all taped up

This past week of my life has been dominated entirely by the not-so-smart card.

This whole thing started on Sunday because of an issue with a visa I had applied for, I was required to get a smart card issued to solve the problem. So I left the Immigrations directorate and made an appointment at Central Informatics, arrived on time as was promptly made to wait for an hour. Once my number came up, I got to the desk and was told I needed to get something added to my electricity bill and return, so off to the Municipality I go. I came back to be told that I needed to have all documents for my entire family with me in order to affect the change, so I tried to explain that this was simply not possible since my newborn was only 2 weeks old and because of issues with translation, I still did not have a birth certificate issued, let alone a passport. Never mind that, there was another bigger issue with my Commercial Registration which needed to be resolved. So I was bounced around in the Ministry of Commerce and made to go through a series of paperwork gymnastics to satisfy their various requirements (of course, there where more than one). As of today (one entire working week), I am still waiting for them to clear the note on the system that would allow me to have my smart card issued.

I have not decided whether the system is silly or if it just works a bit too well and will reserve judgment until it actually gets resolved. And what was the change that I wanted to have reflected in my information that caused this entire not-so-merry-go-round, you ask? I wanted to change my address to the current house I am actually living in.