Becoming Official

As Hubby quickly found out, you can’t get very far setting up a life here without a PPS number, which is like the Irish version of your Social Security Number.  We also had 90 days to register with the Gardaí to become legal residents before our passport stamp ran out.  We planned to take care of both of these things my first week here, which was Hubby’s last week before he had to report to the office.

Off to the Gardaí station we went!  Hubby had already taken care of his PPS number and was able to get the utilities in his name (our wonderful landlord left them in her name until we could get it all set up, so we still had power and water while he figured everything out) and had a bank account set up, so there wasn’t as much of a rush for my PPS number.   We had also heard that the line at the Gardaí station was crazy in the morning and thought we might have better luck in the afternoon.  We were super happy when we showed up and there was no line out the door!  We were able to walk right up to the ticket counter and ask for our number.  Then we found out why there was no line for tickets: they only give out a limited number of tickets a day and they had reached that limit at 9am!  They don’t open until 8am.  Crap, this was going to be much harder than we thought.

Change of plans, we headed over to the PPS office, where the lady didn’t want to give me my card because I didn’t have anything showing my residency, it was all in Hubby’s name.  Hubby was able to get his earlier because he had his name on the lease, but mine wasn't on there because we didn’t want to pay for both of us to fly out ahead of time just to sign it, and he had a letter from work saying he just started there and this was his address.  We showed her all that but she wanted a utility bill or something in my name, which you can’t get until after you have your PPS number.  Finally, after talking to a manager and reviewing our wedding certificate, she finally relented and made sure she knew she was doing me a big favor by letting me get by saying I was living with my husband, as if that is so unusual.  On the up side, this one was really pretty fast and the super bright lighting gave me an airbrushed look on the card and is best government issued photo ever!  (looks better in person, had to take at an angle to avoid glare)

One card done, one to go.

Hubby did some more digging on the internet and found out that most people stated lining up at the Gardaí station before the doors opened.  We tried to pick the slowest day to go, but found out that everyone posting about it had a different opinion on which day was slowest, so no help there.  We also found out that September is the worst time to go because all the students are there trying to get their student visas, but we didn’t want Hubby to have to take another day off work, so we went anyway.   This station is not near our apartment, so we got up as early as we could muster and a cab picked us up at 6am.  When we got there at 6:45, there was already a line, so I joined the end of the line while Hubby paid for the cab.  Hubby walked up to me laughing, apparently I had joined the front of the line and no one was saying anything, so we started walking to find the end of the line.  And we walked and walked and walked until we went all the way around the block and back to the front side of the building, where the end of the line was only about 30 feet from the beginning of the line, we hadn’t thought to look that direction because who could imagine the line being that long over an hour before they even opened!  And it was chilly and drizzling.  And my tummy was starting to gurgle, and not just from hunger :(  I broke out my DigestZen oil, zipped my jacket up as far as it would go, and broke out my Kindle to help pass the time. 

By 8:30am we still weren’t even on the front side of the block yet, and were getting worried we wouldn’t make it in.  And even worse, we had heard some people would get tickets, wait there all day, and still not get served before they closed for the day.  We peeked through the window and saw someone inside had number 300, yikes, this was going to be a long day.  We finally got in and did get a ticket, and were shocked to see it was number 78!  Apparently there are two lines, one for residency and once just for visas, and since we were applying for residency we got the short line!!!  Don’t get me wrong, “short” was relative, we still didn’t get out of there until almost noon, but that was far better than the worst case scenarios we were thinking up.  All in all it wouldn’t have been so bad if they had used our passport photos like the website instructed.  Instead I have an I-rolled-out-at-6am-with-no-makeup-and-waited-in-the-rain photo.  And it is only good for a year when we were expecting it to be good for 2 years, but at least now I have less time to have to flash this horrible photo!