Day 40: Toying with my emotions

Dear International Travel and Living Laws,

You are toying with my emotions and I do not appreciate it. Can I or can I not live in Spain starting in September? First you give me hope that it will be no problem to begin my Master's degree program in Sept., then you tell me that I will need a Student Visa to do so and I will not be able to obstain this in time. Next you tell me that I can stay for 90 days without needing the Visa, but that I will need to fly back to the USA in December to obtain my official visa there but will be fine up 'til that point. Then you make me run all over Madrid getting the correct paperwork and fingerprints and freaking out about time tables and the like. After a week of calm and tranquility, thinking I have things under control, you wave copious amounts of websites in my face about the Schengen laws stating that an non-EU citizen can only reside in EU territories without an official visa for 90 days out of 180 days, starting with the first day the entered the country. Then, you put be at ease thinking I will only have 84 days on my record in the EU and that I can just take a means of transportation other than a plane to leave. Then you throw it in my face that in fact the punishment for overstaying this time period is a significant fine and being BANNED from ALL OF EUROPE for an indefinite period of time.

Why, International Travel and Living Laws, must you be so cruel? Why must you be so confusing and enegmatic and hard to research? Why does nobody else seem to have this sort of information to present to me, but instead little thoughts pop up in my head that I then go and research and find out I'm S.O.L.? The perils of following your dreams and being presented with golden opportunities! Sometimes, international law seems to override the law of attraction... what a bi*ch.

>_<

Jeeze Louise.
Jet-set Cupcake