expat paperwork Archives - Circles in the SandCircles in the Sand

Renewing your driver’s licence. How hard can it be? Well, when you live overseas and your US licence needs to be processed over the other side of the world, things can get complicated, as any expat will know.

My DH was adamant he wasn’t going to let his US licence expire. “It’s a right pain if it runs out,” he told me. With some vacation coming up, he started making travel plans and my mind began to boggle at the distances involved. As I write this, he’s lying on the sofa, head tilted back, eyes shut, mouth slightly parted, recovering from his ‘holiday’.

In numbers:

Nautical miles flown: 14,400
Airplanes flown in: 5
Hotels stayed in: 3
Rentacars hired: 2
Time taken to renew licence: 3 minutes

In days:

Day 1: Fly to New York from Dubai, 14 hours. Attempt to catch connecting flight to Minneapolis. Miss first flight due to plane being full. Wait another two hours at JFK. Catch next flight, 2hrs 45 mins to Minneapolis. Rent car, find hotel.

Day 2: Wake up. Go to Department of Motor Vehicles. Renew driver’s licence in, did I mention? Under three minutes.

Day 3: Get connecting flight back to JFK, while navigating heavy security checks due to the tragic Brussels bombing. Arrive in New York and spend 12 hours wasting time before nine-hour flight to Milan.

Day 4: See family, and take them on promised ski trip. Rent a Skoda. Drive family to small Alpine Italian town we’ve only seen online. Supervise two days of skiing, including following crazy Evil Kneivel son down black slopes. Fall down in a flurry of powdery snow and scything skis, thankfully not breaking anything (just!)

Day 7: Last five-hour flight from Milan to Dubai. At immigration, visit small, windowless room, with a high desk and a faint smell of body odour crushed into the plastic chairs and lino, due to a problem with son’s US passport. Agree to the cancellation of his resident’s visa – sending the paperwork merry-go-round spiraling into further ever-decreasing circles as our attention switches from driver’s licences to visas and passports (could expat paperwork be any more infuriating?)

Am glad to report that DH can now spend the rest of his vacation relaxing, and it was all SO worth it, just to see spectacular views like this:

Skiing in the Italian Alps

Skiing in the Italian Alps2

We made a trip to the American consulate in Dubai this week: I had to surrender my US green card (long story); and Son2 needed his passport renewed.

DH and I, and Son2, all had to attend, in case one of us was trying to spirit him out of the country without the other knowing. The appointments for consular services were helpfully during school hours, so the place was crawling with children in school uniform, adults clutching paperwork, steely eyed officials and guards.

Son2 wasn’t happy at all about missing swimming at school, so DH told him a little white lie: “We’re going to the president’s mansion,” he said. “You’ll have to be good,” we added. “There’ll be handcuffs there and everything.” (That bit’s probably true.)

So we might have glorified it a bit to Son2

On arrival, we passed through the body scanner, gave up our phones, the car keys and my handbag, and proceeded to Fort Knox’s main area – a large space containing half a dozen rows of chairs and a concession stand selling pizzas and other snack foods.

We waited our turn, and I asked DH for the umpteenth time if we had all the paperwork we needed:

– My green card – tick

– Son2’s passport, and copy of the bio data page – tick, tick

– Original birth certificate, and one copy – tick, tick

– Mine and DH’s passports, plus copies – tick, tick, tick, tick

– Passport form (fill out online, print and bring with) – tick

– Passport photo (US size, full-face, no looking down, ears exposed) – tick

– Fees: 388 AED – tick

I was almost holding my breath at the counter, sure there’d be something we’d overlooked. Son2’s school reports perhaps. His great great grandmother’s (on the paternal side) proof of pioneering voyage across the Atlantic and first homestead. Our tax returns. First pet’s photo, eye level 28-35mm from the bottom of the photo, no sunglasses.

“Do you have another picture?” asked the official, frowning at the perfectly proportioned, US passport-sized headshot we’d had taken of Son2.

“No,” we answered, glumly.

“The background needs to be white,” he said, pointing out the so-opaque-it-was-barely-there tinge of colour visible in the backdrop.

Any mum who’s ever felt like she’s trying to pin a woodland sprite to a studio chair when getting her young child photographed will understand why we groaned – then crossed our fingers and toes when he said he’d put the application through and let the system decide!