Friday, October 24, 2008

Oh good grief...I'm an alien, I'm a barely legal alien...

So I get out my visa this morning, and my passport...and I'm looking at the two documents. My passport expires in December, still time to get that renewed after my trip to Dallas. My visa...well, it was issued on November 27th, and it's good for a year, I'm thinking. And suddenly I look at it again and see... Expires October 2. Now, I've had this visa for almost a year, and I've looked at it, oh, probably 20 times. And this morning was the first time I saw that.

This, of course, means I'm in trouble. I cannot leave the country with an expired visa, and there's no way I can get it renewed in a day (a process that usually takes 3-5 weeks). So I make some some phone calls and end up going in taxi to the Immigration office on the other side of Mexico City (easier said than done, believe me!). I'm told there that I need to go to the airport, pay a fine, and cancel my visa. So that's what I did. $50 dollars in fines and $50 in taxi fees later...I am currently in migratory no-mans-land, with a letter that gives me 3 days to get out of the country! And I can happily go to Dallas. Upon returning, however, I need to start once more the painful process of getting my FM#3 religious visa.

All in all...not a terrible resolution!

No comments: