Friday the 13th
Whatever you plan, don't plan it on a date like today. I had my fair share of 'abandonned luck' this morning while I was supposed to get registered at the police station. This registration is obligatory and needs to be carried out asap after arrival in the country. It is only up untill very recent that I found out about this but, as many issues in Macedonia are solved, I found out that this would be "Nema problem". That was untill Friday the 13th came around.
The registration procedure is fairly simple and could be over with in 10 minutes. That is, if all goes well. In short it's like this: I hand over my passport. The owner of the appartment that I rent, needs to hand over his ID. We fill out a form. Hand it in at a police station. Wait a little, and all's well from there. That's the theory. Here comes the practice.
Of course, as my landlord is way too important to do the registration himself, it is his driver with his boss' ID who is accompanying me to the police station Skopje Centar today. There, I handed over my passport. We both need to fill out a form. All was collected by the police officer behind the office window. The sliding window closed and we saw our documents and paperwork disappear into the black box of bureaucracy of Skopje Centar Police Station. There's nothing else to do but wait. Wait a little in the smoke filled waiting room.
After a good 10 minutes it was a shaken head from the police officer and the driver's seemingly rough way of negotiation that was starting to get me reaching for my 'Plan B' section for such situations. Only to find out that for this, I didn't really know what to do next. What was the matter? I was explained that the date in my passport of the last entry of the country does not match the date I wrote down on the form. I checked in my passport and yes, it's not the 6th of MAY that is visible on the stamp that I got when I returned from Greece last week. Instead it showed "6 IV 2005". In my mind I thanked the officials at the border to have overlooked the change of month on their stamps. After that, I went into the first phase of despair. My landlord's driver on the other hand was still a lot more hopefull, even though his "Ne e dobro!" as a reaction to my "What's up?" question, didn't add much good to the whole situation. He grabbed for the power of connections - Nokia! Did a little calling. Then, we waited. Two minutes later, he was called back after which we returned to the office window. The window slid away and the driver spoke. The word "Kommandante", the name of my landlord and my name were uttered in one sentenced. It sounded like "Open sesame!" as our papers were brought back into the black-box's circulation. The officer disappeared again. And we waited some more. I figured that as my name doesn't mean anything in this country, it must be that the chief of the station and my landlord are acquinted at the least. A little 'hand-and-feet' Macedonian with the driver revealed that, indeed, they were good friends. There had obviously been some chat going on between them and I was pleased to know that this chat took not too long. I was running late and needed to get to work. This was supposed to take only 10 minutes and I was already clocking close to one hour with this registration.
The waiting took a little longer than the first session. When the police officer returned with our papers, he still wasn't able to bring sunshine to our faces. The ID's were collected and the officer went back into his office window. The driver walked back to his car. He signalled me to follow, though I still had no idea what was up now. He revealed it in the car. My stamp was not the problem anymore. Now it's my landlord who has to show that the appartment on Bulevard Partizanski Odredi that I live in is really his. Too be continued!
...sigh...
It was time to get to work and tell my colleagues that coming Monday I might have to need a few hours off again for finishing this registration procedure.
The registration procedure is fairly simple and could be over with in 10 minutes. That is, if all goes well. In short it's like this: I hand over my passport. The owner of the appartment that I rent, needs to hand over his ID. We fill out a form. Hand it in at a police station. Wait a little, and all's well from there. That's the theory. Here comes the practice.
Of course, as my landlord is way too important to do the registration himself, it is his driver with his boss' ID who is accompanying me to the police station Skopje Centar today. There, I handed over my passport. We both need to fill out a form. All was collected by the police officer behind the office window. The sliding window closed and we saw our documents and paperwork disappear into the black box of bureaucracy of Skopje Centar Police Station. There's nothing else to do but wait. Wait a little in the smoke filled waiting room.
After a good 10 minutes it was a shaken head from the police officer and the driver's seemingly rough way of negotiation that was starting to get me reaching for my 'Plan B' section for such situations. Only to find out that for this, I didn't really know what to do next. What was the matter? I was explained that the date in my passport of the last entry of the country does not match the date I wrote down on the form. I checked in my passport and yes, it's not the 6th of MAY that is visible on the stamp that I got when I returned from Greece last week. Instead it showed "6 IV 2005". In my mind I thanked the officials at the border to have overlooked the change of month on their stamps. After that, I went into the first phase of despair. My landlord's driver on the other hand was still a lot more hopefull, even though his "Ne e dobro!" as a reaction to my "What's up?" question, didn't add much good to the whole situation. He grabbed for the power of connections - Nokia! Did a little calling. Then, we waited. Two minutes later, he was called back after which we returned to the office window. The window slid away and the driver spoke. The word "Kommandante", the name of my landlord and my name were uttered in one sentenced. It sounded like "Open sesame!" as our papers were brought back into the black-box's circulation. The officer disappeared again. And we waited some more. I figured that as my name doesn't mean anything in this country, it must be that the chief of the station and my landlord are acquinted at the least. A little 'hand-and-feet' Macedonian with the driver revealed that, indeed, they were good friends. There had obviously been some chat going on between them and I was pleased to know that this chat took not too long. I was running late and needed to get to work. This was supposed to take only 10 minutes and I was already clocking close to one hour with this registration.
The waiting took a little longer than the first session. When the police officer returned with our papers, he still wasn't able to bring sunshine to our faces. The ID's were collected and the officer went back into his office window. The driver walked back to his car. He signalled me to follow, though I still had no idea what was up now. He revealed it in the car. My stamp was not the problem anymore. Now it's my landlord who has to show that the appartment on Bulevard Partizanski Odredi that I live in is really his. Too be continued!
...sigh...
It was time to get to work and tell my colleagues that coming Monday I might have to need a few hours off again for finishing this registration procedure.
posted by Juul at 12:12 претпл.
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