okay, so I am allowed in the country: here is part one:
PART ONE:
Blegh,
So tomorrow I may be kicked out of Germany, so tonight I am drowning my sorrows in candy and internet television.Thursday as I was leaving Hamburg to go to London for Harry Potter(amazing by the way, I'll cover that in a different post, possibly from the US if the Germans kick me out) the border control man made some comment about only staying in Germany for 90 days, and that I might be over my limit... I was confused by this as my paperwork was processed through a German company and included a work visa waiver for six months and I registered with the city of Hamburg through December(remember all the struggles with becoming a Hamburger.) Well after than encounter, I half-joked that I wouldn't be allowed back in Germany on Sunday. I figured if he took the time to mention something about 90 days and that I wasn't allowed, there would probably be another issue soon. Tom thought that if there would be a problem, that guard would have mentioned it then. Sunday, arrived back in Hamburg around 10:30am and got in the line to go through the border control passport thing. The guy started counting and determined that I have in fact been in Germany too many days and told me to go wait in a corner. Germany is one of those Schengen countries so people from many other areas are allowed to visit for a total of 90 days without a visa. I was hoping it was 90 days in a row, and that every time I left the country they would start over... but unfortunately it is 90 total days every six months. The border man counted 100 days in Germany and then went to go look up some stuff in a secret room. Tom came back and started talking with the guy and the words I could understand turned in to something like: "back go london wait forbidden 100 too many no germany" NOT promising. After an hour or so the guy let me into the country after I promised to go to the Ausländerbehörde(Immigration Office) within the next week or so... I'm hoping that he could see my Meldebestätigung(becoming a Hamburger registration) and tax ID things and determined that I am not a sneaky criminal trying to live in Germany illegally for funsies. I hope whoever I meet with tomorrow is as nice. So I got back to my apartment and started gathering all of the paperwork things I had. I was under the impression that the forms from the German visa processing people were linked to my passport number and that I wouldn't need anything else. When I emailed the company today, my contact was on holiday, but another lady told me that "you´ve forgotte to go to the “Ausländerbehörde” to apply for your “Aufenthaltstitel” immediately afer you got your “Meldebestätigung”. These informatiosn were given to you and to the hostcompany…" soooooo no, actually that information was not given to me or my host company, or I would have done that the same day. Then she said that the information was given to me during my time in Cologne... if you remember I was in Cologne for a grand total of 4 hours with Morgen and we went to a chocolate museum and climbed a billion stairs to the top of the Dom, no one snuck me information about not getting kicked out of Germany. I think that they thought I was part of the engineering group who had a welcome week in Cologne and learned how to be German, but I came here by myself. I would have hoped for some instruction from their company with the paperwork, but all I was told in my email correspondence with them prior to arriving that it was a work visa waiver and that my employer would have the paperwork. Also, I am confused why Hamburg let me register to live here using the dates July 7-December 20, 2012 if I wasn't legally able to stay in Germany for that long... or why I was allowed to get a tax ID number to be paid by a German company if the work visa waiver was never filed with the residency people. Everything is difficult.So tomorrow I am going to the immigration place and hopefully they are nice. Otherwise, I guess I will see you all in the states soon.
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more later
