Signed, sealed and ???

The advice given on a faculty website here for overseas students and professors is that you have to approach official business in Slovenia with a sense of humour and patience. It´s realistic advice. Here we are, nearly four weeks into our move, and the only person whose registration is complete and underway is me. The children, as EU citizens, should be easy - but they were born in the US, and the administrative office wouldn´t accept their birth certificates without an apostille. So we´ve had to send them (the certificates, not the children) back to the States for the appropriate stamp. This means no official ID number (EMŠO) that you need to do things like buy a car, no health insurance cards, and no kindergarten (nursery) place for the younger one.

Husband? Well, the US postal service helped by losing his work permit. Eventually it got forwarded to his brother´s home, torn and covered in grease (we´re guessing it slipped down inside the sorting machine). Thankfully, a scan was enough to get him officially employed, and the man in the administrative office almost caved in and accepted that... but then it turned out that his permit wasn´t ˝in the system˝ yet. I´m getting used to that particular shake of the head and slightly repressed smile that means something like, ˝Sorry, come back and enjoy queuing another day.˝

I´ve decided this is why coffee and wine are so cheap here, because all you can do is shrug and go for a drink. And trust me, it´s not always much simpler for Slovene citizens, either. Every administrative office has its own rules and attitudes towards them. (The last time we were here? No apostille - no problem!) Slovenes particularly like official stamps, hence the apostille issue. In recent years, the government has been trying to simplify matters and require fewer stamps. Apparently it´s hard to wean people off the habit - there is now a stamp for documents to state that you are not using a stamp.

Really.