Some of you may already know that about two months ago,
Crystal was very courteously asked to leave Romania for 90 days by the Romanian
Immigration Authority. It all came about
because we couldn’t seem to get her papers quite right for her residency
request. In particular, it was our
marriage license. We had brought a copy
with us, but when we first applied for her residency card on the day after I
got mine, we were told that a copy wasn’t good enough; that it needed to be the
original. So, with some effort and some
help from our friends in North Carolina, we ordered an original from the
Register of Deeds in Greensboro. Three
weeks later, we received a receipt for the marriage certificate and the birth certificate for some guy in High
Point, NC that I don’t know. Well, this is just perfect. I have spent all this time complaining about Romanian
government agencies and bragging about how it’s done in America. I suppose I should have just kept my mouth
shut.
I spent some time on the phone with the very nice lady in Greensboro
who made the mistake. She was very
apologetic and understanding. We sent
the birth certificate back and she sent us our marriage certificate, only this
time she didn’t put enough postage on it, so it got returned to the Register of
Deeds for more postage. That little goof added more than a week to the shipping
time, so this one arrived about eight weeks after we originally made our
request. The very next day we went with
our lawyer to the immigration office with our huge stack of documents,
including our brand new, shiny, original marriage certificate. They asked where the apostille stamp
was. I asked what an apostille stamp was.
They said it’s the thing that was missing. Oh, and that Crystal had to leave the country
because she had been here too long and her visa had already expired. Damn it.
They began deliberating.
We waited outside. Almost
everyone in the office knew us by now because we had been there so many times. They knew that we had been honestly trying to
get this done. Our lawyer explained the
fiasco with the marriage certificate.
Never the less, we were waiting, and wondering. Were they going to
charge her? Deport her? Would there be handcuffs involved? Needless to say, I
was not in a very good frame of mind. In
the end, they decided on a fine and that she would have thirty days to leave
the country. Once she left, she would be
able to return after ninety days away.
This did not improve my frame of mind.
I paid the fine and left.
I did finally learn what an apostille stamp
was. It’s kind of like a natianal notary
stamp. I also learned that to get one,
it had to come from the country of origin for the document that was being
certified. For us, that meant that an
original marriage license had to get to the Secretary of State office in Raleigh,
NC. With quite a bit more help from our
friends in North Carolina who went way above and beyond, we managed to pull off
a logistical miracle. We got a new marriage certificate printed, delivered to
the Secretary of State, certified by the Apostille Notary, and shipped over
night to Romania. I learned what an
apostille stamp was on Monday at the immigration office. By Friday, I had one.
Unfortunately, as impressive as it was, it was too little
too late. When we appealed the ruling on
that Friday, the folks at the immigration office confirmed that this piece of
paper that we now had was indeed exactly what was required. In order to comply
with the law though, she would have to leave.
They seemed sympathetic and understanding. They even spoke English for us, which they
had never done before. They said that
the fine was the lowest they were allowed to impose under the law. They said that she was not being punished,
that she was not being deported, and that she would be welcomed back, but that
she had to go away for ninety days. Just
like last call. You ain’t gotta go home, but you can’t stay here.
After a lot of deliberation and a lot of thought, we decided
that it would be best for her to fly back to North Carolina and spend the
summer at the beach working at one of the bars or restaurants there. We found a place for her to stay with some
more help from our friends (we really do have amazing friends) and a vehicle
for her to use while she was there. She
left on May 20th.
It was then that I decided to stop cutting my hair and to
stop shaving until I saw her again as a sort of protest. It was a silly thing, maybe, but it was a way
that I could say to people that I am not OK, that I miss my wife, without
actually complaining and crying into my beer.
That’s not really my style. A
friend here asked me what the Romanian government thought of my protest. To be honest, it never even occurred to me to
tell them, but I’m quite certain they wouldn’t care. It was the law, and they did what the law
required them to do. Crystal really
liked the idea because I would end up looking like a homeless guy or a mountain
man, which meant that there was zero chance of me finding a Romanian girlfriend. So I guess it worked on multiple levels.
Next week I ‘m flying to North Carolina. I’ll be bouncing around the States visiting
family and friends and doing a bit of work, but the real point is that we’ll be
together again. Actually, the real point
is that I can shave this damn beard off!
Don’t get me wrong, I like the beard.
I’ve never been an avid shaver, but I had never really grown a full
beard before and I think it’s pretty damn cool.
Because of my self-imposed rules though, there would be no trimming or
shaping, so I really did end up looking like hell. Not as bad as Shane
McGowan, but not anywhere close the most interesting man
in the world either.
Over the next week, I will be shaving my mustache and beard
off a little at a time. Each day I will
look a little bit different than the day before and I’ll be posting photos to
Facebook. I’ve been getting all kinds of
suggestions, from a Fu Man Chu, to a Hitler, to Andy Samburg.
What do you think? Any Ideas?
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