Bring on the Night

While I wait for my wife’s return, I spent my time preparing for the application for permanent stay. As mentioned in a previous entry filling out the forms was somewhat of a nightmare. I ended up with 46½ pages of forms, notes, copies of payslips, school papers, and everything you can imagine.

Finally I had the hill of paper done, and happily waved these in front of my wife one morning before going to the police station in Aalborg to deliver these. And so I did.

Entering the police station I found a friendly lady ready to help, and proudly slam-dunked the papers on her desk and felt all my worries disappear. But as always life hits you when you least expect it.

The lady looked at me like something was wrong and finally said: “Where is your wife?”.
Me: “Well, she is back home in China waiting for her visa to be valid”.
Lady: “Then you can’t file for permanent stay. I need to see her, and I need her passport”.

I started mumbling about how I had included a copy of her passport and that this procedure was new to me, and that I really have not read that my wife’s presence was needed in any papers”. Nothing helped. My wife was needed to deliver the papers.

Confused I left the office and decided to check-up on these things when I got home later. I was pretty sure that my work was acceptable, and that my wife did not need to be in Denmark. I was wrong. I remember filling out the forms, and specifically noted that there was a box asking when my wife would arrive. Somehow I concluded that this equalled my wife (me) being able to apply without her being present. Even now I don’t know why this information is necessary. What’s the point of writing this, if she has to be here to apply?

Well, no matter what I oversaw another small printing telling that you have to supply passport and be present at the application. This was written on one of the pile of papers for the application. My bad.

So now we have to wait to go back to the police station until my wife arrives. At least I know that adjusting the material should be a breeze, since I have done the most horrendous task of filling out the forms already.