I feel vindicated...

I know that some of you (those who grew up with me) wonder why I made such a seemingly dramatic shift away from classic American sports - the ones I actually played in school - and towards futbol.  I'll admit that it's a bit weird to jump both feet on the English football bandwagon without having grown up in that culture, but now I have the addiction.  In my defense, I never really had an opportunity in my younger years to view the game and develop a love for it.

Regardless of the reason, today I read a story that completely vindicates my decision to all but abandon professional American sports - particularly the NFL and NBA.  Chad Johnson, receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals has officially changed his name to a pidgin Spanish version of his uniform number.  According to the Broward County (Florida) circuit court, Johnson will henceforth be known as Chad OchoCinco.

I know that professional footballers (the other kind) can be arrogant prima donnas but I think this takes it to a whole new level.  So all you NFL fans can keep your OchoCinco and I take my Stevie G.

Yet another change...

I went to the Swedish embassy today for a 2nd, or 3rd, or 7th opinion on our visa issue.  The trip involved multiple transfers on the metro and going to an island with which Paul wasn't familiar.  It was at least a nice outing; the sun was out and it was nice and warm.  It was also interesting because Paul couldn't go with me the whole way so I had to figure out the light rail portion myself and then find the embassy.  It was really my first outing by myself but I did fine and only missed my stop once.

Upon arriving at the embassy I learned that by their understanding, our visa was still valid and we should be able to enter Ukraine.  This is the same information that we heard from the Ukrainian embassy in DC and would later hear from the one in San Francisco.  Basically according to the Ukrainian foreign service, we are authorized to enter the country and stay until our visa expires at the end of October.

Here is where the problems lie....

The department who has been telling us all along that we barred from entry is passport control/immigration.  Today we learned that they are independent and have no obligation to admit someone even if they have a valid visa.  It is completely within their jurisdiction and Tanya talked to the highest person in that department.  He told her that he made the call to ban us for the rest of the year and that we had no recourse to argue this decision.  Of course that isn't true; there are always people who can compel him to reverse the decision but unfortunately we do not know these people.

Tanya will continue to attempt to persuade him to allow us in until Tuesday when we will have to bite the bullet and get flights back to Colorado where we can start the process of preparing to return in 2009.

Immigration Update

I have resisted updating the blog on our current status and plans because they change by the moment.  The issues with this seem to revolve around the government of Ukraine's inability to understand their own laws and further problems with enforcing them honestly and fairly.

At last post, it seemed that we had been added to an immigration black-list.  As it turns out, our contacts in Ukraine learned that we are just not allowed to enter the country on any visa until 2009.

As a last ditch effort, I visited the Ukrainian embassy here in Stockholm where I learned that while it was true that we violated the law by not registering beyond 6 months, the fine should have been MUCH lower (indicating that we were paying a bribe) and there is no reason that we should not be able to return.  Such a ban is indicated by a stamp in the passport itself, which we don't have.  The attitude of the people at passport control seem to back up this explanation - they were fairly helpful and made no statements to indicate that we were no longer welcome on this visa.  Further, the person I spoke to here said he was unaware of a 180-day restriction (other than needing to register) for yearly visas.  Since Ukraine has the same travel policy towards Sweden and the US, I suspect that he knows what he's talking about.

The next step is to contact the embassy in San Francisco where our visas were issued (as will next year's visas) and see if there is a note regarding our return or a block on renewal.

Please keep praying....

Bad news

As we've mentioned, we are on a lovely vacation to visit Paul in Stockholm.  Our enjoyment of what must be one of the great European cities has been tempered by an on-going problem.

On the way out of Kiev we were stopped at passport control and taken into the back offices.  They informed us that the type of visa that we have (1-year tourist visa) limited us to stays of 180 days or less.  Since we were well over that amount we were found to be in violation of immigration law and fined $300 USD.  They were pleased that we were willing to pay the fine and let us go just in time to catch our flight to Stockholm.

On a hunch I asked Tanya to check with her contacts as to whether the violation had effected our continuing efforts to get an extension to our current visa.  She came back with the answer that not only could she not extend our current visa, but we also can't return from our current vacation.

We did some checking on this and learned that we are in fact on a no-entry blacklist, thereby making our return to Ukraine a less likely possibility.  We have been told that we can re-apply for another visa in the new year, but there are no guarantees.

In the meantime, we are here in Stockholm trying to enjoy ourselves during this time.  Our tickets back to Simferopol will be forfeited.  We are trying to change our tickets that were to return us in December so that we can get home next week.  We will be back in Colorado for at least 3.5 months - 3 of them cold - and I have 1 pair of pants, 1 pair of shoes and a sweatshirt.  I really need my clothes but there isn't really a cost effective way to get them back.

Stockholm Day 1

For those of you who don't have facebook, here are some pictures of our trip to Stockholm.  Weather has been cool (50s to 60s) and somewhat overcast, but still beautiful.  

This is Old City where the Royal Palace is.  It was our destination for the day.

Here we are in Old City.  There are all kinds of streets like this with all kinds of shops... including an ice cream place with homemade waffle cones that we will be visiting later this week.

Still have to pay for the potty, but this one was very nice.  Maybe because it was outside of the Royal Palace.

Here is Campbell guarding the Royal Palace.

Excuse me??

This is the french hot dog.  A french bread cored out, filled with ketchup and then filled with a hot dog.  A great invention for toddlers... keeping the mess to a minimum.

We have much more planned for the week.  The forecast is rain, rain, and more rain.  So we will see how well the pictures turn out.  We are loving every minute of it though.