On Thursday and Friday we went into town to meet up with Lyubo to finally get the residency card sorted out for A. When we got there on Thursday first of all I had forgotten my Notoerlien so I had to leg it back home again and collection it (A stayed with Lyubo and met his cat). We then found out after some conversation with the lady that we actually didn't have the correct papers from the bank; when they said "the paper for the 8 lev" what they meant was a receipt from the bank showing that 8 lev had been paid as a tax. Anyway A was left at the office while I ran around with Lyubo to the bank and to get photocopies of various things. We got back from that trip to find someone else had taken our place in the office so we had to wait a little while again.
When we regained admittance we were closer however the lady then said she wanted another copy of something else so I legged it out again to the little shop round the corner with the photocopier and returned very quickly so we didn't lose our place again. More forms were filled in and then right at the end (two and a half hours after getting there) the lady said that there was ANOTHER tax to pay. Now why didn't she mention this earlier when Lyubo and I had gone to the bank. By this time Lyubo had to run so A and I made our way back to the little hole in the wall cashier and there we managed to make ourselves understood, paid this extra tax, and even had a nice chat with the girl who served us. They do love having foreign people here.
The next day we had arranged to meet Lyubo again at the office, this time to collect her temporary card and show proof that we had paid the extra for the photocard. This was a much simpler process, though our wait felt longer as the queue was pretty huge. Unfortunately I didn't pick up on the fact that we were not paying the "process this faster" amount so now we have to wait a whole month for the photocard. I'm sure it just sits in a drawer for most of that time.
Anyway, that's what I forgot to write about and it's such an epic thing that good old Carlton is back and strutting his stuff :)
LOL...I'm surr they do it in purpose...they always add a new requirement everytime they trick you in....It happened to me also while I started with asking for a LIST of the documents. If you spent enough time in the office in town you may have noticed how quicky turkish people were serviced...and this may explains you the odds.
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