Archive for visas

I never really thought about the benefits of being born a citizen of a nation before.

12 August 2007 at 1:21 am · Filed under language, laws, visas

I never really thought about the benefits of being born a citizen of a nation before. I mean, who thinks about proving who you are and why you should be allowed to stay where you are? That is, until you move to another country and you start to be someone strange (In Spanish the words strange and foreigner are very closely related: extraño, extranjero) and you have to prove that you should be allowed to stay.

This week Mark, Rachel, Jenna, and I received our permanent residency in Chile. It only took forever!

Once we realized that we didn’t want to travel out of Chile and back every 90 days to renew our tourist cards, we applied for our temporary visas. You have to hold a temporary visa for at least a year before you can apply for a permanent one. Well, our angelic visa worker in Concepción only allowed us 10 months on the first one, so we had to do another year of temporary visas after that in Santiago.

Then we applied for our permanencia in October 2006. It was supposed to take 6 months to process. They sent us some papers in the mail that explained to others that our ID cards were expired, but that was okay because our applications were in process. Those papers expired in May, so we went and they stamped them on the back with a new expiration date. That stamp expired at the end of July, so we went back to see what they would do this time.

Amazingly, our permanent residency had been approved! With the new papers that say we are approved, we now have to register with InterPol and get new ID cards at the local Civil Registry. And we can stay forever (if we want) without anymore paperwork!

All this, and Megan, who was born here, has automatic citizenship.

I never thought about the benefits of citizenship before this, but even if it just cuts out the paperwork, it is worth it!

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Yesterday I had one long Chile moment. We have bee…

21 November 2006 at 5:07 pm · Filed under holidays, travel, visas

Yesterday I had one long Chile moment. We have been planning for months to travel to Mendoza, Argentina for Thanksgiving. Of course, it’s not a holiday here in Chile, nor in the country to the east, but we have other American friends there who invited us to come over. This would mean a five or six hour drive over the pass through the Andes and back again on Sunday, which I was really looking forward to.

Yesterday, however, I happened to glance at my carnet de identidad, my Chilean ID card. It expires today. That wouldn’t be a problem, except that it also means our travel visa has expired. We sent in our visa papers for the next step in our quest for a permanent visa about 30 days ago, on the first day we were allowed to apply. We still have not received the papers that say that it is in process.

So I called around. Turns out that we can stay without any trouble in Chile for the next 60 days, even if we don’t get the papers that we need. But we can’t leave Chile until we get that paper that says they are working on it. They have another 15 days or so, so they say.

I guess it will be Thanksgiving in Santiago, then. At least we can get what we need here. Pumpkin comes in cans, and cranberry sauce, too. No sweet potatoes in Chile, though. For our turkey, we will probably grill turkey breast because it’s easier to find than a whole turkey. Who wants to get up at 4 AM to put the thing in the oven anyway? Besides, it’s almost summer here. A barbeque will fit right in. Maybe we will go swimming while the turkey grills.

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