I never thought I’d ever become an illegal immigrant in my life, but here I am, quite literally getting shoved out Austria’s door 🙂

While in Austria, I received a phone call from the immigration police stating that I had overstayed my tourist visa and needed to leave the country immediately. I had misunderstood the rules of the tourist visa and was in Austria illegally. What is interesting is that the immigration police only found out about my lengthy stay because of my application for Austrian residency. During the application process they looked through the stamps in my passport and couldn’t figure out when or how I came into Europe (I have quite a few stamps in my well-worn passport) So, they asked me to send them my exact dates of when and where I crossed European borders. Being the good global citizen that I am, I was honest about my comings and goings and this is where they figured out that I had broken EU immigration law. It didn’t matter that I had broken the rules unintentionally, or that I am married to an Austrian, or even that I was in the process of applying for residency. Without a residence card in hand I was just like any other tourist. So, I booked a flight to Boston and headed to the airport.

So how, you ask, did I get myself into this situation in the first place? Well, after Kathy and I left Africa to return to Austria so she could get consistent medial treatment for her stomach issues, our plan was that I would stay in Austria for ~2 months and then return to the US for ~35 days (enough for a visa renewal we thought). During that time I was gathering documents and information for my residence application (FBI background check, official birth certificate, official education documents etc…). My time in the US would be filled with selling off most of our large possessions (car, furniture, etc..) so I could return to Austria with a little less baggage left in Illinois. I returned to Austria in mid-November, expecting that I would have a new 90 day visa, giving me me until mid-February to get all of my residency paperwork submitted and receive my residence card.

Unfortunately for me, the EU changed the tourist visa law in 2015. The new law states that you can only stay in the EU for up to 90 days within a 6 month period. Therefore, those 35 days I spent in the US did not reset my visa as I had assumed it would. So, when I received that call from the immigration police, I was told I had overstayed my visa by 40 days!! The police were all very nice and didn’t seem overly concerned about my overstay. They simply stated I needed to leave and that I would have to pay a 500 Euro fine (yep, that’s like $650 bucks) if I wanted to return to Austria in the future.

While I’ve been forced to leave Austria, Kathy is going to stay. She is still dealing with her stomach issues (though things have gotten better) and she is currently gainfully employed, meaning that it would be difficult for her to leave Austria at this point. So, we’ll have to be apart for about 2-3 months until I can return in mid-April. While 2-3 months is a long time to be away from your significant other, Kathy and I have gotten used to extended stays away from each other because of our different nationalities. No one ever said it was easy to marry a foreigner!!

In light of this “opportunity” given to me by the Austrian Immigration authorities, I’ve decided to spend these 2-3 months travelling in South America. Stay tuned for additional posts from the lands of the southern hemisphere!