struggles with the visa

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For those of you who know me, you will agree that the perpetual thorn in my side for the past two years has been my visa issues in Spain. I supose I was a bit spoiled ("mimada" as they say in Spanish) in Japan with the whole visa thing. All I had to do to change my studnt visa to a work visa there was go to immigration with my university degree, a copy of my contract from the school where I was teaching and my passport. Two stamps and three weeks later I was ready to roll.

Not so in Spain. For all non europeans thinking of making the jump accross the puddle to Spain, let me offer you some words of advice, Get A Euoropean Passport If At All Humanly Possible!!!!! Its amazing how many people, speaking of americans at least, have the ability to get an EU passport and don't do it. Then again, I guess it's not so surprising when you think of exactly how many americans don't even OWN a passport. I think the number is somewhere around 80% or so.

But I digress, the point is this: the European Union is a fabulous system. It allows all European citizens the ability and right to travel, work and study freely within the community. Many Europeans don't own a passport, not because they don't travel, but rather because they only need their national identity card to travel freely between the European countries. Again, a wonderful system, but if you are not an EU citizen you are getiing absolutly zip from them as far as a visa goes.

The American author Bill Bryson once said: "Americans are taught to believe from a young age that we are number one because God loves us best, a point of view other nations just don't seem to share." (or words to this effect) It is this attitude precisly that makes being a US citizen abroad so tough. Being a US citizen is great, don't get me wrong, great country, great people etc. But it's one of the worst nationalities to have if you want to do anything outside the US and you don't have Bill Gate's financing to fall back on.

The issue is this: its all a question of politics. You only get what you give. Europeans going to the US can stay exactly three months with just a tourist visa. This is also what US citizens recieve when going to Europe. Of course there is also the possibility of taking out a student visa, a relatively simple process unless you are dealing with any of the Spanish consulates. EEEEK!!! But more on that in a moment.

It normally works out fine, seeing as how most Americans just come to europe to, you know, check out the motherland and whatnot. Connect with our European Roots as it may be. We attend Oktoberfest, we see the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben. Occassionally we go to countries like Spain, France or Germany to "learn the language" a process that usually results in three or four months of boozing it up night after night with other Americans speaking only in English and returning to the good old U.S. of A having learned how to order beer and not much else. And all this for some college credit! Cool!!!

The problem comes when you fall into my category, one which I will term: "absolute madness and a complete leave of the senses." Yes folks, I actually want to stay on this blessed continent and foresake mom, home and apple pie (well maybe not the pie, yummy). The land which my ancestors fought so hard to leave while struggling against religious persecution (or so according to my father, really I think the Freemans were persecuted only by a need for bigger farms, ones scarce in England but made readily available in the New World) has drawn me in close with her siren song. Despite the pure and obvious fact I could easily make more than double what the average European can expect to earn back in my own country, I want to stay here in Salamanca with Miguel, the love of my life and future spouse. Again, I must be a raving loon.

My long struggle with European immigration began exactly two years ago while I was finishing my stay in Japan. I went to the Spanish Embassy in Tokyo and told them I wanted to study in Spain, and I presented them with my registration for school and some photos. They then told me they would need a list of documents about as long as my arm and they would require two months to process my visa. Given as how classes were to start in two weeks it was all destined not to be.

So off I went to Spain with only a tourist visa. This obliged me to leave the EU every three months, a trip home here, another to Morocco there. All in all, it was fine for about nine months, but I thought to myself, this is getting a bit expensive, I really should obtain permission to stay longer. So I went home for three months, my longest stint in the US since I finished college. I went to New York and got myself a six month student visa thinking I could extend it in Spain (after all, that's how it worked in Japan, just show them you've enrolled in school again and they stamp your passport and send you on your way). Was I ever chagrined when I found out I could in fact NOT extend that type of visa in Spain, that I did in fact have to run home and get ANOTHER visa of about six months to finish the school year.

So last summer when I went home, I was determined not to make the same mistake. I enrolled in a masters (if anyone in the US wants to stay in Spain longer than a year make sure you emphasize at the beginning that's what you want to do) of about two years and traipsed back to New York all ready to get my latest visa. When I handed in my documents I had five weeks untill I left, but at the consulate they assured me this would be enough time. They say it's best to give this process about two or three months to work properly. They are right, keep in mind people whenever a Spaniard gives you a date as to when something will be finished they are talking hora española which means that given time for cigarette breaks, coffee breaks, siestas, long lunches and the like what you want done should be finished sometime between next week and the end of all civilization as we know it.

Needless to say, I did not get my visa and had to return to Spain with yet another tourist visa promising, cross my heart and hope die stick a needle in my eye, that I would be back to the Big Apple to pick up my student visa before the Spanish authorities came knocking at my door (of course, given as how the authorities here are a bit adverse to the idea of,well, work, I'm not quite sure when that will be). This whole situation really makes me wonder why I didn't go to Germany instead, I'm pretty sure they would have given me my visa on time.

So what's the moral of this story, dear reader? I wish I could tell you. I think what it boils down to is this: Everything in Spain Works, But You Must Be Paitient. I wonder if the Dalai Llama's book The Value of Being Patient is translated into Spanish. I could certainly use it.

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