Simone

We got it!!!!!!!!!! Friday the 13th is now our lucky day!
Pascal has his 309 Spouse (provisional) visa!!!!!
:PARTY: :PARTY:
It was sooooo easy!!! Well, for us, because it was very easy to prove our relationship is genuine AND Berlin doesn’t need/want as much as other embassies.
Good luck to all of you who still have to get it, and for who this whole process is a lot more difficult! And of course all you skilled people! :scared:
I’ve posted (or will shortly) the details of our application on the immi forum of this site.

Well, Berlin was nice (we’re not really city people we realised again)
We went Thursday afternoon by train, took 5.5 hours, and arrived at 17.30. While on the train I developed the flu and a big fever! :-(
When we arrived we thought it was a short walk to the hotel(1,5 – 2 kms), but it ended up being more than an hour!! We would’ve gone by underground train but we kept thinking we were nearly there!! That’s the last time I let Pascal do the maps etc! In this relationship I’m the one with good coordination/map reading skills! Lol! ;-)

Anyway, Friday we were very on time for our interview, he went through the papers very quickly, some we could keep(even the chest x-ray ), and he didn’t really ask any questions. It was just more us chatting to him about some stuff while he went through everything and even skipped half of the questions it seemed!
He also joked about always checking out what people filled in at the 'how much alcohol per week' question and that most people probably lied anyway! In about 20 mins we were finished and we payed, and he asked us to come back at 15.30. Then he gave us the visa, and asked us if it hadn’t been to painful/if he hadn’t been too hard on us!
Well, it couldn’t have been less painful!!
He was a young guy by the way, maybe 30, wearing very casual clothes, and he was 'senior family migration officer'. Love it!
After we got it, we headed down to the Aussie shop, 3 doors down from the embassy and Pascal bought some (expensive!) Aussie beers for celebrating. He bought what they had; XXXX, VB and Fosters (brewed in Germany) but still liked VB the best.

In Berlin we visited the Jewish Museum (interesting, learnt lots, and nice architecture) the Kurfustendamm(shopping), Checkpoint Charlie, Brandenburger Tor, Reichstag....

Well, that’s it, not much excitement, but that’s good in this case! Actually, it would’ve been fun to have a longer interview….. (yes, I’m mad!!)

Oh, nearly forgot: Our hotel was FULL of young Australians. They were of the student/backpacker kind (so our age). But it was weird, cos they weren’t backpackers, cos they all belonged together, and they were on a tour bus together. Maybe they were on a study trip?? I didn’t get round to asking them, cos they were gone this morning.

So, will be posting a LOT of details of our application on the immi forum, which will be mostly relevant for people applying in Berlin, but others may also get some ideas from it.
And of course you can always pm or email me!

Here by a BIG thanks to everyone who’s helped including Mairi &Chris, Bondipom, WBB, Bundy, Pollyana and I shouldn’t have done this cos I’m sure I’ll forget people……. )

tiredwithtwins

hey simone!!
thats fabulous news!!
Congratulations!!!!!!
Soooooooo pleased for you...!

lots of love to you and your lovely hubby!!

sue

seang

Congrats

rgds

S

bondipom

Hers is to many more VBs and XXXXs downunder. Congratulations.

podgypossum

Well done Simone!.... heres to a great future

Simone

Thanks guys!

OK, that detailed update on the immi forum might have to wait till tomorrow, cos I've to much catching up to do, unfortunetly I've already seen.....

Umm, my jpg attachment isn't working. I haven't done anything different than usual, it's only 108 kB, what am I doing wrong??

ABCDiamond

Congratulations Simone.

When do you reckon you will be getting out here then ?

WBB

congrats simone, you are right about berlin, it is a wonderful city.

Simone

15 July!
We were so sure of ourselves (that's why it's not that exciting really ) that we already bought the tickets in January, nice and cheap!

OK, trying my attachment again, now working with IE instead of Safari, which might help, because I notice more wierd differenced between the two

vicky o

Congratulations Simone and Mr Simone.
Very happy for you both.
Good luck with everything

Simone

Yes!!!! Wierd stuff IE/Safari.
I used to use IE, but Safari is much faster!! Which is also wierd! With IE it's like I have a really slow internet connection, but that's only since a couple of weeks....??
I'm on a mac by the way.

Thanks for the congrats guys

hevs

CONGRATS Simone, go girl xx

CROSSY

Many congrats Simone

karen and andy

Celebrate!!!!

Congratulations.

debsy

Good luck Simone and Pascal. Hope that you are feeling better now.