Wednesday, April 14, 2010

No arrest record

This is a part of my series on applying for a temporary residency permit in St. Petersburg, Russia.

In this episode: The FBI takes its time

Since I couldn’t get my original criminal background apostilled, I had to start a new one back in February, for which I made a little trip to Moscow.

I was optimistic about getting the results back in 4-5 weeks, as I had the first time, but no such luck. I don’t know if the FBI had more requests because of recent policy changes, or if they just weren’t working as quickly, or what. They don’t guarantee a specific turn-around, although I had written URGENT all over the place.

So it was getting down to the wire as my medical test results are only good until April 28th. As you can probably guess, I don’t really want to redo them. That means the last day I can submit my paperwork is April 23rd, since they’re only open on Fridays.

Then I found out that my parents were going on a trip, leaving Sunday (the 11th). If the document came while they were gone, it would be too late to get the apostille and get it to Russia in time... continue/-

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday came and went. Friday would have been the last day to go get an apostille.

It was not looking good for the medical tests. More peeing in a cup…more needles….noooo.

And then I got the “Good News” email on Saturday saying that the background check had COME. Just in time! I had begun to doubt if it was even still in existence.

So my final document is on its way to Washington, D.C. to be apostilled, then will hopefully make its way to me here in time to get a notarized translation before showing up at Immigration next Friday.

No happy ending yet,  but progress…

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