Renewing my visa is just about finished. That “just about” part is what makes the story worth telling, by the way.
I’ve been here for a year. Specifically, my language student visa expires next Saturday, April 5. I’m applying to grad school, so there’s a problem with that. Namely, I can’t finish the application process in the United States. What I’m doing, then, is applying for a Student Application Visa. It’s a visa that gives you 9 months to get accepted into a university while living in Germany. Once you’re accepted, you can show the acceptance letter to the Kreisverwaltungsreferat (the KVR), and they upgrade you to a 3-year Student Visa. Or, it’s a 2-year visa with the automatic option to extend it a year at the end in order to find a job. I forget how that one works.
I went in two weeks ago with all of my materials in hand, ready to get that visa. If you’re from the US or one of a group of other countries, then the process is simple. Last time, for example, I was given my visa before I left the building. But, as is usual with the KVR, you never just have to go one time. You’re always missing a document, or a document is missing one critical detail, or you arrived 1 minute too late and they stopped giving out waiting room tickets because the office is only open 5 hours a day. Last time, my problem was that I didn’t have confirmation that I was admitted to the university. It was the beginning of March, so my brain exploded from each of my ears.
How can I get confirmation of acceptance, when the application process doesn’t end until May 31? Well, after the representatives behind the counter spoke among themselves in >B2 level German, they told me that I can bring proof that I’m eligible to attend the university, and that would suffice. The confusion alone was enough to baffle me–I had said that I wanted to extend my visa in order to complete the application process. There is a visa for exactly that purpose. Why were they acting like I was asking for a full student visa this early?
In any case, I resigned to the obligatory first-visit failure and went home to wrap up my application and get confirmation from the university that I applied.
Two weeks later, and I’m done with all of that stuff. I’ve finished my admissions research paper (“The Role of Consumer Information in Public Policy”), obtained written confirmations for every item on my CV (yeah, you have to do that, here), and did battle with the insurance industry in order to get coverage for an adequate amount of time (more on that in a future post). This morning, I had my application documents in hand and a pending nervous breakdown in limbic system. The KVR is open on Friday from 7:30am until noon. I was set to arrive at the end of the inevitable line by 9am. Surely, 3 hours is plenty of time, especially considering that all of my requirements accompanied me, in order of necessity, in the most German folder I’ve ever assembled.
It wasn’t enough time. I was on line for 1.5 hours. At 10:30, I reached the counter, showed one representative my materials, and watched as she became 3 representatives. They discussed puzzlement over my lack of university acceptance, again, but eventually relented when I showed them the checklist given to me last time (which specifically left that bit out as a requirement). Finally, a member of the team told me that, unfortunately, the cutoff for handing out waiting room numbers had just passed. I would sadly need to come back on Monday.
“I have everything I need, right?” I asked. They will not send me home, again, on Monday.
“Exactly. You have everything. You’ve just come too late, today and need to come back on Monday.”
So now, I just have to wait three days and coddle this pending nervous breakdown. What are you supposed to feed these things, anyway?