Immigration Office Day 2

In order to better ensure that Keith could get an appointment for a visa, we arrived at the Ausländerbehörde at 5am. Yes, arrived at 5am. We were about the 10th and 11th people in line. It was cold and completely dark excluding the bright halogen lights of the Ausländerbehörde. The building has a gate out front that was closed. Around 5:30am security guards arrived. Around 5:50am the employees arrived. Employees were not let in the gate until 6am, at which point there was also a stampede of all of the people who had waited in line outside. Approximately 50 people raced to their appropriate entrance, where another line was formed. At this point we were the second and third people in line. At 7am the doors opened and another stampede ensued, although this one was less ordered and involved stairs. Our friend from yesterday, the ticket machine, was taped over with a sign that said "no more waiting number for today," which was very scary. However, it was just left there from Monday. Eventually, a somewhat surly lady came out and removed the sign. Keith got the second ticket. We felt awful for the people in the A-E line for tickets; after 15 minutes of standing in like waiting, they were told that no one would be in their office that day, so they should try to find space somewhere else even though most of the tickets had been given away by that point.

Keith was called up early. Unlike the man who took care of my case yesterday, this woman did not speak English at all. However, the three of us fumbled through the interaction and Keith has a four month provisional visa and another appointment for a longer term visa in December. Despite all of our visa success, it is somewhat unfortunate that success still comes with two more trips to the Ausländerbehörde.