So...

Those of you who know me generally know that when I'm stressed or anxious I get quiet. Applies to blogging as well apparently! Those of you who know me very well have already seen my Facebook status. For the rest of you:

Hierbij doe ik u het origineel van mijn beschikking van heden toekomen waarbij uw aanvraag tot het verlenen van een verblijfsvergunning voor bepaalde tijd is ingewilligd.

In other words:

I am hereby notifying you that my decision regarding your application for a residence permit is in the affirmative.

*passes out*

It was a very stressful couple of weeks leading up to this.

The same worker had written a letter which said that she needed my Chamber of Commerce registration and an account statement from my business bank account with the opening balance shown. Oh, and she needed these in two weeks, and she would make her decision then with or without them.

The registration with Chamber of Commerce registration I had in hand, but the appointment to open the business checking account wasn't until the day before the deadline. My very special person phoned up the worker who had written the letter, who said, "Oh thanks for calling. No problem, I'll extend it a week and if you need more time after that just call me back." Except that she said it in Dutch and charged 10 cents per minute to say it, of course.

Once we had the account opened, then there were lots of gymnastics between financial institutions to actually get the funds transferred into the account. This involved scanning in some documents and uploading them to a website, that the website then refused to accept because they were "too large." And that response led to massive frustration because the file size was clearly within the stated limits for the file! It turned out that what the program meant by "too large" was that the pixel size of the scanned in document exceeded the expected measurements because the document had been scanned in at 300 dps and the program was only expecting 72 dps. Did they say that anywhere on the website? No! Grrrr. And that was an American website, before anyone blames the Dutch for giving me more run-around. :-)

[To be fair I had the same problem with a Dutch website scanning in a photograph a few days later, but with my experience with the American site, that was solved in 60 seconds.]

Anyway, all sorted out. Sent. Approved.

I had to laugh at one note in the notice of approved application that I received from the IND. The worker noted that I will be sent an invitation letter to come pick up my permit. And followed with:

...verzoek ik u deze brief af te wachten en niet tussentijds contact op te nemen met de IND.

...I ask that you wait for this letter and do not contact the IND in the meantime.

Once I have my pretty pink pasje in hand, I'll put up the step-by-step instructions for getting a residence permit as an American. In the meantime I owe you all a post about the town I'm living in and I think one about liability insurance is in order as well.

Tot zo!