After showing and having breakfast we set ourselves up with a long list of things we wanted to accomplish by the end of the day. On it was a visit to the British embassy to get Dan a spouse visa, go to the shops, change the soldering iron for one that worked and fetch some of our things from Pierre's house. First on the list was the most pressing, the visit to the British embassy. When we got there we were unceremoniously bounced back and forth between the entrance gate and the visa gate, because essentially, no one wanted to deal with us. After eventually convincing the main gate that the visa section had no idea what it was doing, we were scanned and signed in and went to see someone in the embassy.
Unfortunately, that was when everything fell apart. I know that with every prophecy about the end of the world that does not come to fruition, someone will make a link to an occurrence in life that "must" have been what "they" meant. With the Mayan Callander end of the world debacle supposedly happening today, we joked that although the world would most likely not end, something bad may happen that would be linked to what the Mayans prophesied. Turns out we were right, but we didn't really know how close to home that occurrence would be. With the previous immigration rules that I had researched about getting Dan back into the country after we got married, there wouldn't have been an issue about doing that at the airport upon our return.
We found out today that the immigration rules have been changed by Theresa May at the beginning of adult, that essentially prohibited Dan from entering. Now, I will not bore you to death with the details, but essentially I don't have enough money or a well paying job for long enough to be able to "support" Dan for his return to Britain. It's a bit hard to hold down a £18,600 a year job as a recent graduate, even more so when you are on a long and well deserved honeymoon. That we paid for. According to Theresa May all illegal immigrants and benefit wankers are more than welcome in the UK, but Dan and I as two recent university graduates, having done more for ourselves than almost every other 23 year old I know, are not.
If you want to read a summery of the story, have a look here -- http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2253557/Newlywed-23-faces-told-quit-UK-falling-foul-visa-rules.html
We had no idea that the story was being run in the Daily Mail, we only spoke to the Courier newspaper in Fife. Although it is probably going through everyone's minds why didn't we research the law more and understand what was going on, we have found out that it was no published in any way that would have been available to us, and as soon as the law passed, even if we had gotten married the next day, Dan would have had to leave because I hadnt held down a ridiculously high paying job for a graduate for six months. Bit hard to do that when you are still at university, but "there are no exceptions". We have subsequently found many stories similar to our of people just as smart being caught out by these laws, and being treated terribly.
Needless to say, I was in tears on the way home, and demanded that dad come home straight away from work some could ring immigration in the UK with his phone. I should have realised that it woud be a useless endeavour, and we didn't get anything resolved. They refused to help us because we were not in the UK, we should speak to the UK embassy. Already done that! As I'm writing this a few days later, I can let you know that the story developed and is even worse that we thought. I can't get a green card quickly, and as you know Dan cannot live in the UK, so basically I cannot live with my husband for at least 9 months. Nothing short of a Mayan apocalypse.
After that bombshell we wanted to feel at least slightly productive today, so we headed off to Pierre's house. Along the way we stopped off at Midas to complain about the broken soldering iron from yesterday. We are not really sure whose fault it was that the iron doesn't work, it worked with the round pin plug and the converter, but when Dan switched it over to a square pin it stopped working. We tried all kinds of fuses and it still didn't work. I was expecting denial and aggression from the shop that the malfunction was our fault. We were very pleasantly surprised when one of the assistants swiftly replaced the soldering iron, and even offered to replace the plug for us, which we declined and just bought a converter instead.
We then drove to Pierre's house to fetch some of the things we had left behind, and when we got home with the easily acquired soldering iron, Dan set out to fix the cheese and garlic smoker. I did a little research about the UK visa application process, which is when we realised that I needed to have the well paying job or the large savings for at least six month before we could even apply for his UK visa. At this point Dan managed to melt the plastic grip back off the soldering iron, as he had placed it upright in the box and the smoke from the wood chips was really hot. It's ok though, we will just try get another new one tomorrow :) I think they will have had enough of us by then! Dan and I both had large gin and appletisers while braaiing the boerwors outside because we had a really long power cut. After more drinks and commiserations about our visa issues it was off to bed :)
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