Immigration Services is just how you'd probably imagine it to be: A room that is way too small, packed with people, seating for only about 1/4 of them, not even enough wall space to lean against, and nothing to read except the different types of resident permit application forms. Not even Finland can make Immigration Services stylish and efficient. It was just incredibility boring and uncomfortable. There was a little girl there with a baby doll speaking some language I couldn't place (Greek? Hebrew?). She was running around this tiny room yelling at everyone quite clearly, "(expletive deleted) you!" This was accompanied by a hand gesture, just in case you thought you just misheard her. Although slightly disturbing, this was at least entertaining, given the situation. So after 4 hours of "queuing" I finally got to see a Immigrations Officer. This was not nearly as intimidating as I'd been expecting. It was just some early 20's Finnish guy in a cubical. He took my forms, looked at them a little, and then asked me if I had proof that my scholarship money had been given to me (you have to have a certain amount of money for the permit to show that you're financially able to support yourself in Finland. Like anyone could ever have that much money, ha ha). I told him I didn't and that it was just being given to me in payments, and he said, "Okay, just write a statement of that." And I was like, "You mean right now?" And he said, "Yeah, just write it on this piece of paper." So I wrote,
"I am receiving my scholarship in payments and I have enough money to finance my stay in Finland. - Kesi Stoneking 15.1.2010"He said, "great," I gave him 125 euros, and that was that. I asked him when I should expect to receive the permit, and he said, "I'll get it sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday, and then it should be about 5 or 6 months." "5 or 6 MONTHS?!?!" I asked. "You mean like after I've already left Finland?!" He said, yeah, probably. And that I would have the receipt that I applied for it and that's all I really need. I thought "Okay... it's your country." Basically I guess they just wanted some kind of record of me, and more importantly, 125 euros. Not quite the way I'd been expecting it to go down, but I'm not complaining. I guess it's one of the perks of being an American.
I took the train to get to the police station, which was fun. It was fast and smooth (but I was only on it for about 10 minutes). Now I just need to take a ferry and I will have used all the public transportation options in Helsinki (taxi, bus, tram, train, and metro). It's practically like I'm a native!
I just rearranged the furniture in my room (aka, moved the twin bed to the other wall), and now I'm about to put up the pictures from the nature magazines I got yesterday. I don't have any scissors though, so we're going to go with the "torn edge" effect. I'm supposed to make something for the "party" tonight, but I don't know what to make, and it's so hard to buy things here, and I don't really have much cooking equipment, whine, whine, whine. But I should probably get on that.
crackers and cheese!! (keksejä ja juustoa, maybe?)
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Your description of Immigration Services reminds me of my trip to the Guatemalan embassy in DC. I was trying to help a guy I used to work with get his visa renewed. We went through the front door into a room with a 12 foot ceiling full of beautiful furniture, stained glass, dark wood trim, soft lamp lighting, etc., and the elegantly-dressed receptionist told us that passports were done in the back of the building. So we went through the alley around back, where cement steps led down from the parking lot to this little basement room with a dirty linoleum floor, fluorescent lights, and not enough folding chairs for the hundred or so Guatemalans who needed visas. It was quite an experience.
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