Jeremi got his visa before coming to Germany, and it's good for a year, so I'd assumed that he didn't have to register at the Ausländerbehörde (the foreigner's office) the way that I had to. But then about two weeks ago we received a letter telling him to report there by June 22nd, and to bring with him all of his documents, including a few that he didn't have (like a work contract or university registration). We were pretty sure that his visa was okay, but it was still as a little worrying.
Not that I'm fluent or anything, but I speak more German than Jeremi does right now, so I said that I'd come with him. I also brought along my work contract and our lease (which is in my name) and a pay stub from work, to show that we make enough money. I also didn't want to wait until the last possible day in case they asked us to bring in something else, so we decided to go first thing Thursday morning, the start of the longest day.
The office opens at 8:30, so we left home around 8:00. (It actually takes a bit more than half an hour to ride there, but I was still impressed with how early we set off.) It was pretty overcast that morning, and as we were riding away I mentioned that it looked a bit like rain. We hadn't gone more than a kilometer or so before the rain started, and within 10 minutes it was pouring, complete with thunder and lightening, and we were soaked to the skin. Really, really soaked. Luckily all the documents were in my backpack, which has a clever built-in rain cover, but we were completely wet.
When we got to the office and went inside I realized how really wet we were. We were leaving puddles everywhere we walked, and Jeremi had stepped in some silty mud, so his puddles were brown. When the correct room was free (corresponding to the first letter of his last name), we went in, and sat on the padded chairs, soaking them through completely. The woman was quite nice though, and insisted that we sit down nonetheless.
What was a bit creepy is that when we walked into the office, not having checked in anywhere, she already had Jeremi's file pulled up on her computer, complete with photo. I'm sure she just reviews the people who have been sent summons, but it was still a little big brother-ish. Then she looked at his passport, and asked him (through me) several questions about exactly what he was doing here. Was he working? Was he enrolled at the university? Was he searching for a job? (He's not officially job searching yet, as he'd have to register at another office to do that.)
After trying my best to explain that he was going to eventually look for a job, he was here with a visa that would let him just travel, or work, or study, or do nothing at all. She gave us some forms to fill out in the hallway, and went to speak with her supervisor.
The forms took us a while, as some of the technical bureaucratic language can be a bit obscure, and she gave us the version of the forms that are written in German, Serbian, Turkish, and Greek. (I'm almost certain that there's a version with French and English and Italian on it, but I didn't want to piss her off after soaking her office furniture to the point that they had to change them before the next woman in line could go in. They sent someone to mop after we walked through the hallway too. We were that wet.)
Once we'd done our best with the forms and she'd come back from discussing with her supervisor, everything was cleared up. It turns out that Jer really is allowed just to hang out with his visa - it's only that they'd never seen this type of visa at this office before. It's a pretty new program that he'd applied under, and it seems that he's the first person under this program to end up in Jena. (Not surprising, as we've yet to meet another Canadian here, since Corinne left in March.)
And so we could head back home, back into the pounding rain (which was still going, contrary to what I learned about the duration of thunderstorms). Going back out was much worse after sort of warming up in the office, and the whole ride back to work for me was with chattering teeth and aching cold fingers. Jeremi went home of course, and had a nice warm shower and put on some dry clothes. I went to work, and borrowed a T-shirt and a sweater from some colleagues. I was frozen all day, despite the many pots of tea I drank to try to warm up.
I also worked a bit late, as things were going pretty well, and I came home to yet another delicious Jeremi-made wonder, this time some dal and rice, with the most delicious pakoras ever. Here's a picture of me (in the borrowed yellow T-shirt) enjoying the feast, and below is a close-up of the feast.
And after a late supper I ended up working some more from home, until a bit after midnight, while Jeremi slept on the couch and the cat groomed him, thus ending the longest day ever. (Sorry for so few pictures, but we luckily didn't have our camera with us out in the rain.)
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