In applying German visa, there are two options: less than 3
months visa and more than 3 months. However, even when one applies for more
than 3 months visa, still one will be given 3 months visa and then one shall
adjust this in immigration office in Germany. Yes of course it’s weird, why
wouldn’t they just give a one-year visa at once? But normally there won’t be
any problem to adjust this visa because one’s data has been filed in the
immigration office where one will stay.
So my 3 months visa is valid until end of October. It means
I have to adjust it before end of October. That’s perfect, because by early
October I’ll be arriving in Bremen. But then there’s the surprise. October is
the beginning of a semester, which means a lot of new foreigners are in the
same state as me. And although there’s an immigration service in the
university, which makes all the bureaucratic process less complicated, still
this is the peak season for immigration affairs.
The office, called BSU, only provides public service 3 days
a week: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. And again, although they knew that
October is the peak season for visa application, they are still not adjusting
their service time. This cause pretty chaotic situation. The queuing line is very
long and for hours. Everyday people start lining up in front of the office 2
hours before it opens! People even can queue for hours without getting
anything! Very crazy!!!
So when I have to adjust my visa, I started queuing from 8
AM although the office opens at 10AM! So it means I had to stand for 2 hours
just waiting for the office to open. And when I arrived, there were about 20
people in front of me! And after some times (the office still not open), this
is the queuing behind me!
After fighting the cold and tiredness for 2 hours, finally
the office was opened. But still that didn’t mean I could get the real quieting
number. I had to wait for the first 20 persons before me. And then the chaotic
thing started to happen. BSU serves visa application and residence
registration. The latter needs not queuing. However there were some people who
seemed to do the registration but instead they went to take the visa’s queuing
number!!! The lady, who gave the queuing number, didn’t realize this; she
didn’t know the queuing outside her room. So at around 11 AM, the queuing
number had gone!!!
The lady informed us about this, which made us realized that
something went wrong. How come the queuing number gone so fast? How come only
less than 20 people, who started queuing 2 hours before the office opened,
could get the queuing number… But this how it got interesting. The office had
to take a lunch break at 1 – 2 PM and then it would open again for the next two
hours. The people who had queued like me started to make an alliance. We
organized ourselves to not let other people cut our queuing anymore. We set our
queuing number until 15, and nobody could cut within. We remembered who was
going to be the first, second, third, until fifteenth. And we also watched each
other back. If there was a person wanted to take lunch break or toilet break,
we promised to keep his/ her line. Now, this is what I called
self-organization! I should have made my PhD research here in BSU…
So when the BSU opened after its lunch break, the arrangement
worked. We really complied with the rule we set and ensured that nobody could
cut in the middle. Once there was a girl who tried to cut the line and entered
the office to get the queuing number, but poor her, she got slammed from us.
Well you don’t want to make people who had been queuing for 4 hours to be
angry!
Finally I can get my queuing number. I got it after queuing
for 5.5 hours!!! And the visa adjustment process, it only took 40 minutes
including my time in the waiting room!!! What a nightmare!!!
Fast-forward one month. The new visa isn’t attached to the
passport anymore. It’s in form of a card, just like identity card, and it takes
a month to get that. When I did my visa adjustment, the officer at BSU told me
that I would be contacted via email when the card is ready. But after one
month, I didn’t hear any news. To make things worse, my friend who applied
together, had been contacted to get his visa! Okay, something is not right
here…
So after a month plus a week, I went to BSU office to ask
about my visa. And apparently my visa was already there for weeks!!! Yeah
right, they would inform me eh?! But at that time I couldn’t get it right away
because I have to queue, and the queuing number had gone… [sigh]. So I went
again in the next day, queuing for awhile (I was glad that the peak season had
past), and got my adjusted visa. Lesson learned: if you need something, be proactive! Aaaaah... at least now I can breathe freely before doing
it again next year…!!!
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| My new residence permit/ Visa |
