Permanente At Last!

Yes, we're now in possession of our Residente Permanente cards!  Yahoo!! Perhaps a third exclamation point is warranted - !

A friend's RP card was yellow; ours have a pale green background.  Don't know that the colors have any meaning; perhaps they just changed stock?  Michael's photo is fine; mine is a little washed out, but the cards are issued for an "indefinida" period and also allow us to work for pay - not that we will be doing so any time soon.  After all, having the cards is the important part, not one's visage - though I wish mine was not quite as ghost-like!

Best part is that now we can travel outside the country and return without the danger of voiding all the credit for the years we've spent here as an FM3 & FM2 when we re-enter without a valid Residente card in hand.  Took us four years to get there (through all the changes in immigration rules), but we're here!  [If you've been following this blog, you'll know that our FM2s expired while we were out of the country and we needed to visit a Mexican Consulate while in Florida - which complicated things.]

We did pick up our cards on Thursday after we returned to San Miguel from Puerto Vallarta (last week), but we've been a mite busy since then so forgot to post!  The cards (and our facilitator) were waiting for us in the garden of the Starbucks building (our facilitator's unofficial office). 

This is a hard time for facilitators:  After clients renewed their cards annually for so many years, we're suddenly all getting Permanentes and not requiring their services any longer - at least until the government realizes that it's not taking in the same amount of revenue and changes the rules once again. 

You'll notice that our cards are for an 'indefinite' period, not 'forever' so I suppose they can require a periodic review (with a fee, of course) if they wish.  Another advantage to the Permanente document is the permissible time out of Mexico.  With a Temporal we were limited to 180 days in a five-year period; with the changeover to Temporal/Permanente that limitation went away.

Now to wait patiently for my passport renewal to arrive so we can travel to Orlando on November 1st.  I was told by our Consulate's office that the passport should take about 3 to 4 weeks to be processed and delivered.  The third week will be up next Tuesday, September 30th.  Let's see if I get an email from DHL to come pick the document up!  DHL does give you a website and tracking number with which you can monitor the arrival of your passport - all for the $200 peso fee!  Yes, one must pay for the required delivery....  Can't have a passport falling into the wrong hands, now, can we?