JOB SEARCH / PAPER WORK / DOCUMENTS
We had our meeting in the Ausländerbehörde / Immigration Office with the Aufenthaltstitel / Residence Permit people last Thursday.  We where very worried about the meeting and how it would turn out.  We have heard stories and read on-line about how the officials will turn people down and make them leave the country if they don't like the answers to the questions they may ask you.  It all turned out just fine though.  We had Andy and Peter from the office go with us and that must have helped our results.  I had to fill out an additional 4 page questionnaire in which they only had one complaint that I had to correct and that was because I put my height down in feet/inches (automatic for me, not thinking metric).  I happened to have a metric measuring tape in my purse so I whipped that out and had Steve measure me in cm and correct the form.   We had to do finger prints of both hands, index fingers and paying a large fee of I think 250 euros.   At the end of the meeting and some sit time in the waiting area we where approved for a residence permit and Steve was approved for a work permit (he now has a temporary one) both which should arrive in the mail in a few weeks.  I can't leave the country until my residence permit arrives.  Or at least they said if I wanted to leave I'd have to tell them and pay them some euros for a temporary form of paperwork.  

I have not applied for my work permit yet as I think the best order of the process is to get an offer and have the company help sponsor me.  I think getting my residence permit will help in my job possibilities.  But not knowing the language is going to make getting a job very difficult.  A non German has the lowest priority in getting a job.  The job has to be open and offered to Germans and with no person found to fill it it can then be offered to a European citizen, then if no one fills the position, it can be offered to me.  Also I have to be offered a salary about about 45K euros or they won't consider it and I can't get the permit.  I am looking into taking a German language class as soon as I can get into one.