E-3 Visa Renewal in Mexico City

To paraphrase Mark Twain, sorry to write such a long blog post, but I did not have time to write a short one. For the tl;dr crowd, yes it is is possible to renew your E3 visa in Mexico City and it is a viable alternative to going to Canada or back to Australia. The visa can be obtained in as little as 3 days, and the waiting times to schedule an appointment are short. Read on for more detail on the process and advice.

The purpose of this post is to share my experiences of an E-3 visa renewal in Mexico City. It is not my intention to go into detail on the process of getting an initial E-3 or how to find work in the US, I'll leave that to another blog post. There is plenty of information on initial E3 application on the official government sites. There is also a great how to from Geoff McQueen on his blog that covers the process from the entrepreneur's perspective. This is useful if you find yourself wanting to manage the entire process yourself without the support of a company sponsoring you or engaging an immigration lawyer. Willing to be proven wrong, but I do not believe it is possible to gain your initial E3 visa in Mexico City, or any other foreign port, unless you are currently residing in that country. Edit: Have confirmed that it is not possible to obtain an initial E3 in anything other than your country of residence or Australia.

Awkward

I have lived in the US  for nearly 4 years. I think most of the little differences between Australia and the US I have accepted, or just no longer think about. In fact it was interesting for me having my family visit recently, as they pointed out many of the things that I found strange when I first arrived but now just consider normal.

International Man of Mystery

Port de Fontvielle

I just returned from a trip to Europe where I visited six countries in a little over a week and half. Technically speaking one of them is only a city state. From the picture you can probably guess that I didn't visit the Vatican, rather I am talking about Monaco.

Clearly going to Monaco or anywhere in Europe is not something that entirely sucks. I have been an F1 fan for most of my life and my favorite race every year is the Monaco Grand Prix. It is a place that holds an almost mystical aura for an F1 tragic such as myself. It was my first trip and I found it absolutely gorgeous. Even with poor weather, I was still blown away by the beauty of the Côte d'Azur while driving from Nice to the center of Monaco. There is also still a huge novelty factor for me from being able to jump on the Eurostar in London and travel by train to Paris. As a country boy who grew up in a small town, I still remember looking at maps and marveling at how huge the world is and thinking I would be lucky to see Australia, let alone live and travel internationally. Catching the Eurostar is a long way from my childhood trips to Dubbo on the XPT.

Bart gets to ride in the front because he is good at sports

Being a transplant to the US, one of the things that has surprised me is how quickly I have taken to following US sports. As a long time cricket fan, baseball has immediately caught my attention, in no small part due to the similarities between the two sports. The more measured pace of the games compared to most other field sports, the fact they are played in summer (by extension allowing sitting outside in the sun with a beer in hand while watching), and the focus on statistics, provide a very familiar flavor to both sports. A little known fact is that much of the statistics that drive baseball were developed by a Brit by the name of Henry Chadwick in the 19th Centruty.

But I digress. The thing I have come to realize while watching sports that are foreign to me such as baseball, american football and ice hockey, is that there is another element beyond the actual mechanics of the sport that makes it compelling; the human element. The first part of this relates to the players themselves. I was incredibly lucky that in my second year of being a baseball fan, my home team the San Francisco Giants won the World Series, despite being an un-fancied team that were never rated much chance of doing well. The Giants, due to a run of bad injuries and form, did not figure in the 2011 post season, which I thought would be the end of my interest in baseball for the year.

Hello World

So I have finally decided to take the plunge and start a blog. Can't promise it will be interesting, but I can promise it will be amateurish. All spelling mistakes and grammatical errors are deliberate attempts to convey irony. If something can be interpreted to be offensive, I meant it the other way.

The name LimaEchoEcho comes from my first name spelt using the phonetic alphabet. Living in the US for nearly 4 years now, but still maintaining my nasally tendency of talk'n stralian (Translation: Speaking Australian), the phonetic alphabet has helped me on many occasions. Who said that the 18 months I spent in the Army Reserve was a waste of time? Given that E can easily be confused for an A when spoken by an Aussie, I've actually had to change the way I say my own name. My favorite story being the time I called for a cab not long after arriving in the country. When I told them my name they said, "Was that Ray Sanderson?"

"Close enough, just send my cab."