Visa Update
As described in previous laments, our visas expire near the end of January. We were invited to fill out all the applications again and pay another fee with hopes of extending to the end of May. So, for the last month Kristine has been researching our options and reading horror stories of people who had run ins with the foreign police in various European countries. With less than three months remaining on our visas it was time to get the ball rolling. So, on Friday, Kristine paid a visit to our friends at the foreign police.
The open borders between Schengen Agreement nations is great for Europeans. For us it means that there is a uniform maximum combined time in the Schengen countries of 90 days out of every 180 days. The clock starts the day you enter. We came here seven days before our visa kicked in, so we used seven of our 90 days in August and the 180 days ends in February. Then a new 180 day block would start and we could stay in Schengen countries for 90 days. Until recently, the rule was that time in a country with a visa counted towards Schengen time. That would have meant that we would have used up our 90 Schengen days around Thanksgiving. Fortunately, a more recent re-interpretation of the rules (as described on the U.S. Embassy in Prague website, not on a Schengen country site) changed it so that visa time does not count as Schengen time unless you leave the country that granted the visa. So, you probably have an idea why people enlist the assistance of the Russian Mafia to get through this.
So Kristine set out Friday morning with the information from the U.S. Embassy site in English and Czech. She was hesitant about showing it because you don't want to provoke the people with the final word by saying our government says their government has to let us stay. In fact we spent a lot of time talking about strategy. One friend suggested we take flowers. I told Kristine that we should threaten to move frequently in our remaining time here if they did not make it easy for us (which would have resulted in a huge amount of work for them).
Anyway, best case scenario was that they agree that we can use Schengen time after our visa expires so that no visa extension would be needed. Otherwise, we were ready to spend many hours filling out papers and hand over another few thousand crowns. Moving to the British Isles or Croatia was dropped as an option because we feel very strongly about the need to be here helping out with our tiny congregation at church.
She sat in the waiting room, nervous. Her palms were sweaty. She concluded that only the executioner made people feel worse. As she looked around at others, including a Vietnamese family, she thought about how they must feel. Our stress is all about whether our vacation is interrupted, but for other people it's about whether they have to return to a country where their paycheck might not come for months at a time, or people steal your chained bike off your third floor balcony, or your life is in danger because of political or ethnic enmities.
While sitting there she had one of those "pure intelligence flowing into you" moments. She quickly sketched out a timeline showing the ideal scenario and where we had questions.
When her number was called she went back into the office. Our regular case worker was occupied so she talked to another woman. As they went over the timeline the woman commented several times that it was a good description of our plan and very clear. Our regular case worker listened in on it anyway and, in the end, they agreed that we can stay until the end of May without a visa extension!
By the way, our maximum allowable stay works out to the exact day of our flight home. Isn't that "lucky"?
When Kristine got home she still had sweat dripping down the back of her neck and had one of those post adrenaline rush headaches. Once again we found ourselves on our knees giving thanks that things worked out just right.
Peter
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