Bummer I was thinking about you and sending you good vibes. I am down there quite often for notary services. I cannot stand the waiting room either. No one can. And yes they do force even us US citizens to wait despite appointments. I was there Tuesday and waited about 1.5 hours for one silly notary signature.
If you get it done in two trips that would not be so bad. When I first moved to Italy it typically required 3 or 4 trips to same office for me to get things right. And when I moved down here I just accepted that it would most likely take 3 or 4 trips to get things right within the Argentine system. We did nail the US citizenship in one.
Wait until you hit airport to exit the US with baby on board! Unlike Argentina, no special lines for parents traveling with infants and toddlers. Just a mass of the great unwashed with strange "protection service people" yelling, pointing, waving, screaming, and otherwise humiliating the great masses. On our first trip back with baby who was 6 months at the time I became so flustered among diaper bags, carry ons, stroller, my belt, shoes and laptops all thrown about I almost slipped our 6 month old right through x-ray machine too;-)
IMO, it is the journey not arriving in any one destination that constitutes living and experiencing life. Try to breath and take it all in. Living among various countries is fun and exciting. But it is a constant journey into the dark woods. After time, out of the forest the trees always do reveal themselves.
When we went down to San Telmo to get the Argentina passport for our baby he was 3 or 4 months old. We were so excited to introduce him to our US family. Then the Argentina passport arrived with his name spelled wrong!! And we were scheduled to leave in days... We cried, laughed, had a few shots and then the next morning picked ourselves up, dusted off the dirt, and we went back on down there to San Telmo a second time to navigate our way through the bureaucracy of mate-drinking factura-eating employees. No one seemed to care we had wrong spelling in our passport and we were scheduled to leave in days. We were met with the good ol' "Argentine Shrug" as we call it.
While my wife was receiving the shrug from various people at the windows I saw an older woman lurking who seemed to have some power. I knew a grand mother type would understand our problem, especially an Argentine abuela. In my rotten Spanish I explained our problem. She grabbed my arm and whisked me over to the desk where they do finger prints and photo. Boom we were on our way with a guardian angel. Through pure improvisation that can only be learned after living out of country and navigating so many bureaucratic snaffoos we were through the process and sure enough in 48 hours we had Passport... from Argentina!!!!
Now the DNI is another story. It is still incorrect and the new one never arrived. We have been down to San Telmo one or two times again and we are still waiting for that new DNI. In the meantime I like his powder blue one filled out by hand in our local CGP. It is old-world charming.
Living out of country requires big doses of sense of humor! We find whiskey bombs help heal our cuts and bruises too.
nikad said:
They make it so difficult to get a tourist visa if you can apply for citizenship that we decided to finally do this ( which I think is the reason why the make the visa difficult, ie just so your children get citizenship ) We must be retarded but if you were born in the US and got your first passport when you were 30... where were you all the time? Really this reminded me of all the bs we went through with his Argentine perm residency. Not happy at all, if it wasn´t for the trip, I would not even bother going back.
I think we tried VISA route for our child. From my recollection if citizenship may be transmitted from parent to a child born out of the US then US will not issue Visa. To try, as I did, requires serious interview with consulate along with the "pleasant woman from window 15" and a few others. They pounded me with questions as to why I would not want citizenship from the greatest country on earth. They hammered and hammered until I finally accepted that I must take citizenship for my child and then my child may undo it when he/she turns 18 without penalty. This is because US considers citizenship to be transmitted from parent to child as automatic. So they cannot issue VISA to one who is citizen. Citizen needs passport. I fought this battle with the "pleasant brown-haired woman at window 15" and many others down there. When child is 18 then child has opportunity to make its own decision.
The need for school transcripts seems silly but it is required because there is no other way to prove continual living in the US. Leases, tax returns, car insurance all do not work b/c it does not prove your physical presence.
Every college and most high schools in the US have a registrars office. You call registrar and they will expedite a transcript for a small fee. This is very common b/c every student needs a transcript for something. Have it sent to someone in the US who can fedex it to you. It is well known that the registrar will place transcript in envelope, seal it and then they will sign and stamp the sealed leaf. This way whoever opens knows it is authentic and has not been opened since coming from registrars office. I suggest ordering a few transcripts and leave them sealed. This way the consulate may open and know it is authentic. You can have the multiples just in case... and you'll need them for some other reason along the journey.
There is also the form US citizen parent must complete before you go that requires a listing of all travel during lifetime. Should be easy to fill out since your husband has not done much traveling. Nevertheless, it is required in addition to transcripts.
In our case they also looked at my wife's sonograms, ultasounds, etc and various other proof of pregnancy documents to confirm that our child was ours and was born here on xx date. The sonograms etc. have dates on them which shows period of pregnancy to birth. You will need these as well even though it seems obvious from child's birth certificate that child is yours.
And again, once you are leaving, I cannot stress how important it is to bring authentic Argentine birth certificate with you to exit. The US has weird rules. Argentina also has weird rules. It would seem obvious baby with Argentina passport should be able to travel but in fact baby cannot travel outside Argentina without birth certificate and at airport everytime we travel they look at it closely. Therefore, best to order a couple of these for your files because you'll need them.
Someone mentioned keeping file of all these forms from the various countries with Apostle. We do the same. And it is amazing how quickly we seem to go through birth certificates, marriage certificates, criminal records etc etc etc. Living in two or in our case three countries is not easily bureaucratically. But once you get through it a few times it becomes easier to understand what is requires to move through the bureaucracy. We also live in Italy where we are citizens too and I can tell you the US is a cake walk compared to Italy and Argentina. In fact, I think Argentina and Italy may be more in love with their bureaucratic processes than any other country. I like to think of it as a full employment strategy.
At this very moment my wife is off to the local CGP in our barrio to order a few more birth certificates for our child. I think we've already burned through 5 or 10. We have them translated into Italian and English. We walked up to the CGP monday took a number waited and then we got an appointment for this morning. I call this method the "Belgrano two-step" - there is no Belgrano one-step because the computer never works to make appointment online. Thus the required first step of going and taking number just to get an appointment to go back for second step, ordering the birth certificate. There is nice cervezeria on the way so the two-step works for me. But is rather odd considering we are just ordering something... then again, nothing like a morning whiskey bomb.
Cheers, salute, cin-cin!
