I'm a legal alien!

I know it's not Sunday, but I figured I'd do another post, just to get this thing up and running.

Today, I went to the Garda National Immigration Bureau to register as an alien. I have been in the country for almost a month-- I got here September 2nd-- but due to some problems with getting my loan, I wasn't able to register for school until yesterday. Now, I'm (finally!) officially a student, which means I can finally get permission to live here for a year. (Note: you can stay, as a tourist, for three months, but any longer and you have to have a job or be in school.) I got together all the necessary paperwork: my passport, my student ID, a letter from the school confirming my funds, and a letter from my apartment manager confirming my residence. The only worry was that the €100 immigration fee is, according to the website, only payable by credit card. I don't have a credit card, just a debit card, so I called the Gardaí and asked if that would work. I was informed that, for some reason, their system will accept some debit cards but reject others. He suggested that I have someone with a credit card come along who can make the payment for me if my debit card doesn't work.

Luckily, I have a wonderful roommate. Virginie agreed to come with me, way too early in the morning, and wait so she could pay in case I couldn't. So, this morning, we got a cab across town to the GNIB.

I've had horror stories from classmates of waiting in line for four, five, six hours, before being turned away, and I wanted to make sure it didn't happen to me. The office opens at 07:30, so we got there at 07:15... and there were already about twenty people in line. It was a chilly morning, and there were people wearing blankets. Eventually, they let us in (there were a handful of people behind me in line by this point) and we all took numbers and filled out paperwork. My number was B07; the counter started at A88. For the first two hours, the seats were all full, so I sat on the floor and read articles for my History class. Eventually seats started to open up, so for the last hour, Virginie and I both had chairs.

Finally, after three hours of waiting, my number was called. I handed over the paperwork and watched as the officer typed into computer. He took my picture, then typed some more. He took my debit card, and happily it worked, so I signed the receipt and watched as he typed still more. This all took about ten minutes. Then he printed my ID card, handed back my papers, and I was free to go. I felt bad about making Virginie get up early and come all the way across town for nothing more than moral support, but she was an absolute sweetheart about it.


So now, I have a nice little laminated ID card with my slightly stunned photo. (I wasn't expecting to have my picture taken; I actually brought passport-sized photos with me, assuming that's what they'd need.) Three hours for just that? But you know, I didn't really mind.

I have seen British satirists, like Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett, comment on the almost ludicrously counter-productive and disorganized nature of their government's bureaucracy-- Ireland is, I think, much the same. They both said things to the effect of not trusting a really efficient government, and that excessive paperwork is something of a comfort. An inefficient government could never oppress anybody. I think I agree. To me, waiting in lines (or queuing, to use that delightful verb) is part of the experience of living in Ireland. A country whose filing system seems to consist of writing things on sticky notes is a country I can fit into.

The Italian government, during World War II, actually saved thousands of Jews through the power of bureaucracy. Though Mussolini allied Italy with Germany through the Pact of Steel (mostly based on his lying about the Italian military's numbers) it was mostly about advancing socialism. The Italians, "short dark people" as my Italian professor used to put it, never felt comfortable with the whole Aryan thing-- being pretty much as non-Aryan as a European can be. So, when the Nazis trying to evict Jews from Italy to concentration camps, the Italian government responded by creating a quagmire of paperwork for them. "Ok, you need to fill out this form, take it here, get it stamped here, then fill out these three forms and get them each signed separately. Oh, and you don't have a passport? Well then you're going to need to go to this office, and this one..." etc. Thus, the Jews got shuffled around indefinitely and many never made it to the concentration camps.

So really, it might be a pain, but I can never get too mad about having to wade through paperwork. It's all part of living in a small, politically neutral country.