A Proper Viewing

This past Tuesday, I had the "pleasure" of having my interview with the Immigration and Naturalisation Department (IND). My appointment took place at Rotterdam's city hall building, which is a gorgeous construction of pre-war architecture in Rotterdam as this was one of the few buildings to survive the bombardment that devastated the centre of Rotterdam during the war. I would have liked to enjoy the beautiful vaulted ceilings, stain glass windows, and ornate wood work if it had not been for the nerves and bureaucracy that sullied my experience of the view and kept my stomach in knots. The following is the schedule of my morning:

8:00 am - get up, jump out of bed (I know right now everyone who works a 9-5 is scoffing at my 8am wake up time. Note that I fully acknowledge that I am spoiled to be able to sleep so late), have coffee and toast, admit to Pdot that I'm nervous.
8:35 am - confirm my nerves by pacing the apartment and being indecisive about what outfit to wear for the interview...something with a collar to look professional, pair it with jeans to look like a student...???
9:00 am - leave house by bike to meet Pdot at the Centraal Station
9:15 am - realise that I've gone the wrong way because I'm not paying attention to where I'm going, turn around and meet Pdot at Centraal Station, a little more sweat but overall not in too bad of a shape
9:30 am - walk into social housing office (Pdot's landlords) and officially register with them as a leaser of the apartment (a requirement of my immigration application). Take stamped and signed sheet with me.
9:45 am - walk bike over to City Hall building and in doing so see the huge building looming before me, tell Pdot that from my position, this is a metaphor of my feelings toward my impending interview. I believe Pdot said something about me being melodramatic but I can't be too sure, the morning is a bit of a haze now
10:00 am - Pdot comes with me and into the City Hall to make sure that there are no problems with the residence part of my application and is as usual, very helpful, as he selects a choice for me and takes a number while we sit down and wait for our number to be called

* Side note * As you walk into the city hall you're greeted by a huge room, a mass of people and a cacophony of noise. In front of you are 3 computers on stands where you are to choose the purpose for your visit that day (people use the city hall to get parking permits, acquire drivers licences, pay fines, or have interviews with the IND). Once you have your number you sit in one of four large bench sections (maybe about 250 seats in total?) and wait among the masses for your number to be called. I should mention two things that kind of turned me off of this process: first, the computer choices are only available in Dutch (thank you once again Pdot for being there to save the day); second, the constant dinging of the bell which notifies people when one of the 40 desks is ready for the next customer. This dinging sound is almost constant and its pace is further emphasised by the people who sometimes have to cross half the length of the football field (I kid you not) to get to their appointed desk (that's if you started at one end and had to go to the other). It appeared that no one wanted to miss their call as you'd be put at the back of the line again and who knows when you'd surface again next....

10:20 am - our number is called and we reach our desk in time (Pdot who has been there before knows to wait in the middle so that you can actually get to your desk in a reasonable amount of time without having to trot like a horse) when we are told that we're waiting in the wrong area, that we should instead be at desk 20 or 21 and that we do not have to wait in line or have a ticket number
10:30 am - wait for the woman in front of us to be done with her business at desk 20 (there is no one manning the station at 21) and approach. We are in fact helped right away and spend the next 30 minutes officially registering with the City Hall (not the same as registering with the social housing group)
10:35 am - our attendant found a problem with the second authentication of my long-form birth certificate and suggested that I send my birth certificate back to Ottawa to have it stamped again...not conducive to my interview which is in less than three-quarters of an hour. I protest, she goes to ask someone else.
10:45 am - our attendant comes back and has determined that my second authentication is indeed okay and that I am now official registered with the City Hall. I need to go to the cashier and find out if they take cash, which they don't, so I have to go and get my fee of 41 Euros out so that I can pay the IND people when I have my appointment
10:50 am - wandering outside for a bank machine, ING does not work with Canadian bank cards for everyone's information, find a bank, get money, walk back to the city hall
11:00 am - Pdot searches through the computers at the front of the hall again and finds me the correct appointment listing. He leaves to get to the stuff he needs to do, and I sit down and wait to be called in the dinging, noisy, crowded set of benches at the very back of the hall.
11:01 am - waiting for my appointment
11:02 am - waiting for my number to be called
11:03 am - waiting for my number to be called, made hairy eyeballs at the crying child next to me
11:04 am - you get the picture...
11:15 am - called for my appointment to a girl sitting behind a desk who is much, much younger than myself. She asks for one or two documents while she begins to type things into her computer and insists on calling me 'Miss'. I will take this not to be an insult (as I am older than she by about 8 years) but a glitch in translation. Whether intentional or not, the label makes me feel a bit annoyed and aware of the power imbalances present in this entire process. The whole 'interview' had little to no discussion except for when she had a problem with my not having a return ticket to Canada. When I tried to explain that I had instead printed out my bank statements proving that I could afford a ticket home (yes, I promise to leave the county!) and that I only didn't have one at this point because I couldn't buy a ticket that far ahead she stated that not all of my print outs had my name on them. "Yes", I said, "for security reasons (I had already noticed this fact and worried about it) I'm sure but if you'd let me pull up my account on your computer right now, I can prove it to you". She looked at me, sighed, and said that she would accept it now but that 'they' might have a problem with it and that 'they' will contact me in that event, AND that this ruling could take up to 6 months as they were legally afforded this much time to make their decision. "Okay", I said...and left it at that since I didn't have much choice in the matter anyway.
11:45 am - walking out of the building with my temporary resident's permit affixed to the inside of my passport. Although I'm allowed to stay and work once I receive my So-Fi number, the temporary status reminds me that the bureaucracy is not yet over. As a Western migrant I got off easy I’d say. Just imagine if I was from somewhere that necessitated me to have tuberculosis shots, among other things!

I want to stress however that I find the Dutch immigration procedures to be no worse than those of the surrounding countries and probably much nicer/easier than some of the experiences that I could have had elsewhere. I would also assume that any and all experiences of immigration are difficult in that they make the migrant feel uncomfortable and powerless in some way.

What I do know however, is that I must go back to the City Hall on a different occassion for a proper viewing when I can actually notice and appreciate my surroundings.