My Morning at the Office of Immigration

Thanks to a recently passed law, all residents of Hungary must apply in-person and be approved by the Office of Immigration. It sounds easy right? Just like trying to get your license renewed at the local MVA on a Saturday morning, or Christmas shopping at the mall the day after Thanksgiving, or standing in for Siegfried and Roy in their next show.

It was probably the most ridiculous experience I've enjoyed in Budapest thus far. The office, which I learned later was at a temporary location, was conveniently located 40 minutes outside of Budapest in the middle of the suburbs, and only accessible by bus. Thank goodness our coordinator Margot was taking us, otherwise we would have been S.O.L. Once we arrived, we quickly learned that no one spoke English. That's like going to the Office of Immigration in San Antonio, and none of the employees speak any Spanish. It was really quite a mess, and Margot had to translate for everyone.

The beauty of bureaucracy is that there can never be enough forms and papers to be filled out. In this particular instance, there were a lot of papers that we were "supposed" to have, but no one knew about until we got there. Poor Margot was so stressed out and frustrated by the end- of the 26 students that went, only 5 were approved. Sarah and I got lucky because our landlord actually signed the contract and it was solid- but we had quite an ordeal ourselves.

Again, there was no warning that we would need a passport-quality photo for this pleasant procedure, so naturally neither I, nor Sarah, brought one. We were promptly informed that we would need one, and we should use the photo booth in the lobby. "Okay" I say to myself, "I can handle that" and we walk over to the machine. The charge is 700 forints for 4 pictures, which is reasonable. It only became unreasonable once we realized that the bill-slot was broken. Now we needed 1400 forints in coins- and that's a lot of coins. So we all empty our pockets and come up with about 500fts, which isn't even enough for one person, but at least it's something. As we're staring at the handful of coins, wondering how we're going to scrounge up 1100 more, a man opens up the Coffee Vending machine to do maintenance. Seizing the opportunity, one of the students trades the remaining cash for coins out of this machine. After fifteen minutes of coin-hunting, we were finally set.

It get's better though! As Sarah is putting in the coins, one slips from her hand onto the floor. She bends to grab it, and at that very moment, the flash goes off. She gets herself into place for the second flash, but we're wondering how it's going to turn out. I'm rather peeved with the whole process by this point, and take my turn in the booth. Putting in the coins, I sit back and wait. And wait. And wait. Why is there no flash? Finally the camera goes off, but the look on my face rivals that of a convict on America's Most Wanted.

Our pictures finally come out, and we both had to laugh because they're just that ridiculous. Two of Sarah's are of the photo booth, but the second two came out fine. The first two of my photos are just black because the camera never went off, and the second two look like mug shots taken from the county correctional facility. At least we got approved and don't have to go back a second (or possibly third) time. My friend from Zimbabwe said she had to go back 6 times before they finally gave her the okay.

I think what's really mind-boggling is that people all over the world try and navigate this red-tape without a coordiantor, a translator, or a guide, in the hopes that they, too, may live in that country. They are much, much braver than I.