Don't estimate the amount of time it will take to review your citizenship application based on the amount of time it took to get the results of your citizenship test.
So far, this has been the area of the German-side of the process that ran a little closer to my bureaucratic expectations, namely, if an official expresses a length of time -- e.g. 3-6 months -- things will start moving closer to the six month mark than the three month mark.
Getting down to the wire, I was (and still am) slightly concerned that this would drag on and I would have to renew my U.S. passport first, since it's getting kinda close to the point where it's only valid for six months. This would have cost me 1.) more money 2.) plus a trip to a consulate that actually does shit for U.S. citizens 3.) money and time off work for a trip to Bremen, Berlin, or Frankfurt.
As luck would have it, I finally received notification that the Germans are letting me in!
The full term is that they are giving me a Einbürgerungszusicherung (assurance of naturalization). This thing is valid for 2 years, during which time I have to submit a Certificate of Loss of Nationality (CLN). It is at that time that I offically stop being US American and start being German.
In true German style, the letter in my mailbox was not the assurance certificate itself, but rather a letter informing me of an appointment early next month where I can go pick this piece of paper up. At any rate, this will then wrap up all the stuff I have to do for Germany to gain citizenship. After this,
Currently the tally is still at 280€ spent in this endeavor, but watch this shit start to skyrocket.
For now, I'm just happy that I made it this far.
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