Turkish Bureaucracy

So I've been politely reminded that I've not written anything in my blog for several days now. It's been a busy past few days, let me say, and as seems to be an on-going theme with my life here in Istanbul, one with many ups and downs, and learning/doing something new every day. That said, I promise from here on out to update on a more regular basis. Except for the next three days or so. And that's because I'm going to Cappadocia for the weekend! But more about that later. Let me bring y'all back to speed.

I've been here for about five weeks now, and sometimes it feels like much longer. It amazes how quickly one can adjust to a new environment, and settle in and fall into a comfortable daily routine. I guess we humans are largely creatures of habit, so no matter where we are, we do what we can to make ourselves comfortable - especially if we're going to be in a place for a long time - and do what we can to muddle through. Now funny I should put it just like that because one recent experience that me and nearly all the rest of the American exchange students have had to deal with is doing just what I said, making ourselves comfortable and muddling through and all that, in of all places, an Istanbul police station.

And no, none of us did anything wrong. Quite the contrary, we were trying to do things *right*, namely obtain residence permits that allow us to live in Turkey and allow us to travel in and out of the country without issues. Because most of us arrived in the country with student visas, within a month we had to apply for resident permits. In theory, this should be quite easy. You fill out a few forms, you go down to the police station, you apply and get the correct paperwork. In execution, however, this was a whole helluva lot more difficult than any of us imagined.

There is a lot I can say about this experience, but a lot of it isn't very pretty and involves quite a few four letter words, so I'll spare you all, and tell you the clean story. But for those of you who may be coming over here in my wake, you should know that dealing with foreign bureaucracy is simply not at all fun. It is at times a necessary evil, but I tell you, nothing makes you realize that you're not in Kansas anymore than to deal with foreign bureaucracy.

Okay, so this is what happened: we international students had until about the first week of March to apply for our resident permits. Shortly before this, the International Relations office sent around emails telling us how to do this. This is the basic rundown of what we needed to have:

"1. Residence Permit Application Form which must be filled in Turkish, typed-written, printed out colored and double-sided.
2. 5 passport-size photos
3. Your passport, as well as a photocopy of the front and student visa pages.
4. “Öğrenci Bilgi Formu” (Student Information Sheet). This form must be filled in Turkish.
5. A Turkish petition form declaring you will apply for residence permit.
6. Student Certificate
7. A statement signed and stamped by our Rector"

The first bit of trouble that I ran into was not having received the email in the first place. I searched through my spam file, my inbox, filter folders, since everyone else seemed to have it, but upon finding nothing, I went down to their office only to find that they had misspelled my name and email. 2 N's. My last name has 2 N's. It's really not that hard. It's the German spelling. 2 N's. Argh! So, anyway, I get that fixed, and then start looking at this list. The last two items we had to wait until the IR office had ready for us, so no matter how quickly we had the rest of the items, we still had to wait. The photos, photocopies, and passport I had easily accessible. Oh, but did you see that part about needing to be filled in Turkish? Yeah... none of us really speak Turkish. And no one in the IR office really offered to help (never mind the fact that only a few people in that office speak English, which is very much the case around the whole university btw - more about that later). So we had to ask Turkish friends for their time to sit and translate for us, and help us fill in these forms.

So we get all the forms all filled out, printed, stamped, all neat and pretty. Katie and I went down to the IR office once again just to have people take a look at them and make sure that we had everything as it should be before we set off for the police station. This was another headache. We were given directions how to get there, but they were more than a little confusing, and we got lost the first time we got there. It takes about an hour and change to travel first via bus, then via tram, and then a half mile walk or so to the station. So already we're sacrificing three hours or so our day just in travel alone. (If you didn't get it before, Istanbul is *huge*). Other students who had gone before us had already shared their horror stories - getting up very early (as the IR office suggested that we do), getting through the crowd, waiting in long lines, and finally emerging some *10* hours later. (No, I'm not kidding.) We listened to the others' stories and crossed our fingers, and thought maybe it was just so busy because they went on Monday. So we headed down last Tuesday afternoon, sailed in and went upstairs only to find that they had given out all their numbers for the day. (It's like the DMV; you come in and take a number and then go up to the counter when they call your number. Except in this case, they only give out a certain number and then they're done for the day).

So, whatever, we come back tomorrow, right? Well, we did. We woke up at 5:45am, were on the bus by 6:20, and arrived to a large group of people waiting to get in. They took our passports as we came in, and we stood over to the side waiting to see what would happen. Well, the small waiting room filled with people, so many that I couldn't see over people's heads, and we were crushed together so tight that I couldn't raise my arms from my sides. They started calling people's names right at 8am, presumably in the order in which they had submitted their passports. Katie and I got stuck on the far side, and when they finally called our names, we struggled through the crush (and I mean that quite literally). When I got to the front, one of the cops told me that he had been calling my name for 10 minutes, and why hadn't I come. At this point, I felt like giving him a little what-for, but I held my tongue in light of the fact that there were cops outside the front door holding machine guns. (And no, I'm really *not* kidding. Istanbul cops carry effing *machine guns*.) Instead I took my passport with a pained shrug, and explained that I had to shoulder past all the rest of the folks waiting, and then I ran. Literally. Katie and I went into the next area, again another crush of people, only to find out that they had already given out their tickets for the day, and it was barely 8:30. Apparently they usually give out more tickets but that day they were limiting it to 100. Needless to say, I was *hot*. We had gotten up very early, traveled over an hour, been shoved and jostled, yelled at in Turkish, couldn't understand a bloody word that people were saying, all that only to find out that we had to come back yet again.

I have to admit that I solidly lost my temper. I have German and Irish blood and I am not always a patient person, but this incident really made me angry. It's probably a good thing that people around me couldn't understand me because I was swearing up a blue streak. I apologized to the students nearby me later, but at that moment, I was not feeling very civil at all. The whole thing just felt very unfair. We were wasting our time, our money, we were going to miss classes, just to end up paying 90 TL for the privilege of living in Turkey for a few months. I just felt very annoyed that the IR office hadn't really prepared us for this. I think that the whole thing could have been better handled; clearer communication, more assistance, anything. If it's one thing that I really can't stand, it's poor communication and even poorer organization. And this incident had both in droves.

Katie and I went back this Monday with a few other students, and this time, we were a little wiser. We got there even earlier, we stood on the other side of the room so we wouldn't have to get through such a big crowd as before, and we ran in immediately to where we had to go to get the tickets. Luckily, this time we got tickets, and they seemed to be processing fairly quickly. We went downstairs to the cafeteria to have breakfast (a lira for soup and all the bread you could eat, not bad), and then all of us again wisely decided to make up for lost time by bringing reading for our classes. I had a bit of a panic though when I realized that when I was sitting in the cafeteria, cleaning receipts out of my pocket, that I had accidentally thrown out my ticket. I was very afraid that I was going to be turned away and have to come back yet again, but apparently Someone was watching out for me. When my number was called (we figured out that I was 171 - a note for others: do not lose your ticket!), I went up to the counter, and gave the guy my paperwork right away. I said hello, how are you to him in Turkish, and smiled, and tried not to look guilty. He seemed a little surprised - maybe because I spoke in Turkish when I am clearly not a Turk or maybe because I was polite and folks don't usually say hi, how are ya - who knows? In any case, when he asked me for my bileti (ticket), I nearly panicked. I started pantomining and stringing words together in a fluster: çöp, kaza, kafeterya, lütfen, Ben gelmek üç günlar, öğrenci (literally: trash, accident, cafeteria, please, I to come 3 days [not conjugated correctly btw], student). Luckily, he seemed to understand, and I must have looked desperate enough, because he accepted the paperwork and just gave me another number. He had a friend standing nearby, a former coworker who had come back that day to say hi. The guy had left his job at the police station to go to Ankara to learn English, and he translated a little for me. So my guy must have been in a good mood. When all was said and done, I got my paperwork processed, I paid my 90 TL, and then we were all done, 4 hours later.

Yesterday I again braved the Turkish public transportation system to travel alone down to the station to pick up my residence permit booklet. The whole experience cost me about 15 hours of time, 90 TL for the permit, about 23 TL for transportation costs, and caused me a lot of stress, anxiety, and my losing my temper. So that would make the experience about the single worst one that I've had not only here in Turkey, but just in a long time. I truly hope that those of you who come after me do not have to go through this. In fact, if you can, just pick up a tourist visa at the airport when you arrive, and save yourself all this hassle. (There are pros and cons to tourist visas though - they're cheaper in the short run, but if you get one, you have to leave the country after 90 days and buy another one when you come back. So if you do get one, just be prepared to make a trip to Bulgaria or Greece or somewhere else at some point in the middle of the semester. It might end up being more expensive in the long run, but it's up to you.)

Now apparently this isn't typical, or so we've been told. One thing that's going on right now in Istanbul is that it's election time. There are political banners and signs everywhere you go. Trucks drive the streets blaring music and excerpts of speech. Everyone's got an opinion. The elections are at the end of the month, so supposedly, many more people than usual are applying for resident permits. I don't know if this is because it allows them to vote, or laws will change shortly regarding permits, I don't know. But supposedly, just supposedly, what we went through isn't usually the case. Whatever it was, however, it was still absolutely miserable.

So! That all being said, I am now officially a resident of Istanbul, and will be able to travel in and out of the country freely from now until October 30 if I should choose. Happier topics in my next entry, I promise. :)