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It Wasn't a Train After All
After the last post's whinge about bureaucracy and it's attendant crappiness, my dad sent me this interesting email about "red tape" (he should really post this kind of stuff to his own blog!):
After the civil war the thousands of veterans and/or veteran's survivors began flooding Washington DC with requests for the post war benefits they had been promised. The country was pretty much broke after the war (sound familiar Georgie W?) and the government was not anxious to hand out lots of money they did not have. So, they made a set of rules (sound familiar AJ?) in hopes of discouraging all but the most persistent. It seems in order to receive what you were promised you had to show up, with the required paper work, in DC, at the veterans office to receive your entitlement. Each day the Government officials would appear with a packet of papers for the few successful candidates and call out the names of the winners. Each bundle was tied together with a piece of red ribbon.
Of course that was the procedure for the masses. People of position and/or wealth could write the appropriate government official (often grease the wheel with appropriate fees) and their entitlements would be processed and mailed to them. Hence "cutting through the red tape."
Ha! Australian government. Again I say ha! to you. Your sneaky plan to discourage me did not work! No, in fact, it just made me so stubborn that you finally caved to my superior will yesterday and gave me a nice big fat permanent residency visa, which is now smugly nestled within the pages of my passport. Nyyyyah.
The day went a little something like this:
After I got up that morning I did little fussy things like check my email and write postcards to people. The Australian Consulate-General only opens from 9am - 12:30 pm and then from 1:30pm - 3:30pm (and I thought banker's hours were cushy) so I decided to head over there for the afternoon right around 1:30. I went to the common room in the hostel to veg out to some TV and keep myself from being too nervous. Lo and behold, what was on but a Mariner's game! Even though there weren't too many players left on the team that I really loved, I got to see Edgar Martinez hit a home run, so it kept me entertained for a while. My parents called me up and I chatted with them for the few remaining minutes until I needed to leave for the consulate.
When I got there, I thought maybe choosing the afternoon might have been a mistake, because the place was pretty packed. I took a number and it was about 12 away from the current number being called. Great, a nice long wait, and I didn't even have a book to read. I went through a progression of nervousness as follows: staring blankly at the wall; doodling chess pieces on a scrap of paper; bouncing my heels on the ground; fanning myself with a scrap of paper while trying not to hyperventilate; tapping my pen on my arm with annoying rapidity; staring blankly at the wall.
My psychosis in a bubble was burst by a noticeably American voice at the window. The woman whose number had been called sounded like she had applied for permanent residency as well. She had a possibly Australian-sounding man with her, who was carrying a small baby. She wanted to see if her visa results had arrived yet, the same as me. Apparently they hadn't, because a long series of complaints followed about plying DIMIA with many emails and phone calls, and at some point they had lost her passport (um, why would she give them her passport??) and so on. Hearing this, my heart sank. My stomach sank. Everything sank. If this woman indeed was also trying to get permanent residency and she had a kid with some Australian guy, and she was having that many problems, it didn't bode very well for me. I started sweating bullets. 5 more numbers to go before mine was called.
I'll spare you further gory details of waiting. Needless to say my number finally got called. "I'm checking to see if my application results for permanent residency are available," I said, or rather tried to say. Imagine maybe a deranged person with an extremely low IQ and a stutter saying that. Fortunately the nice man behind the window somehow understood me, and looked at my passport and started tapping at his computer. He tapped with agonizing silence and slowness. Tap. Tap. Tap. I leaned against the counter in suspense, ready to vomit. A little bit of paper was spit out of the printer and he pulled it out and adhered it to a page in my passport, explaining some dates and pointing to certain pieces of information that I couldn't process.
"So that means I got it?" I asked incredulously. "Yes," he said.
"Thank you!" I said, the air gushing out of me like a deflating balloon, "That is such a relief!
And if there hadn't been a window in the way I would have hugged him (fortunately for him). And then my brain exploded, just like when I finished my last final exam for my senior year in college. The End. { link me }Things to do in Auckland When You're Applying for Permanent Residency in Australia
OK, so I'm really pushing it with that pun (although applying for permanent residency was a bit like being in Purgatory). Anyway, after all the boring visa application process posts and junk, I decided to write about the other things I've been up to while I'm here in New Zealand.
Since Saturday and Sunday were days that the consulate wasn't open anyway, I decided to go do fun touristy things. Friday had been rainy and windy, but by Saturday the rain had dried up and there were moments of sun between the clouds. I got on a bus in the afternoon and went to the Auckland Zoo, mostly curious to see what they had in the way of animals indigenous to New Zealand. Even though they had more in the way of African animals, they had a nice sized aviary with native birds, where I got some good photos of them from close up. Of course there's also a separate exibit with kiwis on display, and even though they're shy little guys, I got to watch them for a while. I walked through the zoo for a little over an hour, enjoying the fresh air and the weather that was more temperate than what's currently in Sydney. It was a nice break from then tension on Friday, and I always like being around animals. It was fun to be there so late as well, since there weren't many people there and I got to watch a lot of the animals being fed.
Sunday morning I headed out earlier in the day and took a ferry across the bay to Devonport. I didn't really know what I was going to do there, I just wanted to go see what was around. I started walking eastward and my intuition was rewarded by the sight of a big hill which turned out to be an extinct volcano. I climbed to the top and found that it was an historical park. Apparently the Maori had originally used it as a military post, and then much later in WWII, bunkers and artillery were put there to defend New Zealand against the Japanese. Today it is a tall grassy mound covered with trees and the crumbling remnants of the WWII bunkers and a few middens left by the Maori.
From the top you can see in nearly every direction-- the skyline of Auckland, the suburbs on the north shore, and the islands off the coast. It was a beautiful warm day, and the sun was sparkling on the water. With a cool breeze tickling the trees and the scent of the grass that had just been mown, it was a soothing and uplifting experience to be there. I sat down in a warm place on the grass and thought that if I wasn't going to be in church, this was the next best place to be.
Monday afternoon, after I was visa-fied, I took the bus to the Auckland Domain. I got there a bit late to see the Auckland Museum, which had been my main goal, but had a nice walk anyway, enjoying the crisp air and continued sunshine while winding my way through the gardens. It's definitely a place I'd like to spend more time.
On my list to do for my remaining time here is to visit another extinct volcano, Rangitoto Island. And, if I can find out more about it, Waikato is supposed to have one of the filming locations for Lord of the Rings, where the set for Hobbiton was built. If I can get there and back in a day, I have to go, just for funsies.
{ link me }