Montreal and also payed the lawyer without going into massive debt. With no assurance I would even get a visa, this option didn't feel quite right.

There I was at yet another roadblock. At this point I'd found myself the staple under the table illegal immigrant job: I was working in a restaurant kitchen, stowed away safely at the back where no one could see me. There I was, an accredited journalist and ex ad-exec, working under the table in a restaurant, getting paid less than minimum wage in a country that didn't want me and if you had asked me why I was staying, at that point I probably couldn't have given you a real answer. Something was keeping me here. I just felt like my time wasn't quite up in Paris. Not yet.

Looking back now, there are a few reasons I didn't budge. For one, I hated the idea of leaving by someone elses choosing. Secondly, I was and still am blessed to be part of an insanely creative and kind community of friends who have supported me to various degrees throughout this whole experience. We have created together, played together, laughed and cried together. I could never had turned my back on them without trying every last option possible to stay in this time and place with them.

On a particularly difficult day, when I was feeling weak and considering calling my time in Paris a day, a friend of mine introduced me to a good friend of his. She happened to be a law student and was interested in my case. We had coffee and talked for a few hours. She understood the difficulty of my situation, but wanted to try and help. We set out to build what would be my third case, meeting evenings and weekends, getting my papers together. I had at that point worked my way out of the restaurant kitchen and into the office. My background in journalism and penchant for all things social media got me a legitimate job offer to work as their PR manager. We finally had a real case.

Christmas rolled around. I headed off to the North of France with my roommates. Still unable to go home, I was adopted into their families during the holidays. Everyone went to Belgium for New Years, where at the stroke of midnight everyone kept repeating "2013 is the year you get your papers". I smiled, and I hoped they were right.

January 23rd, 2013: My roommate and I went to deliver the papers to the immigration office. Upon handing in my papers, the clerk mentioned that I had been refused exactly one year ago that day. I got goosebumps. Because of the timing, but also because she had access to both the explicit and implicit refusal. I smiled and explained that my work situation was changing and I wanted to drop off the new information. She reluctantly took my paperwork.

I nearly ran out of that office, I was so scared she would refuse my papers or try to give them back. Once they’re filed, you have as good a chance as anyone to get a positive answer. French bureaucracy is strange like that; they often say it's based on criteria, but in reality it depends mainly on the mood of the clerk reading through all the documents.

A few days later I received a phone call from the clerk. "I didn't realize you'd been here illegally for a year," she said. "Yes, I have," I answered. I saw no reason to lie. I was either going to get my visa or get sent home. "Let me call the Prefecture and sort this out," she answered before hanging up.

I was petrified that I was going to be arrested and sent to a holding cell before being sent back to Canada and banned from France indefinitely. It might sound extreme but it has happened to others in the past. The other possible outcome involved me receiving an OQTF - Obligation de quitter le Territoire France (Obligation to leave French Territory) which could leave me anywhere from three days to a month to gather my things and get out.

I heard nothing for a few days and then I got a phone call from the Prefecture. "We need you to come down the to Prefecture and bring your passport with you," they said. The student organization had often repeated to everyone in my situation to never leave home with your passport. As an illegal alien, if you were caught and identified, your passport would be confiscated and you would be shipped home immediately. I started to get nervous but managed to ask, as calmly as I could, what this was about.

"Your request for a workers’ visa has been accepted. We need you to bring your passport and three pictures with you. When can you get here?"

I nearly screamed. And then I started to wonder if it was a trick. Honestly I did. I thought I might be a trap. Then I decided it was probably illegal to trick people into coming down to get a visa only to send them home. France was tough on immigrants, but not totally inhumane. Then again… No, no, I was being dramatic.

The next day I went down to the prefecture passport in hand, and picked up a little piece of paper that said I would get my visa the following month.

It took a year and a week but Paris was finally home again. I'd been right where I should have been all along.