What is a functioning system? I don't know what that is. (Written January 20th, 2022)
(This painting perfectly depicts everyones emotion at a government office)
Alight people, here is some advice for anyone thinking about moving to Greece for any amount of time. BRACE YOURSELF FOR INSANITY. The bureaucracy in this country is a real treat. It's all fun and games to joke about when you are not having to deal with it. “Welcome to Greece.” This is the saying you will here when you attempt to do anything and get no where. You will hear this every time you call a phone number that was given to you to use and it's out of service. Or when you call an office that you know handles what you need to get done and they tell you they can’t help you and direct you a different way that is also a dead end.
This is the loop is was in for 3 days when trying to get an appointment for my residence permit. Something I need to have in order to stay for the full year. You know the system is truly broken when you have to write a “help me” post in the Foreigners living in Athens Facebook page to get some answers by lovely strangers who feel your pain.
How Do People Do This?
I also don't know how anyone does this solo….Thank god I have his family to make the phone calls for me and go with me to offices to explain my situation. If I call someone and start talking in English they just hang up on me. Don't want to deal with a foreigner at all. If you don't know the language I would say you are pretty much screwed when it comes to dealing with the system. A word of advice if you are coming here. Get yourself a Greek connection. Any friend willing to be your communicator or else it's going to be quite the journey for you. Better yet get your self an immigration lawyer and make them deal with the insanity.
First two weeks here and I am learning fast that I have to take off my Canadian hat, the one I wear knowing when I call a number I will get answers and when I fill out a form it will get dealt with, and put on my greek hat. The one where you send an email to a random address on a website that looks like it was created in the 80’s and hope to god you get a response in a week. It’s the hunger games out here people….May the odds ever be in your favour.
Third Times The Charm?….Probably Not
The Greek system does not want you here. Let’s make that clear right now. Sure they want you in Santorini spending 12 euros on a cocktail and taking your selfies for a week, but when it comes to staying longer than that. Forget it. After multiple dead end phone calls and unanswered emails I finally got an appointment at the migration office. His sister came with me as a translator and thank GOD she did because no one in the immigration office spoke English…..let me repeat that so it sinks in, no one in the immigrations office speaks English. They wouldn’t even look at me. Just gave his sister a lot of attitude when I handed them the papers and documents they wanted. I had all the required documents with me that they asked for and first off, let me say the lady had no idea what she was doing. She was a little more interested in talking to her friend on the phone then dealing with us. I’m going to put this office encounter in point form or else you will be here reading this for as long as we were there.
Didn’t like that the copy of my passport wasn’t in colour and that the print was too small for her to read….as if I was the one who made my passport and picked the size of the font….
Didn’t like that my health care insurance agreement was in English. So she wanted that translated in Greek. Which is fine but this is not a requirement. This is just her wanting to make this difficult and make me pay more for a document.
You have to have proof of e-fee (which means you payed the government for the residents permit) this is done through an online automated banking system. Showed her the confirmation email but that wasn’t good enough. She wanted a printed hard copy of this email. She told us that we had to go across the street to a store which will print things for a fee. She says this to us as she is leaning against a printer…..wouldn't print it off for us. God forbid. (Can you hear the sass in my voice as I type this? lol)
We get it printed and come back. Next step is passport photos. Its required to bring 4 passport size photos and a digital copy of them. Which I had. But she didn’t like the size of the photo. So we had to go get new photos taken, and when I say they were the same size I swear on my life they were the same size. Maybe 1 cm difference. Now for the digital copy. I hand them a USB stick with the files on them. Nope. Not what they want. They want a CD. Because people clearly still use CDs for things…..
Second day of going to the office with the new translated insurance agreement and she is not there. After telling us to come back tomorrow she decided she wasn’t working because its a Friday and that’s very normal here. If you haven’t heard Friday’s are the new Saturdays. So we give a new gentlemen the documents and he wouldn’t accept them. Said that what she told us we needed was wrong and we need a different letter. He tells us this after asking us “why don’t you just pay 100 euros for a greek insurance document instead of a Canadian one?” Well sir, because I am a Canadian, and I need this coverage to be allowed into your country on this travel visa. To which he stairs at us blankly.
Stay tuned for day three of the immigration office adventure. I’m expecting to have to come back at lest two more times on top of this.
Multiple questions running through my head including; how does anyone from a different country get these papers if they don’t speak Greek? Why is this system so messed up? Why do I even want to be a resident here? After this ordeal the sun, beaches, olives, and views are almost not worth it. Actually I know for a fact they aren’t……Pass me the god damn Ouzo.
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