Now that we have been residing in Switzerland for over a year, I have fewer ridiculous Swiss encounters to blog about. I still abhor the recycling program here, but I now have a "system" in place to get all my fermenting bottles and jars in the appropriate recycling areas. I still want to bitch slap the rude people who stare at my children like they should be locked up in my cellar rather than accompany me to the grocery store. But I've learned to live with these little "speedbumps" in my daily life and don't let them take away from all the fabulous parts of living in the middle of Europe. But earlier this month, I dreamed about setting fire to a Swiss government building while in the process of renewing our residency permits and figured, surely, this must be an occasion to blog.
It all started several months ago, when I was leafing through my mail. In the States, I would check the mail box every afternoon and casually sort through the mail, enjoying the 18 daily catalogs we received. Here, our mail can sit in our box for up to a week because I avoid it at all costs. Sorting through the mail here means having to sit in front of Google-Translate to find out what kind of intimidating notices we received written completely in German. Without fail, there is always at least one piece of mail per week that requires us to fill out a form, go to the bank, or avoid our landlord. On this particular day, there was indeed a letter from some government office in Zurich that apparently was reminding us that we need to renew our residency permits at the local Gemeinde House. The Gemeinde House is kind of the like the town hall, but full of people who want to make you miserable.
Bryan nagged me for weeks about finding time for us all to go into the Gemeinde House and renew our permits. And because I am an abiding wife, I ignored him until our permits were expired and Bryan had to leave the country on business. Apparently this whole residency permit is kind of important, because if we don't have it when we travel outside of Switzerland, they won't let us back in. This actually didn't sound like such a bad thing after a few days of dealing with our permit renewal debacle.
Because I was such a slacker, Bryan decided he would go in and take care of his permit so he wouldn't lose his job due to inability to travel. He filled out the paperwork, grabbed his passport, and headed into the Gemeinde house to make the 100 franc transaction that would allow him to leave and reenter the beautiful country of Switzerland. He returned later announcing that his new permit was in the mail and that the whole process was, as my kids would say, "Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy". Hmmm.... hard to believe anything related to the Gemeinde house could be that cut and dry. But sucker that I am, I figured I could handle it with the kids, and scheduled an hour after school to put this task behind me.
I picked the kids up on a Wednesday afternoon and headed to the Gemeinde house. I reviewed my list of items I would need to have with me to make this a flawless and simple procedure. Paperwork that my loving husband ASSURED me was filled out correctly? CHECK. All 4 passports? CHECK. Expired residency permits? CHECK. Several hundred francs in cash to pay the lovely lady at the Gemeinde house? CHECK. Three rambunctious American kids with lots of pent up energy? CHECK.
What could possibly go wrong?
I parked the car at the Gemeinde house and my 3 kids and I traipsed through the office where a stone face woman appeared to be waiting for her next victims. I sat down in one of the 2 chairs in front of her desk and my 3 trusty sidekicks all sprinted to the only other empty chair available. They then proceeded to have an all out smackdown in an attempt to claim they were there first. So before I even have the chance to kill this lady with kindness, I have to physically separate my little angels so they don't kill each other under the watchful eyes of some very stern looking government workers. All the while I'm whisper screaming at them while trying to keep a pleasant look on my face.
When the wrestling match was resolved, I smiled at the emotionless woman and let her know I was here to renew our permits. This is when she asked me for the kids updated passport photos to put on their new permits. Crap. I cursed my loving husband and dragged the kids back to the car to find someplace to have their photos taken.
I vaguely remembered a photo booth outside the train station in town and thought it would be a quick fix to my problem. I'd be staring at the unfriendly face at the Gemeinde house in no time. After all, the name on the photo booth read, "PRONTO PHOTO". And I'm no dummy, pronto is definately German for fast.
I parked the car, high tailed it over to the photo booth, and begin reading the instructions. You'd think after more than a year here, I'd expect everything to be written in German, but apparently I'm a slow learner. Pronto, my ass. This was going to take awhile.
My first dilemma was inserting the money into the machine. At 8 francs a pop, you'd think they'd give me the option to insert my 100 franc bill (that I'm carrying to pay the evil woman who has sent me on this task), but no, coins only. So I drag the kids to the Kiosk around the corner and use my 100 franc bill to buy a single lollipop thereby receiving change to use in the machine. The 3 kids who have been following me around during this little adventure begin to get excited at the site of a store filled with junk food. Fortunately, they are smart enough to realize the look on mommy's face meant there wasn't a chance in hell they were getting any.
C was the first to be photographed. I lovingly guided him into the booth and attempted to decipher the directions. Inside there were LOTS of pictures showing examples of what you should and shouldn't do when having a passport photo taken. The one that was the most intimidating showed pictures of people smiling just slightly with a big red X through it. Apparently when trying to become a Swiss resident, you need need to look the part. NO smiling. So after 6 years of teaching my kids to smile when they are having their picture taken, I explained that they had to look miserable in this one. I anticipated one of the little smart alecs replying with, "Kind of like you look right now, Mommy?" But again, they're smarter than they look and kept their mouths shut.
Inside the photo booth there is a stool that you can spin to raise and lower it. I raised it as high as it would go and plopped C down on it. Once seated, you were supposed to line your face up with an oval on the screen in front of you, so that your face would be positioned just so for the official picture. C is a pretty tall 6 year old, but even on the highest setting, his cute little face wasn't positioned quite right. So after much adjusting, he managed to kneel on the stool, line up his mug, and look miserable. We previewed the picture, printed it out and voila! One terrible picture of C.....
Z was next and proved to be a bit more challenging. I lowered the stool a bit, set him on top of it, and told him to squat. "Higher....higher.....looooooower........lower....little bit lower.....STOP!" I instructed as his contorted little body teetered on the little stool. He managed to get his face in the oval and I quickly hit the button to click the photo and closed the curtain until I could see the bright flash of the picture being taken. When I previewed the picture, half Z's face was missing and only his eyes and hair were peeking out from the bottom of the frame. DELETE. The next try resulted in Z tipping over and I when I opened the curtain he was wedged against the corner of the booth. The picture captured him mid tip, but to his credit, he did have the whole "look miserable" thing down. Again, I hit the DELETE button. Clearly he wasn't going to be able to keep his head in the oval without a little help. So on the third attempt he scrunched himself up on the stool, and we got his face in the oval with the help of me supporting him and keeping him in place. I hit the button to snap the picture and kept the curtain open in order to hold his teetering little body in place. We eagerly waited to preview the picture and finally saw a picture with his miserable little face placed exactly in the middle of the frame, but half his face was overexposed because I didn't shut the curtain. I looked on the list of "don't"s listed on the booth, and sure enough, overexposed pictures were a no-no. DELETE. Hmmm......DELETE. For some reason the delete button didn't seem to be working this time. After attempting to hit the delete button about 43 more times, I heard the sound of the 8 franc picture being printed off. Noooooooooooo!!!!!!!! Apparently I missed the instructions that would have informed me in German that you only get 3 attempts at a good picture. Fabulous. But when I looked at the finished product, it looked a little less overexposed in the actual picture and I decided to take my chances. So I let Z out of his photo cage and summoned my next subject.
At this point, E is looking a little disheveled after playing a heated game of, "Try and catch me!" with C. While working on Z's photo shoot, I had intermittently had to scream over my shoulder, "Knock it off!" as they ran in circles and shrieked under the disapproving eyes of passers by. Knock it off? Seriously, when did I become my mother.....
Anyway, I perched a sweaty E on the stool and began the process of getting a picture of her looking miserable. The whole idea of being perched on anything more than 3 inches off the ground seemed to terrify E. She gripped me arm with one hand and held onto the side of the photo booth with her other hand. After finally positioning her so her head was in the oval, I had to coerce her into letting go of the side of the booth so her arm wouldn't be sticking up in the photo. After much whimpering and fussing, she finally let go and I pushed the picture button and shut the curtain while keeping my arm in her death grip. And as I expected, her face was nowhere near the center of the oval when the picture was taken. DELETE. Now we're down to 2 chances and I'm starting to stress.
I hollered at the boys who were taking full advantage of the fact that I was completely ignoring them. They were pushing all the buttons on the vending machines and appeared to be deciding how they could retrieve their preferred items without paying for them. I could just imagine hearing the crash of the vending machine tipping over as I sat with my head stuck behind the curtain of the photo machine.
I decided to change my approach in trying to balance E on the stool. This time I climbed into the photo booth with her, crammed myself between the stool and the wall, and held her somewhat in place, all the while crouching so I wouldn't be in the picture. God only knows what people were thinking when they saw the spectacle that was us. As I was getting ready to press the picture button, I kept drilling my poor 3 year old, "IS YOUR FACE STILL IN THE OVAL?
IS IT? HUH? MAKE SURE IT'S IN THE OVAL!" She's 3. She might not even know what an oval is. But I was a little crazed at this point and wondering what my little 5 and 6 year vandals were doing unsupervised outside the booth. She whimpered as I hit the button and I'm sure she just wanted to get out of the booth and away from the scary lady she calls mama. The result of her photo shoot is probably the funniest picture I've ever seen of any of my kids. To fully appreciate the ridiculousness of the photo, a before and after picture is needed.....
Yes, she looks like she is usually locked up in our cellar and doesn't quite know what to make of being released out into the general population. I swear we've never battered her, but based on this picture, that's a really hard case to argue. And although I'm not going to share MY residency permit picture, I definately look like her unfit mother in mine. You know those mothers you see at Walmart who are screaming at their kids and spanking them in public? That's what my picture looks like. A friend of mine believes the picture resembles the mug shots you see on the news of the mothers who leave their kids locked in the car while they go gambling away their grocery money at the local casino. And I can't say I disagree.
Now that I had all my updated photos, we drove back to the Gemeinde House and again traipsed through the office to the same robot woman who had "helped" us before. I instructed the boys to sit in some seats on the other side of the room and brought E to sit across the desk with me. I handed the lovely woman our photos, our expired residency permits and our paperwork and waited in anticipation for her to tell me we were all set. This is when E decides she's had enough and wants to leave. She expresses this decision by melting into a complete tantrum. One of those 3 year old tantrums that isn't going to go away, regardless of what you do. So as I attempt to ignore the wailing mess that is my daughter, this lady starts informing me that the paperwork is incomplete and needs to be signed by my husband's work with a copy of his employment contract. I smile and tell her that my wonderful husband was just in last week with the same paperwork, and a nice gentlemen accepted his paperwork, took his 100 francs, and told him his permit would be in the mail. She glares at me, asks for his name, looks him up, and tells me he has not renewed his permit. While restraining my screaming 3 year old, I assure her that he did. She then tells me that it would be in the system, and no, he hasn't. At this point I was tempted to join E in her meltdown, but instead told her I would return with my husband, grabbed my paperwork and ridiculously miserable and overpriced photos with one hand, grabbed E by the wrist with the other hand, and dragged her kicking and screaming out of the office with boys in tow. We were quite a site and I must confess I was not speaking in a loving tone to my daughter at this point. I proceeded to get in the car, call Bryan, and very irrationally tear his head off. Thank God he took that "for better or worse" part of our vows seriously.
Without further boring you with my tirade, it took 2 more family outtings to the Gemeinde house, with Bryan, to complete the process of renewing our permits. And both times, the same lady at the Gemeinde house, waited on us and made it clear that she remembered us from our previous visits. The other two times, I think even E was embarrassed to have to show her face again. She was a complete angel, and by the time everything was sorted out, the Gemeinde House lady almost cracked a smile. Almost.
So now we're officially residents of Switzerland for another year and I hope to avoid having to step foot in the Gemeinde House again until we are notifying them that we are leaving the country. Sometimes I question whether these day to day frustrations are worth it. But when the whole family is staring at the Leaning Tower of Pisa, or skiing in the Alps, or marveling at a site we never thought we'd see, the irritating, inconvenient crap seems much less irritating and inconvenient. And as for the Pronto Photo booth? Well, we're all a little scarred from our experience. I'm not sure what you call an irrational fear of photo booths, but based on the way we all visibly shudder when we catch sight of one, we've discovered a new phobia for the books.
