Resident alien

I think my dad said it best when he implied that since I am in the “world of Greek bureaucracy now” that I have to survive the whirlpool of incompetence. I’m referring to my plight to become a temporary resident for at least a year – and even the smallest, seemingly easiest, of steps somehow are made to be difficult. Sometimes I don’t even think the people working in the public offices even know what they are doing. Some documents can be photocopies whereas others have to be officially stamped by a lawyer. The funny thing is that they are the biggest Nazis about translations from Greek to English. Umm, wouldn’t that be the EASIEST thing to verify since most people speak English? No, it has to be translated then approved. Herein lies the whirlpool of incompetence and inefficiency.

Hopefully in their infinite maladroit wisdom they will not notice that I am dangerously close to my window of 90 days and still allow the application to go through if I overstep the legal lead time. You would think that things would be made easier for someone whose both parents are Greek citizens born in Greece, but that is not the case since this requires even more paperwork on my end.

I’m going to go down there today to present to them what I have – I wonder if they will need to me to find a government official to verify that the verifier was indeed a lawyer and that his school was verified by the government office that they can officially verify English to Greek translations. If that’s the case then I will probably be referred to the only “approved” government verifier in town who is probably the cousin of the government official who can verify the verifiers. *Crossing my fingers*