hard earned license plate

Behold, our new Polish license plate.

It was 6 months of grueling process, i tell ya. This is another painful part of being in a developing ex-communist country. Many growing pains, but it's only in the recent years that DMV has gotten their act together a bit in the States so what can we say about the equivalent of it here?

Here's a step by step.

1. First, we had to register our address - this was done in the first two months we were here - and had a nice little visit from the police who asked me where my husband worked, where his work building was, etc. i just get nervous of police asking questions, what can i say, it's a side effect of being harassed as a second class citizen in the U.S. with a student/working visa. (apparently, every time you move, you get a visit from the police, nice.)


2. Next visit was to register our car, but we got REJECTED in the first window - where they check the documents. even though we had ALL the papers mentioned in the list, they told us that we needed our residency papers, not just the address registration. I was told from the person helping us, that the requirements often change depending on who you're talking to (not surprising, i grew up in korea after all) and sure enough, we ended up with a mean lady.


3. On our third visit, i went with everything i needed. then you know what happened? they told me that my address registration was in my old name and that residency paper was in my new name - so we had to change the address registration. i kinda figured that would happen so we went upstairs, waited another 30 minutes in line to talk to the lady to fix the address registration.


we were standing in that window for over TWO HOURS negotiating to change my name. there were tears and screams involved - no kidding. all i heard the lady say was: "asdasjdfjsldf.....KOREANSKI.....asd;lkfajsdlfj;sljfalsdj.....AMERICANSKI.....adflkjsljf;lasjdl.....KOREANSKI, AMERICANSKI....." I got the gist that she was confused as to what happened to my status. I explained that in the short time we were here, I went back to the states to become U.S. citizen with a whole NEW name. Mind you, I had total sympathy for that woman - I mean, who the heck comes back in 3 months with a new country and a name??? but my patience was wearing thin, she just kept pointing out the problem and offered no solution at all. I was ready to say, "let me meet with whoever is highest up here and if s/he can't figure it out, i'll leave the county!!!" yes, little dramatic i know but i was so tired of it.


my poor translator was trying to keep composed. and then the lady who was doing the car thing earlier must have heard that there was a crying, yelling, asian lunatic demanding to change her name - she came upstairs to see what was going on. she then said that she would register the car under my old name and i would have to carry both passports. when we decided that that would be the worst case scenario - a phone call from Warsaw. 2 minutes later, i had my new name on my address registration. Praise the Lord.


It was already almost 5pm when i got the license plate - as i was handed the plates, she told me "you have to get new car insurance dated TODAY" - huh? i already had car insurance but they told me that i had to get a new one under the new plate - TODAY!! so conveniently, there's a insurance place across the street and i ended up purchasing car insurance for a year with who knows what. i felt like the time i had to choose my name with the INS guy, i had to decide something important in a matter of minutes. initially, i thought i can just purchase for a month and change it after some research - no such luck, the first insurance has to be for a full year. I'm just not sure what the heck is going on. oh well, you have to go with the flow and get ripped off when you're in a foreign country, that's part of the charm.


I didn't mean to spend the whole entry talking about the license plate. Actually, I wanted to talk about the translator who went with me. He was such an interesting guy. There was alot of waiting time so we got to talk quite a bit. We were talking about skiing and stuff when he mentioned that he's a "caver" - what the heck is that?

I was like "ummm, you go to caves to discover new species of bats?"
M: "no"

J: "why do you go into caves?"
M: "just to explore"

J: (still confused) "you just go in and out of caves?"
M: "uh-huh"

J: "why?"
M: "that's what we do. some people like to do mountain climbing, we like to go underground."

J: (lightbulb moment) "Oh, okay, that makes sense" (not really, b/c i don't understand the appeal of mountain climbing either.)
M: "what do you like to do?"

J: "ummmm, i like to sew and make jewerly. (feeling like a total loser)"
M: "that's cool" (yeah right, the way i think caving is cool - actually, i do think it's kind of cool - darn, i'm the only loser here.)

don't worry, the story doesn't end here, i know it's too much excitement in one entry. . . .i'll do a part II since i have to go back to the office next week to get my PERMANENT registration card versus my TEMPORARY one. Fun.