This week, we had to do endure of the most unpleasant errands undergone by world travelers: the long wait at the immigration office. Just like our first visit back in 2013 and our big day out last year, the office was jam-packed with tired, bored, and scared people waiting...waiting...waiting.
On our first visit, I'm sure our faces would have been on the scared list, hoping we had all the correct paperwork – a marriage license from the State of Iowa and the Catholic Church, in case Ireland wasn't yet recognizing non-Catholic marriages – and that our newly-issued debit card could handle the hefty fee for the privilege of living and paying taxes in Ireland.
This time around, one of the newbies would have seen us as the bored, groggy queue-shufflers that we had seen on our first day. The experienced expats; the longtime legal aliens.
Thankfully, this last visit was our shortest yet, we seemed to have had good luck with the size of the line. During peak immigration times, the office has to start turning people away by ten o'clock, having already issued service tickets to their daily limit of lost souls. As an added bonus, this being our third year in the country, we were issued two-year passes for the hassle – and high price – of one!
It won't really change my schedule or status, but it's nice to know that, come next summer, we won't have the specter of a long wait in line and a big bank bust hanging overhead, blocking out the sometimes-rare Irish sunshine.
This bureaucratic chore out of the way, it's time to enjoy the rest of our summer travel plans! By the way, did you read about our hike in Cashel over the June bank holiday? Much more like that to come!
I can only sympathise :-) Before my husband became an Irish citizen, he had to endure the long wait as well, and I had to go with him, just to show my face and prove we were married... The longest we had to wait was 8 hours!!!
ReplyDeleteGlad you don't have to do that anymore!
DeleteMy Irish immigration experience was in Killarney where the only real hassle is that the office isn't open every day! It will never be as bad as the Bureau of Immigration in Manila though!
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