Success!

After much hassle, a lot of leg work, and an infinitesimal amount of worry, I finally got to the correct Ministry of Interior office Tuesday to apply for a new visa. As my student visa had run out in October (half the reason for the Berlin trip) and my tourist visa was about to expire, a new one was in order.

This is a bit of an obnoxious process for a number of reasons. One: government bureaucracy. Two: it's the Jewish motherland and I'm not Jewish. There's a whole different, much easier process for Jews to get visas, work permits, and even citizenship in about half the time it took me to get someone to answer the bloody phone to schedule an appointment (no joke; I've been battling with visa stuff for two-and-a-half months, and a friend of mine got citizenship in under five weeks). Three: no one seems to know exactly what to do, so the entire thing becomes an exercise in trial-and-error.

Point is: after all the e-mails, phone calls, office visits, faxes, letters written, bad-mouthing (by me) and ulcers, I'm legal for another six months. This is great, because now I can finally dive into all the projects I've had waiting in the wings but couldn't start because my future was uncertain.

So far, I may be teaching psychology and ASL in the spring; I'm teacher-aiding (which I just decided can be made a verb) an ASL class; I'm helping in a research lab at Hebrew University; I may get back into מד"א if I have the time. The point is: now that I know I have the time, now that I'm out of limbo, I can start planning things again and feeling like I'm really here.

It's supposed to rain today...