Another (negative) point for Spain

http://adoptando-en-zhitomir.blogspot.com/2010/04/burocracia.html

I found this picture today, which almost sums up with relationship Pollito has had with the Spanish government since we decided to get married and go to the states.  Except the turtle should have walked through a maze with several dead-ends, and places where he has to pay multiple tolls.

Pollito sent his papers in to get his Spanish police record, last week.  Because of the uncertainty of Peruvian post, he sent it with a courier.  Aparently when the courier went to drop off the packet at the address that the Ministry of Justice gives you, he was told that this was not the place for things from courier, just for mail - I'm sorry, what IS mail then?  Well, obviously only something that comes from the country's national post service.

So the courier had to go around and drop off the package somewhere else, not at the specific address listed on the Ministry of Justice's paper.  Pollito ha to call them to make sure that the paper arrived in the correct spot.  Good thing the Ministry of Justice is open until 4pm, right?

Wrong.  The people who take care of police reports/records stop working at 2pm.  Yay Espain.  He was however informed that the process of getting the police record is not the simple 3 days like it says on the form....or like it is said at the Embassy and stuff.  Its a whopping 30 day.  THIRTY.   It won't even be done until almost July, and with the mailing and everything, that puts us pretty much in July, and then Pollito has to call for an interview, which they will probably give to him within a month, so end of July/beginning of August.  And then he will need to buy a plane ticket and get ready to come.   And its ridiculous to spend a last minute fare price on a ticket, so chances are slimming for him to be here by my birthday.

Hopefully Spain will still send you back the finished report.

Time for an update!

(taken from johncoulter.net)

Progress has been made!!  Since I am now in the US of A, Pollito has to do most of the paperwork.  Granted, it is all his paperwork that needs to be done.

He has made great strides.  He has finally gotten the process started to get his police records from Spain.  That was a painful process.  I'm not sure if I've outlined it here, but basically because his Spanish ID is expired (duh), he has to do the entire process by snail mail.  We were trying to use legal representatives for a while, but that ended up not working, and we were trying to use some international government legalization process, but that didn't work either.  So after months of (mis)information gathering, Pollito finally had to go to the Spanish Embassy(which has weird rules on getting an appointment), got his papers legalized, and then sent them off to Spain.

He had to figure out all of the correct payments to be made.  It wasn't just a payment (of less than 5 euros) to the bank.  He had to do the currency exchange, and then pay a fee to transfer the money (remember, less than 5 euros), to the Spanish Bank (which seemingly exists in Peru, but even though it uses the same name, its not affiliated), and he had to pay a fee for the Spanish bank to accept the money.  All of it had to be done in dollars and in euros, so it had to be on the correct exchange rate.  You may wonder why he couldn't make the payment in the Spanish Embassy.  Thats because he can't use the Embassy for anything besides legalizing the forms, because his Spanish ID is expired.  So, he over paid the banks to account for changing exchange rates and changing fee rates.  Probably a grand total of close to 40 euros in fees to pay a 3euro payment to actually get the police record.

But! Its in the mail to Spain, who should receive it next week, and then they print out a form and send it back.  Easy, right?  I'm just not 100% behind the Peruvian postal system.  Things seems to get delayed. A box my friend sent my with syrup got delayed about two months.  On the other hand, a package from HK, arrived within two weeks.  So I guess you never know.  But with important papers, I'd rather know for sure.

Apart from sending in the Spanish papers, Pollito also had his medical exam today, and will get his results back next week.  They have to check and make sure he doesn't have some weird Peruvian disease before they let him into the States.  Seems valid....

And thats all!  All updated.  The interview is getting cloooosssseeeeeee.  All our papers should be in by the end of May!!