Local police station (with an 80s music soundtrack)

Americans travelling to Croatia do not need visas, but those of us who are here for more than 90 days must apply for temporary residence permits.  As we had been warned, getting those permits has been quite a process--which ends (at least for this post) with our local police station and an 80s music soundtrack.  I suspect that much of this will sound very familiar to those of you who've temporarily lived abroad.  Maybe not the 80s music soundtrack part.  (If you don't want the details but just the 80s music reference, skip to the end!)

First, when I attended my Fulbright orientation in Washington, DC in July, I was told that our family should begin the process of becoming temporary residents early because things often get confusing and messy.  The Fulbright program (both the staff in Washington, DC and in Zagreb) and the University of Rijeka's International Relations Office have been very helpful with this process.   

Second, in September, we sent our marriage certificate and the girls' birth certificates to the various county clerks' offices where we were married and where the girls were born, so that those certificates could get the appropriate county seals and authentication.  Then, J.D. and I got our fingerprints done and sent away for criminal history reports.

Third, we had to take all of the above-mentioned documents and send them to the Secretary of State of New York, so that office could put a special gold stamp called an apostille on them.  An apostille authenticates the documents that will be used a foreign country.  The state of New York gets enough requests for the apostille that it has a special Apostille Office.  Ginny--at that office--must be the kindest and most patient bureaucrat on the planet.

Fourth, when we got to Rijeka, we had to register with the police within 48 hours of our arrival.  This involved all four of us going with our landlord and a representative from the university's International Relations Office to the police station, filling out a lot of forms in Croatian, and standing in lines.  We got paperwork that said that we were allowed to be in Croatia--and that we had 30 days to get the temporary residence permits.

Fifth, we had to have every one of those earlier documents (girls' birth certificates with the county clerks' seals/authentication and with the apostille, etc.) translated into Croatian by special "court interpreters for the English language."  Plus, the Ministry of Education in Croatia had to send some special forms about my Fulbright award to the police (I think).

All of the above involved money--in the case of the translations, a fair amount of money.

The representative from the university's International Relations Office had initially thought we would be going back to the police station on one particular day, but because of some delays of documents from the Ministry of Education, that didn't happen.  So we took our trip to Istria and had a tentative date with the police on the Monday we returned.

We were wondering if the travel would be a problem since it was to occur more than 30 days after our arrival in Croatia--that is, after the deadline when we were to get the temporary residence permits.  But the International Relations Office staff person was told, when she kindly called the police station on our behalf, that our travel was fine.  Apparently, it wasn't quite fine.

Yesterday, the four of us returned, once again with our landlord and International Relations Office staff person, to the police station to become temporary residents.  As it turns out, the police knew where we had been.  In fact, they had records of the exact times when we had arrived in Istria and had left Istria.  We had had to go with the owner of the house we rented in Istria to register at some really tiny office, and I'm guessing that that information went into a gigantic Croatian police computer system.  Going to Istria without telling the police was evidently a no-no--not a huge no-no, but just one that required that we fill out eight extra forms in Croatian.

We then purchased some special stamps (probably for the permits).  We have yet to receive the permits, but...

I'm pleased to report that we are now temporary residents of Croatia!

J.D. and I (no kids required this time) still have to return to the police station next Monday and perhaps several more times after that.  I guess this is because of some delays in our paperwork from the Ministry of Education.  I'm suspect we'll learn more later.  Or not.

About the music soundtrack...while hanging out in the police station, we heard such 1980s English-language classics as the Pointer Sisters’ "Slow Hand," Elton John’s "I’m Still Standing," and Naked Eyes' "Always Something There to Remind Me."  We frequently hear 1980s English-language music here in restaurants, stores, and...our local police station.  I like a lot of 1980s music (though not all of the songs mentioned above!), probably because it reminds me of high school and college.  But here, for some reason, whenever I hear that music, I just want to laugh.  Listening to that music in the police station made the bureaucratic procedure even funnier than it already was.

Actually, I find this formal, bureaucratic stuff to be fascinating.  

Laura