Czech Bureaucracy

Today I got to experience the best, or perhaps most famous, part of the Czech Republic and its storied history: bureaucracy.

Because my student visa expires two weeks from Saturday, and of course the office is closed Friday, and there is no way that I will go to the stupid Czech Foreign Police office on my freaking birthday, today was the day to go suffer the indignity of extending my visa.

A bus to the sketchiest part of Prague, where there was no English but plenty of Russian, and a decent map got me to the Czech Foreign Police office at 11:30. At 12:30, I was seen.

They don't speak a word of English there.

Luckily, a godsend of a 20-something New Yorker appeared with fluent knowledge of the Czech language. She helped me correct my form because it wasn't bureaucratically "correct" (word choice). She looks through my forms, mumbles something incoherently in Czech, and asks for my passport.

My passport is in my dorm room.

After I start gesticulating wildly and almost dry heave, the New Yorker starts babbling in Czech, probably begging her to take pity on the pathetic, helpless American in front of her. If she didn't take it then, I wouldn't have made it by the deadline, and I wouldn't have had a visa. While there's no law a la Arizona, I don't particularly enjoy being an illegal alien.

She took the fucking forms.

I, meanwhile, nearly cry again and there are deukujus all around. Apparently I need a form filled out by my "landlord" (whatever, one of the Komenskehoes will do it) and two passport pictures but I SURVIVED THE FUCKING CZECH FOREIGN POLICE OFFICE.

I will now drink.

(PS- Turkey post is still forthcoming. Calm yourselves, dear readers.)