Hi t7 members!

When I read the messages about citizenship, NE and 'Daueraufenthalt EG', questions about living in India and others, I feel very happy, that our community is still alive and helpful in many different fields.

I also remember the first years and I found an interesting article about the GC's situation in 2003.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,930214,00.html

Have a look :-)

I wish all of you a great weekend
Detlef

Hello Truster,
Thanks for the article link, for your info, I am pretty much new to these immigration rules. After reading the article, I woould like to ask you - though it is of 2003 date, is this still valid, i.e. all GC must leave Germany after 5 years.
From other discussions I learnt that once the visa validaty comes to an end, it can always be extended provided we must have jobs in hand.
I hope this is applicable for BE, NE visa category also.
I am asking this as now I have got a new very long term job offer in Germany and if the immigration rules forces me to leave after 5 years, then it is of no use to me.

Hi all,

This is Sudaca, back after a long time out of this forum! Thx to my long-time friend YO for giving me the heads up.

I was the one interviewed on that DW article. I still remember the great Greencard meeting at the Munich Hirschgarten, the TV cameras, the friends from all the world that came around. It was one of those magic moments, in which things actually were happening. I want to believe our small "pressure group" had at least a voice in the then ongoing discussion about the Immigration Law; I still remember Detlef being interviewed on the morning news, and thinking "well, this *must* get us some attention"!

Much has changed since then. The Immigration Law passed, and we were allowed to stay. After five years I got the "Niederlassungserlaubnis" -permanent residence. In December it will be 8 years since I am here, and I am already going through the "Einburgerungstest" questions to make myself ready. I could have done it already 1 year ago if I have had time to go to the Integration course, but alas, my current job does not leave much time free.

So yes, I stayed. We stayed. I have now two kids born in Germany. The oldest one speaks way better german than spanish (my native language), and with seven years on his back, he has much more german ticks than I will ever have -he likes kartoffelsalat and gurken, he will never throw a paper away in the open, he can tell bio from rest, he gets stressed when the train runs 30 seconds late :-). I moved away from Munich and into one of the most remote corners of Germany -Landkreis Konstanz- to a very old house in a small medieval town trapped between Bodensee and Schwarzwald, just a stone-throw away from the Swiss border.

And we are planning to stay. Of course there have been times in which we asked ourselves why were we thinking to leave SouthAmerica and come to Germany (mind you, lots of germans still ask us the same question!), but after eight years here, and with kids born into this country, it is hard to think of somewhere else. Yes, there are still aspects of the german mentality I will never completely grasp, but on the other side, the same happens to me with my own land people. I have not yet -nor I think I will- learnt to enjoy the winter, and I am no ski guy for sure, but I have come to love the peace of the snow-covered towns with those crowded squares smelling of bratwurst and gluhwein. And sure I could use a longer summer, but hey, I moved into the corner of Germany with most sunny days, and is really not bad at all. And nowhere else in the world you will get the perfect blend of nature and civilization than in Germany during May -with all those flowers cascading down from the fachwerk houses- or October -with the apple trees bending by the weight of the fruit, and the ripe grapes hidden behind the red leaves.
Over all, I have come to appreciate, respect and love the country that the germans built with their hands and minds. Perhaps because I come from a chaotic land I can fully grasp what it means to build up a country back, almost from scratch, face the shames of the past, stand on the feet and move on. Germany made itself again the engine of Europe, an exporting machine that has no rival when it comes to quality and focus on delivery, and all of that without forgetting that people actually are entitled to basic rights. Look around at the financial mess, think of the "richest" and most powerful country on earth not being able to offer general health coverage nor work security to its people, and you'll see what I mean.
Finally, there's the language. The wonderful Language of the Germans. Jorge Luis Borges said once "You are, language of the Germans, your truly masterpiece: the intertwined love of your compound voices...". Being able to read a Bernhard Schlink book or listen to the Fanta-4 rapping in this marvelous language is in itself a reward.
So to anybody just arriving: herzlich willkommen :-) And to those veterans around: na und, wie geht's?
And to Detlef: thanks for all this time of love and support.

Cheers,

Sudaca

Well, now there's SudSud coming back to his old habits (letter-long posts :-)), good to see you still around bro :-)

Well, we had hard times and good times, there was rain and there was sun, many counted us going while we saw ourselves staying. Lost jobs, got jobs, helped each other, laughed with each other, celebrated births right on the forum pages and for what?


For the sake of feeling home and man, I do feel like home.

Thanks to Detlef for making this place be, and for all the members, new and old Wajeeh, YO, Alvarez for all the others for keeping this place alive.

D.

Great feeling actually, im also here since last 8years. I still remember my initial days of work, being vegetarian and english speaking guy faced lots and lots of problems but they faded away along with the time. Got the Einbürgerung urkunde and things moving ahead. Thanks to Trust7 and all the other friends from around the world. Its a great interface, eventhough we dont know each other we are some how associated, trust7 did a great job in brining all the Greencardlers together and sharing information.

From me too, our journey started on Feb 28 2001, not knowing anything about Germany and germans. My thanks to the Germans specially Schröder who made Green card possible. Berlin was my first and only place and i liked it as it was very multi cultural here. Never felt missing anything specially with our Indian restraunts round every corner.

But unlike Sudsud and Nobody i plan to move my base from germany to india this year end. But i do plan to keep my business relationship with germany as this is my primary market for IT outsourcing.

Thanks to Detlef too for this womderful forum and infact i came across this forum when i was searching the web for something else.

Thanks to all who are helping this trust7 community.

Wish you all a great future.

Hello Mr.Detlef, hi friends

I still rememeber the days when I was looking for help, and then I landed here www.trust7.com
This is a great place where we share our experiences and help each other

Viele Grüße und eines Schönes wochenende
Have a lot of fun
Matrix

Morning everybody,

well, again thanks to Detlef to bring into the discussion part of the history. Thanks God, a history with a (hopefully) nice ending.

Seems to be really very far those times in which no men was sure what can happen after our five years. I was even no sure at the beginning when my "friends" of my former Ausländerbehörde were giving me only 1 year visa.

But seeing the example of Detlef, I always kept myself optimistic and went forward.

In my very personal opinion, me and my family are very happy here. We have our problems, as any people has, but is not a matter of country, is a matter of life.

Germany welcomed us, we were never felt discriminated here (ehmm sorry, I lie: the "Blitzers" hates me and my car... I have a couple of fines...) and if we can work here, we would like to stay here.

Is also good to see the good old people still posting. As Sudaca (aka SudSud, depicted by me in the Olympiastadion of München) said, my kids also speak a very decent german, one of them is born here, the other spent most time here than in her homeland, and they have very much german habits.

So, thanks Detlef to keep this space alive. I have not really that much time nowadays to post much but I can swear you I read Trust7 daily because is always nice to meet good friends here.

See you all soon and best wished in the sense of NE or citizenship.

Dear Mr Detlef,
Certainly this is the most informative site for all informatik leute. I am sure that there are few members who are always posting their opinion, but there are thousands of members who are always keep on utilising these opinions. For me it is just like morning newspaper, until do not go through it, cant start my day. Please keep on going this site as long as possible.
All the best.