Last week, nearly twenty months after beginning this odyssey, we finally had our interview with the immigration committee. At long last, the final hurdle. Our opportunity to strut our stuff and showcase our vast encyclopedic knowledge of Swiss history, geography and politics. Wilhem Tell’s son’s name? Walter. Height of the Matterhorn? 4478 meters. Roger Federer’s shoe size? Twelve. We were prepared. As it turned out, we were über prepared and while the committee was indeed a group of seven seated intimidatingly across the table from us, they couldn’t have been friendlier and right up front gave us the choice between High German and dialect (we chose High German but noted that they were welcome to talk behind our backs in dialect with Paige). The setting was the same lovely room in the Stadthaus where the language test occurred all those months ago. This building, originally built to be the city post office in the late 1700’s, now serves as the meeting place for the local government. Ask me why I know this. Again, preparation for this very interview.
The interview began with polite introductions and a summary of how the meeting would go, then the lead interviewer kicked off the questioning by asking Paige about her membership in Breo. For those who are unaware of what that means, Breo is one of the larger Fasnacht cliques and let’s just say her participation there sort of automatically qualified her for status as a Basler. She sheepishly noted that she had had to quit last year due to time constraints but her credentials were established and the rest of the interview, at least for her, was borderline a formality. Lisa and I, however, were still, as they say, “unter die Lupe” but it quickly became apparent that they were not out to get us and the discussion quickly transitioned into more of a friendly conversation than an interrogation. Soon, twenty minutes had flown by and the lead wrapped things up and told us to expect a response within two weeks. We wished them a nice weekend and left, confident that we had made a satisfactory impression. This was confirmed the very next day when we received the letter informing us that we had been approved and that our file would be forwarded to the cantonal authorities with a recommendation of acceptance. Wow, we thought. We’d actually done it. The elation we felt was slightly diminished when we read down to the bottom of the letter and saw that after winding its way through the cantonal system our file would then be sent to the federal authorities too and while none of this would require anything from us, aside from payment of a few more fees, it could take another ten months before we actually received our formal approval and right to apply for passports. Ten months, I thought. Wow. I wondered how many times people died during this process only to be granted citizenship posthumously. In the end, though, in spite of this administrative delay we now feel like we belong and after all this time what’s another few months. And, anyway, we don’t really have a timeline aside from having this done by next November. I’ve often joked that if Trump gets another four years we’re not ever going back. Now, I can amend this joke to say that as citizens maybe we could pursue chain migration and bring our other three kids over here. We’ll see…
