Alien Bureaucracy, Part #3

So, on day two of this adventure we spent the morning checking through files for additional paperwork and then rushing round town on errands.

First stop, the bank for a statement. Nicosia wanted evidence that we had funds here and apparently the information we provided last year would no longer do. The first time we were asked for bank statements we provided photocopied, well, bank statements only to be told they weren’t acceptable. After a fairly tortuous conversation we discovered that when officials ask for a bank statement what they actually mean is a statement from the bank. Bank statement … statement from bank … really, you have to wonder how we could be so stupid as to confuse the two ;-)

Just so you know a statement from the bank is actually a letter detailing the balance of all accounts held at the close of business on the day in question. Over the last year we’ve had to ask for about a dozen or so, each time queueing at the bak counter to request the statement and then being redirected behind the counter, to the staff-only side, to an available admin person who types up the statement. During the 10 or 15 minutes it takes to produce we get a great chance to peak at the behind the scenes operation … the cash drawers stuffed with thousands or tens of thousands of pounds … the individual staff safes, each with the key in the lock so it doesn’t get misplaced and so on. Safe to say that banking Cypriot style is a little different from UK retail banking!

Once we had our latest bank statement sorry, statement from the bank we set off for the insurance company to renew our medical insurance. The Nicosia folks spotted that it was about to expire so asked for evidence that we were still covered. We believe that our medical insurance is so comprehensive that it would just about cover us for a broken leg, maybe two but not much beyond that. It is cheap, but essentially useless, but Nicosia insist that we must have it. We seriously considered a more extensive, and expensive, policy but were told that it would not be acceptable.

Why? Well, only the cheap and pointless policy includes Repatriation of Mortal Remains as one of the benefits. Cyprus is running out of cemetery space and there are no cremation facilities on the island. Should we come to any harm the government would rather like our bodies to be returned the UK so they can find space for us. Shipping dead bodies is rather expensive so to make sure it happens we need the useless policy to ensure we have cover.

So, with evidence of our insurance and with a nice letter from the bank and a bunch of other stuff we jumped in the car and headed back to Nicosia. Only 45 minutes this time as we knew exactly where to go – passed the Spanish Embassy, hang a left at the Circus Performers …

… only to find that it was closed. It seemed we had missed the essential notice (in 10 point font) stating that they didn’t actually open for that sole afternoon in July and August. Somehow the 45 minute drive back home seemed to take longer.

Day 3 of this saga dawned bright and sunny (no surprise there then) but sadly we were a little less sunny being weary of the drive to Nicosia and yet more obstacles and delays. However we set out determined to give it our best shot.

Up the motorway, passed the Spanish embassy, left at the Circus Performers and into the office by 9:05am only to find 35 people already there. Do they wait outside for opening hours?? Left hand queue, right next to the 10 point font “no afternoons in July & August” sign and a patient forty minutes to get to the front of the queue. The same woman from Day 1 took our paperwork, told us to take a seat and then disappeared into the back office.

Just two hours later we were summoned back to the counter to answer a minor query and then half an hour after that we were able to sign for our yellow (used to be pink) slips. Success at last.

Now, where did we put the car file?

Link to Alien Bureaucracy, Part #1
Link to Alien Bureaucracy, Part #2

Alien Bureaucracy, Part #2

Our first stop in Nicosia was the Aliens Immigration office. We found the place with no trouble and headed inside. There we were met with a waiting room packed to the hilt with people. As we looked around for a reception desk or similar we were struck by two things. Firstly we were the only Caucasian faces in the room. There were people from the Algeria and Morocco and the Indian sub-continent but not a soul from Northern Europe. Considering just the number of British on the island that seemed slightly odd. The second oddity was a large handwritten notice stating this the office dealt only with Asylum Seekers, Refugees and Housemaids. Yes, housemaids. If you have a half-decent explanation for that one please share!

A little searching found a second, smaller, handwritten notice stating that all other folks needed to go to a different address; #11 Something Street in Nicosia. We made a note of the address, and headed back to the car and our local street map. Having found the address we headed off across Nicosia on leg 2 of our adventure.

Eastbound across Nicosia … avoiding the roundabout exit which would take us into the UN buffer zone and get us arrested … round the industrial area … quick wave at Customs House who hold the file on the car … through a small shopping street and into a residential area.

The street in question was also residential, surely a strange place for an Immigration office? Medium sized detached houses, children’s toys in the gardens, granny watching over the garden fence, empty plot where #11 should be. Just to be sure we drove up and down the street three times. Granny was both intrigued and baffled but there was no question that #11 didn’t have a government office and probably hadn’t had for ten years or more, if ever.

With few other options we headed back to the original building to see if there was anyone who could throw light on things. The old tried and tested method of wandering into random offices and asking for help worked wonders. A lovely young lady chuckled at our confusion and explained that we didn’t need the “Immigration Office, you need the Migration Office as you are from Europe!“. A quick mark on our map and we were on our way again, searching for the Ministry of Interior.

After three circuits of the embassy district we found the place. For reference, should you ever need to know, the Migration Office for Europeans is just to the right of the Aliens Immigration office for Circus Performers (Note: we really, really have to start carrying a camera. Even after a year hear we are still amazed at some of the things we seed). We headed inside and picked a queue to join. In an office 20 foot square there were four; one running from front left to back left, one from front right to back right, one from left to right and one from right to left. It’s possible that you can see the downsides of such a set-up, even without knowing that there were almost forty people in the four queues and another half dozed seated at the back of the room.

After 15 minutes of queuing we got to the front. Having explained our problem – pink slips are lovely but we’d really, really like yellow ones please - the women pulled up our details. “Sorry, they are not ready. But, if you will wait I will see what I can do” said she and disappeared into a back office with our details. An hour later she reappeared with a list of additional documentation they wanted to see so we headed back home for another round of paper chasing and the like with the plan to return the following afternoon, the only day of the week when they open for an afternoon session.

Link to Alien Bureaucracy, Part #1
Link to Alien Bureaucracy, Part #3

Alien Bureaucracy, Part #1

Us aliens are in danger of being worn out by the Cypriot bureaucracy.

When we arrived last year we were required to register as aliens, technically “unnaturalized foreign resident of a country“. The process requires the production of information and documents and payment of a fee in return for a temporary resident’s permit, known locally as a ‘pink slip’. The pink slip is valid until the government decline your resident’s application and deport you from the island, or agree that you can stay for the next five years or so. At that stage the pink slip gets replaced with a permanent resident permit aka the ‘yellow slip’.

The colour references add interest to the process, as apparently just before we arrived they swapped over the colour of the temp and the perm documents. Occasionally we still hear conversations along the lines of “my pink slip, the temporary one, the one that used to be yellow. I’m still waiting for my yellow slip, you know, the one that used to be …“. Confused yet? Welcome to government bureaucracy at its best.

Last September we got our pink (used to be yellow) temporary residence permits. As yet there’s been no sign of the yellow slip, but then it’s not been a year yet so maybe we’re being impatient, and possibly English. That wouldn’t be a problem but for the small matter of the car.

The abridged version, to date, is that we bought a new Honda CRV just before we left England and drove it here to Cyprus. Because we were removing it from the UK immediately we got the car at a duty free price, but knew that we’d have to pay duty or VAT or both when we arrived here. We arrived, by ferry, one a Friday afternoon about an hour before the official knocking-off time. About 1pm in case you want to feel depressed about your working day! The officials looked at our paperwork and decided that they didn’t really understand our strange logbook (different issue for duty-free cars) or the fact that our new car had a little over 2,000 miles on the clock.

So, they debated how to handle our unusual case and decided it wasn’t practical in the time available before going-home time. Instead they impounded the car. The following week we were able to, for a fee or two, rescue the car and transfer it to a bonded warehouse in Larnaca where it stayed until we were issued with a temporary import licence. The licence was renewable, for a period up to six months, while they considered our case and we were issued with our permanent resident’s permits, those pesky yellow slips.

So herein lies the problem. Until we get our yellow slips we have a problem with the car. The car people are getting increasingly reluctant to extend our temporary import licence. In fact they went as far as threatening to impound the car and prosecute us for non-compliance with, well, something bureaucratic. Apparently that was an error caused by one part of the car department not knowing that the other part existed or something similar. They phoned to apologise for the error but we are starting to feel that the noose is tightening and if can’t hurry along the yellow slip we really may have a problem with the car.

So, in desperation we headed to Nicosia last week to talk to the Aliens Immigration people to see if there was any way to hurry this along.

If you haven’t yet had an overload of bureaucracy this week then make yourself a cup of coffee and come straight back ;-)

Link to Alien Bureaucracy, Part #2
Link to Alien Bureaucracy, Part #3

Air-raid sirens

Today is 33rd anniversary of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. Although we knew the anniversary was around this time, the exact date (or even today’s date for that matter) wasn’t firm in our minds.

Around this time last year we had dinner with some friends from England who were over on holiday. As we picked them up from their hotel and drove to the restaurant there was general small-talk about how they were enjoying the holiday and the island. Apparently everything was good, but they’d been woken that early that morning by air-raid sirens and had no idea what was going on.

As well as being near terrified, until the hotel reassured them that this was an annual event to mark the anniversary of the invasion, they also commented just how loud the sirens were. For whatever reason we hadn’t heard the sirens that morning and since it was our first July on the island hadn’t heard them in previous years.

This morning, just after 5.30am we remembered that conversation. For the record the Arradippou sirens are LOUD, particularly at that time in the morning. Must put a note in the diary to wear ear-plugs this time next year!

In the meantime this morning’s wake-up call was an interesting reminder of the island’s politics and history. The link in the top paragraph is to a Wikipedia article on the subject. Even that is considered contentious but does give a broad overview of the history for those who are interested to know more.

House guests …

… mean no time for blogging. Back soon hopefully.

Technology can be brill!

One of the things that we’ve been missing, just a little, is access to some TV. To be honest, the list of UK stuff that we wish we could watch is fairly short, but then back in London we only watched a couple of hours a week anyway.

That said we have been long-time Formula 1 fans, with our level of interest waxing and waning depending on how interesting the current season was. We’ve been to Silverstone a couple of times, including the year that Michael Schumaker crashed out of the race, and the season breaking his leg. For the last few years then the interest has been low as the F1 world was, well, less than fascinating. Last year as the season started we were well into the planning Op Keo and the move and, even though we could, we didn’t see a single race.

This year though we’ve been tantilised by reports of new blood and a revitalised competition. Tantilising because we don’t have a TV. Actually, that’s not true. We brought our lone TV with us from England and it’s happily sitting on a TV stand in the living room. It’s just that it’s not attached to anything useful, like an aerial. Since we’re renting there’s little point buying a satellite dish and signing up for a package and if we went with a regular roof-top aerial then we’d only get Greek channels which would be of limited use to us. So, we have a TV that get’s plugged in about once a week so that we can watch something on DVD. Our behaviour is considered to be a little odd, even amongst the ex-pats. But then sometimes the feeling is mutual; we know of someone who turned down the perfect house because there wasn’t enough room to install his 4.2 metre (13.8 foot) satellite dish, really!

Anyway, we pretty much have no TV and most of the time that isn’t a problem … but for that pesky F1. We talked about heading down to the beach-front to one of the sports bars to watch the races there, but couldn’t quite bring ourselves to do it.

Today is race #8 of the season, the French Grand Prix at Magny-Cours. This morning Ian started muttering to himself about available technology and then did some research on TV and radio schedules for the day. For the record we have a fair number of radios, a couple of computers (both Apple Macs) and a halfway decent broadband connection.

So, right now one of the computers is picking up a feed from the Cypriot TV channel. Since the commentary is in Greek we have the volume turned off. Instead, on the radio we have Radio 5 Live – via BFBS – who are providing full commentary for the race. Just to fill in any gaps BBC Sport have a handy lap-by-lap summary which we’re picking up on the other computer. The TV feed is delayed by around 60 seconds which makes for an interesting listening comparison with the radio commentary.

It’s clunky, it’s quirky, it’s far from ideal but it works! For the first time this year we are able to watch the race live :-)