I just feel lost. This is absolute bullshit. I’ve spent the last six hours on the phone calling everyone I could think of and now I’m too tired and confused to talk to anyone – except myself. Hopefully this’ll help sort out my thoughts.

This morning at around 10am I got a call from my boss at one of the dubbing studios I work at. He sounded very mad (but not at me). He said that the studio had been “raided” by the police and they seized all of the information they had on record regarding the people who work there. He then told me that I should be expecting a phone call from some government agency. I had no clue what he was talking about but since he said he had to call another 15 people, I didn’t have time to ask.

Sure enough, about 25 minutes later some guy from the Extranjero section of the Ministerio del Interior called me on my mobile. He rattled off a bunch of legalese in Spanish (more than half of which I didn’t understand) and told me to come down to the police station immediately. I had a very bad feeling about this, but didn’t want to imagine what would happen if I said no so I went.

When I got there, I first had to sit in this waiting room for just over an hour before they called me in. They didn’t even tell me why I was there. Basically (to make a long and painful story short), they later told me that my residency papers were not filed correctly and so that meant that they were illegal and that I had no right to be in the country for as long as I was! The recording studio that first helped me get my papers was under some sort of investigation – I have no idea what for. They have given me 48 hours to collect my things and get on a plane for the United States!! I can’t even organize to ship of my belongings – I have to stuff what I can in two suitcases. Needless to say, I was upset. I actually started crying.

The bottom line is that I have to spend an entire year (365 days) out of the country before they will allow me to enter Spain again. This means that 1) the wedding is off, 2) Jan and I will be separated for who knows how long, 3) I now have no job, 4) someone here will have to pay to get me my things in the US, and 5) I can’t step foot in Spain for one whole year – that is until 2006 April… wait a minute… What’s today’s date?!? [click here]