Christmas surprise

I've taken a bit of a break from blogging because I haven't felt like it. Much has happened in the past three weeks and it got me down. No, nothing terrible but bad enough to mope about. As most of you know, I've spent over 15 years in the US. Many of those years were spent sending applications to INS and waiting for a year (or two, or three) for that application to be processed. I thought those times were behind me. Now that I am no longer an alien, Chris is. So it all starts over. I know it's our fault. We didn't have to move and all... Sure keeps us on our toes.

Here is the short version. Any foreigner can stay in Croatia for 90 days (consecutive or non-consecutive) in any given 120 day period starting from the day the individual first enters the country. For Chris that started 9/21/06. Chris submitted paperwork for a tourist visit while we waited for documents from FBI to arrive. Once we had his criminal history records (no, no skeletons in his closet turned up), we could submit the permanent resident application and all would be well. Right? Not really.

FBI criminal record check took 6 months to get to us. We requested it at the beginning of the summer. Such a delay was unexpected. Once we got it at the end of December, we took the complete application with a bunch of other paperwork to the immigration office. We thought it was at the last minute. Not quite they said. They explained that there is no "status pending" option in Croatia. If your status has expired, you've got to go whether you've submitted an application or not. That translated into Chris having to leave within 48 hours. On Christmas eve mind you. We were also told that police comes and verifies that the foreigners have left the country and that we shouldn't be surprised if there is a police check. Great! It was Thursday evening and we had to make flight arrangements right before Christmas. I've called the visas department, ministry of the interior, ministry of the exterior... Everyone was nice and helpful but no one had any better suggestions other than to try to speed it up through the Croatian consulate in Washington DC. So that's what we did. Chris flew out at the crack of dawn on the 26th, before the kids even woke up. Not such a merry Christmas after all.

Yes, Chris is in Birmingham now. He's been gone for 18 days and is coming back in 71. Can you tell that I am keeping track? There is a slight possibility that the application will be processed sooner. Should that happen , we'll modify his ticket return date and he'll be back sooner. Otherwise, application approved or not, he can return to the country at the end of March as the 120 day period expires then. Have you noticed how he conveniently misses the entire Winter? Who is supposed to keep me warm then? I know. Life isn't fair. We all miss him a lot. If you see him around Birmingham give him a hug for us.