I should already have my work permit, which is the first step in getting a work visa, but through a series of glitches caused mostly by the fact that the girl at my school (Analisa) who is handling my application is new at her job, and I get to be the guinea pig, I don’t have it yet. And, I won’t have it before my 90 day tourist visa runs out at midnight tonight. That means, I have to leave the Schengen Area in order to renew my visa while we continue the application process.
Why did I wait until the eleventh hour? I’m glad you asked. You see, I first became aware of the problem a week ago, but I didn’t process the information enough in my head to realize that I would probably have to leave. And, Analisa told me there was still a chance that my paperwork would come in in time to save me the expensive. Not that I’ve ever minded spending money for travel, but if I go somewhere, I want to do more than just cross the border and come back, which is about all I’ll have time for if I’m to get back in time for work on Monday morning.
By Tuesday, I still hadn’t heard anything from Analisa, so I gave her a call, and she told me that it was very important for me to come in to the school. I wondered why, if it was so important for me to come in, she hadn’t bothered to contact me. But, at any rate, I headed over right away… it’s only 10 minutes away on foot. I dragged my flatmate, Fanny Farmer, along with me to act as an interpreter, because with Analisa’s lack of English language skills, what should normally be a 5 minute conversation often turns into an hour or more.
I introduced Fanny to Analisa, and the two of them proceeded to yak away in Czech, leaving me out of the loop for at least 10 minutes. Then, Fanny turned to me and told me that I was going to have to leave the Schengen area. I asked a question, and the two of them yammered for another 10 minutes, and Fanny told me that there was a possibility that I could apply for an extension of my visa and avoid having to leave the country. For the next hour, I alternately listened to 10 minutes or so of yakking, and then got the information I needed, one sentence at a time.
The long and the short of it was that I had to meet Analisa the next morning at the Foreign Police… at 6 a.m. I wasn’t quite sure I had heard Fanny right.
“What time?”
“Six o’clock.”
“In the morning?”
“Yes, you have to cancel your class tomorrow morning. The school will do it for you.”
Damn! And I thought that my Wednesday mornings were early enough as it was… I normally start teaching at 7:30. Suddenly, I felt very, very, tired. But there was more. Analisa looked at me and murmured something sadly. I asked Fanny what she said.
“She said it’s too bad both of you are so thin… there will be a big crowd of people waiting there, and they will easily push you around.”
The two of them went on and on about how many people would be waiting to get in to see the Foreign Police, and how there would be a lot of pushing and shoving, and we’d be lucky to get in and get a number.
“At six o’clock in the morning?” I was still on that one.
“Not Czech people, of course. Czech people are very orderly. These are mostly Russians and Ukrainians. Probably Russian mafia… you know.”
“Great. I’m looking forward to it.”
Analisa handed me a map with instructions on how to get there. She said she would be there waiting for me and I should bring my passport and the two forms that she gave me to fill out. It seemed like she knew what she was doing.
On the way home, I stopped at a bakery to pick up some donuts for the following morning. I figured if Analisa was going to the Foreign Police with me at six in the morning, I should be extra nice to her. I wished that I had a thermos so that I could bring some hot tea, because although we would be there at six, the Foreign Police office wouldn’t open until eight. It was going to be kind of like waiting to buy tickets for a rock concert… in February.
I was so drained, both physically and emotionally, that I went to bed at 9:00 on Tuesday night, so that I’d have my eight hours of sleep in by the time my alarm went off at five. The next morning, I set off in the early morning fog. I liked the feel of the city before dawn, and was surprised to see a fair amount of people walking around on the streets. Most of them looked like they were on their way somewhere, probably to work. What an industrious lot, I thought. I studied one well-dressed woman who was walking toward me. Tried to imagine where she was headed at this hour. Then, just before our paths crossed, she ducked into a 24-hour casino that was decorated with a brightly lit sign with an undersea motif… an octopus wrapping its tentacles around a treasure chest.
I followed the directions on the map and made it to the destination tram stop in plenty of time. Unfortunately, the directions ended at the tram stop, and all I had was the address, and a point on a map whose lettering was too small to read. That should have been enough. I found the right street easily enough, and although I didn’t know which way to turn once I found it, I thought I’d just follow the numbers. I was looking for number 32, and I was standing in front of number 90. So, if the numbers went down in the direction I was walking, I would know that I was on the right track.
The numbers did go down, so I kept walking. I expected to find the Foreign Police station within a block or two, but those numbers were going down very slowly. I walked for blocks and blocks, and still didn’t reach number 32. The neighborhood was getting sleazier and sleazier, and it was still dark out. I started getting nervous, but I couldn’t see that going in the other direction was going to get me anywhere. I kept going, trying to keep aware of my surroundings and any potential dangers.
I finally spotted number 38. I was getting close, but I still didn’t see many people around.. just a few winos here and there. If I was in the right neighborhood for the Foreign Police, where were all the Russian gangsters? I really started getting nervous when I saw that my current course was going to have me passing under the railroad trestle. Just as I was taking note of that, a train sped over the tracks. I was so close, number-wise, but I could see that there was going to be no number 32 before I came to that track, and I was not going under it.
I turned around and started heading back, cursing my school and whoever had put those directions together. I walked and walked. I was really late now. I was sure that Analisa would give up on me and just leave. Why hadn’t I thought to get her mobile number? I kept my eyes on the numbers as I walked back, and after I passed the street where I had gotten off the tram, the numbers started going back down again! I kept going.
Shortly, I saw a multitude of people on the sidewalk ahead of me. I didn’t even have to look at the number on the building. This had to be it! But how was I going to find Analisa? It was already 6:30. I hoped that, if she hadn’t left, she had gotten a number for us. I walked around the crowd that was roughly lined up, five or six people thick toward the back of the building. I didn’t see Analisa.
Finally, I heard someone call my name. There she was… more toward the front of the line than the back. I went to meet her and complain vehemently about the lack of directions.
“Didn’t the #@!# school ever think of writing which way to go after we get off the #@!# tram?!”
She apologized half-heartedly and introduced me to two other teachers who were there to get their visas stamped. They had started with the school in September and had gone through the process already. The woman, Megan, told me that they had gotten lost, too. I asked Analisa who I could talk to at the school so that someone could clarify the instructions. She said that she didn’t think anyone could do that.
“Of course, someone can do it,” I insisted. She told me that when we went back to the school after this, I would see.
“I already know how to get here now,” I said. “But this should be corrected for the next person who has to find their way here.” I tried to impress upon her how dangerous the neighborhood was that I had wandered into… that I could have gotten killed. She seemed unimpressed.
I got to talking with Megan, and we shared visa application horror stories while the line we were standing in remained immobile. Megan was there with her husband, Freddie. They had come together to teach English for one year in Prague. They’ll be going home in June, and they are just getting their work visas now. That gives you an idea of how long it will be before I get mine.
While we were standing there, we started checking out the other people in line. They did, indeed, seem to be mostly Russians and Ukrainians, although I didn’t see anyone who looked overtly Mafioso. We chuckled over the fact that we (and the whole crowd) kept inching forward, even though the doors hadn’t been opened yet. I’d been somewhat surprised to learn that, even though Analisa had been there since 5:30, we still didn’t have a number. The “number machine” that someone had told me would be outside the building didn’t exist. Instead, there would be a police officer handing out numbers once we got inside.
Suddenly, we heard a huge commotion at the front of the line. Screams, laughter and cheering. Megan couldn’t resist going to check out what was happening. She came back a minute later to report to us.
“They’ve opened the doors and people are pushing and shoving to get in.”
“What’s the point?” I asked, “when everyone’s been standing in line. Why don’t they just wait their turn?”
Analisa explained that they only had a certain amount of numbers per day. She had been there the previous day with another teacher, and at 9:00, shortly after Analisa had gotten a number for the teacher, the police officer had announced that they were out of tickets and everyone who didn’t have one would have to go home and come back the next day. That was a sobering thought, and I was beginning to feel a bit more protective of my place in line.
Even though the line was moving, we were still outside for at least another half hour. All of our toes were frozen, and we were doing our best to push things forward. Finally, we got very close to the door. This is where people started getting desperate. We could see through the glass doors. The crowd filled a small lobby before there was another set of glass doors to pass through. And then, the crowd continued up a flight of stairs. They were packed in like olives (sardines are so cliché).
As we tried to pass through the first set of glass doors, in our turn, that was when the people behind us started to get aggressive, trying to push their way in ahead of us. But we locked arms and held our ground. Finally, with a great whoosh, we squeezed in through the narrow doorway and exploded out into the lobby. We’d made it, but the fight wasn’t over yet.
Every once in a while, someone would try to squeeze their way in through the side, excusing themselves as they went. Megan put herself in front of those people like a mountain.
“Do you mind?” asked one guy in American English as he tried to get through.
“Yeah, we mind,” I said. He squeezed on past anyway. Then, Analisa caught on to what we were doing and quickly explained that we shouldn’t stand in the way. At first we thought she was afraid that they might be Russian Mafia like she had warned us about. There was definitely a lot of place saving and stuff like that going on. Still, not exactly mafia-like in my opinion.
But, as it turned out, these were people who worked in the Foreign Police station. Those poor souls have to squeeze their way in past these crowds every day of their working life. No wonder they’re in such a grumpy mood by the time you get to them.
By the time we made it to the bottom rung of the stairway, I thought we had it made, but then, periodically, people started coming down the staircase! They always came down on the side where Megan and I were standing, and every time they did, we lost a little ground. We had to step back to let them through, and someone invariably took advantage and jockeyed ahead of me. I told Megan,
“I’m getting pulled back. It’s like getting caught in the undertow in the ocean.”
“Here, hang on to me,” she said.
I did, and we continued our chat like that. We’d stand stationary for the longest time, and then, every once in a while, there’d be a cheer from the crowd, and we’d move up one or two steps. To make matters worse, the light in the corridor was one of those that turns off automatically after a couple of minutes to save energy. Every time it did, we’d be plunged into almost total darkness, and I’d get a wave of claustrophobia. Fortunately, whoever was standing next to the light switch at the time would always turn it right back on.
Megan and Freddy and I were always more or less together on the stairway, but Analisa, without any aggression at all, always managed to be about four heads ahead of us. We admired her tenacity. Experience was obviously paying off. Then, we reached the landing and had to turn a corner before heading up the next flight of stairs.
“It’s going to be hard to keep our place around that curve,” I warned Megan. I wasn’t wrong. It was like a horse race, only the track wasn’t wide enough for all the horses, and each one was trying to get closer to the middle to minimize their distance to the finishing line. I noticed that several of the people who’d been behind us were now ahead of us. And where was Analisa? We craned our necks to see her, but couldn’t catch a glimpse of her black cap.
“Freddy, Freddy, can you see Analisa?” we asked Megan’s tall husband.
He didn’t see her either.
“Here I am,” we heard Analisa’s voice. She was directly in front of Freddy, having lost quite a bit of footing herself.
Now, we could see the police men at the head of the line, counting off people and letting about 20 through at a time to enter a room off to our right. While we waited on the landing, our eyes on the door that would solve all our problems, Megan complained about the belly of the man behind her that was being pressed into her buttocks.
“I think he’s drinking,” she said.
“Can you smell him?”
It was, for once, refreshing to be in a crowd of people that didn’t speak English. We could say whatever we wanted. Megan wished she could offer to trade places with the man’s wife who was standing next to her. She thought the woman might get more enjoyment out of having the man’s belly rubbing against her buttocks than Megan was getting. She said it was like getting goosed repeatedly every time the man laughed and his belly wobbled back and forth.
Another 20 minutes on the landing, and we were being counted and let through. Analisa, and Freddy and I got through, and then… they cut things off just before Megan got through. Analisa must have said something, because the police officer relented and let her through. As we headed toward the door, Megan spotted the man who’d been rubbing his belly against her.
“How’d he get ahead of us?” she asked indignantly.
Just as we were heading for the table where they handed out the numbers, the announcement came. No more numbers. Everybody go home.
No more numbers?! Are you kidding me? We’ve been here since 5:30 in the morning.
Sorry, came the explanation from Analisa. They only have 200 numbers a day. This was worse news for Megan and Freddy than for me. First, for what I needed, no number was necessary. But Megan and Freddy and to get their visas stamped and registered with the Foreign Police within three days of getting their visa.
“Can we get a number for tomorrow?” asked Megan.
“Nope.”
“I’m not leaving,” insisted Megan. In spite of Analisa’s urging her to come away, she went up and tried to reason with the police officer n at the table who spoke a little English. Apalled, Analisa went up to rescue her from herself and managed to draw her away. Analisa said the police officer said that they didn’t have to get their stamp within three days, that they could do it later, because there were so many people. We all went off together to stand in another line to see if I could get my visa extended.
This line wasn’t nearly so long, and as we got up to the window, I got my passport ready. I had a bit of trouble finding my most recent entrance to the Czech Republic, because they never stamp those things in order, but after some fumbling, which undoubtedly irritated the woman at the window, I found it, only to be told that my visa couldn’t be extended… that I would have to leave the Schengen area. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised. Analisa walked away muttering that one person tells you one thing, and then the next day, someone else tells you something different.
Meanwhile, while we’d been standing in line for me to get turned down, Megan had been fretting about what to do if she came back next week, and then got in trouble for not having gotten her visa stamped within three days, even though the officer had said that she could. So Analisa had written a note on a piece of paper (the back side of the crumpled map showing how to get to the Foreign Police station), and we all headed back to see if the police officer would stamp it. The paper indicated that they had come that day in an attempt to get their visa stamped and had been turned down, and that the officer said they could come back next week.
We waited while Analisa went to deal with the police officer. A few minutes later, she came back with a big smile on her face.
“I got a number!” she proclaimed, waving it in our faces. Megan and Freddy were ecstatic, and went off with Analisa to wait their turn, while I went off to make my travel arrangements, not sure if I should try to go to Switzerland, Ireland, England, Romania, Serbia or Croatia. Those were my choices.
Since last minute airfares were going to be high, even on the budget airlines, that left ground transportation as the only option, so Ireland and England were out. Romania was appealing, but a bit too far for a weekend trip. Zagreb was about the same distance as Zurich, and train fare would be a lot cheaper, but everyone was trying to convince me to go to Switzerland, which really didn’t appeal to me, and I thought would be more expensive, but as it turned out, the bus to Switzerland takes much less time than the train to Zagreb. But the advantage of taking a train to Zagreb was that I can sleep on the train, and I can’t sleep on a bus. Both trips are overnighters.
It was with some reluctance that I finally decided on Switzerland, for the shortness of the trip and the fact that I can speak the language there and might need to do so at the border. One of the other teachers went to Switzerland on a train last week, and they didn’t stamp her passport, and she almost got deported when she got back, so I’m going to have to be awake when we cross the border and insist on a stamp.
So, I’ll have just enough time to get this posted before I take off. The only problem I can foresee is a major one, however. I realized today that I probably miscalculated my departure date. I think I’m supposed to be out of Schengen by midnight tonight, and I do leave at 9:00 p.m., but I won’t cross over into Switzerland until about 4:00 tomorrow morning. Will they catch it? Will I be let back in? Will I be arrested? Keep your fingers crossed for me. If I make it back, you’ll know by Sunday night. Bye
