I am in a state of anger right now because I have to do something about my VISA. First of all, I threw it in the trashcan. I don�t know for sure, but I can�t find it and I remember looking at it and thinking, "hmmm...well, since they stamped my passport, I guess I don�t need this VISA application anymore." Well, the annoying thing is that the VISA application and the VISA itself is the same piece of paper. Nevertheless, none of this would even matter if the school here didn�t make such an issue out of it. They want a copy of everyone�s VISA. This annoys me because no one is going to come looking for me. All of this is the school�s fault anyway because they told us in the beginning to get a Student VISA. Well, the student VISA is only for 30 days- go figure. It has to be updated after that for a charge of $40. How ridiculous! The thing is, I didn�t even get a student VISA- I did what most everyone else did, and just got a free tourist VISA at immigration. Unfortunately, because I don�t have it anymore, I don�t remember whether it was a 30 or 60 day VISA. If it was 60, I have a little more time. Now, get this. The school didn�t tell us to get the free 180 toursit VISA (which would have more than covered my time here) because of "technicalities." However, they recently told us that the best thing would have been to get that, but we would have had to have figured that out on our own. In addition, if you got the 180 day tourist VISA at the airport, it was free. On the other had, if you have to go down to immigration, which I have to do now (along with a lot of other students), you have to pay to extend your 30 or 60 day VISAs. My question is, "If it was free at the airport, why do I have to pay NOW!?" Not only that, but because I lost mine, no telling what I�ll have to pay.
I�m just annoyed because someone should have told us all this stuff, and especially me since I am on a really tight budget here. Not that I can�t ask for money from home, but still, getting money here is a headache. Don�t let me go into the problems ʹm having paying my bill. Actually, let me. I owe 2,200 and some change in USDollars for my stay here, which is fine. The money�s in the bank, and I have more than enough to cover that. The problem is, I don�t have any checks with me, and the ATM won�t let me take out that much at one time. I tried paying with my checkcard, but this didn�t work. Don�t ask me why. Add language barriers to all of this with the people at the payment counter (who are more than tired of me, I�m sure), and you have a headache. So now, my only choice is to try to split the payments up on credit cards OR I can extract the maximum amount, which I beleive is $400, over and over, until I have 2200. This is going to cost me nearly $25 in fees if I have to do it over and over, and it is so unneccessary, especially when I have my checkcard right here with me.
So, in case it isn�t obvious, I am highly annoyed right now. I don�t really know what I�m going to do about this stuff at the moment. I am sorry if this entry has been a disappointment, but I never promised to be happy all of the time!
Anyhow, a bit of interesting news- I�m going with some friends to this thing called "lucha libre" tonight. That means "free fight" and basically, it is wrestling, but with no rules. The people wear crazy costumes and wrestle and throw stuff at each other and all kinds of things! It sounds really fun, especially since I have a lot of aggresion right now. So, I need to get going so I can go home, have dinner, and meet everyone in the Centro between 8 and 9 p.m. T.M.I. Completely! Anyhow, later!
