Caliban - Opinion and Righteous Anger

We were early to bed last night and early to rise this morning, due to the fact that we had a 09:30 immigration appointment down at the GBA on the Johan Huizingalaan. We had to wake our sleepy little Poepoe to take the (line) 2, since she would have otherwise quite happily kept dreaming and made us late.

We were fortunate enough to meet with a very helpful woman, who soon informed us that the IND had given permission for our marriage to be registered. As a result, I'm now listed in the population register as a married man, which doubtless simplifies what would happen if I were to meet my maker in an untimely fashion. Well, you can't be too careful, right?

After going through Sarah's paperwork, including marriage and birth certificate, both with apostille attached, Sarah was also finally allowed to register on the population register. This opens the door to obtaining a social security number, etc., which in turn opens the door to opening a bank account in her own name. Exciting times ahead!

Next, some copies of my bank statements were made in order to demonstrate that I can support Sarah without her becoming a burden on the Dutch state. These will now be sent with her file to the IND for further processing. For this privilege, I had to part with the princely sum of €830, which seems an outrageously expensive fee for an application for a residence permit, but there you go; it's not like we can take our business to a competitor. Governments are one of the worst forms of monopoly! Anyway, I see no reason why the application shouldn't be successful, so hopefully it's just a question of being patient and waiting for a decision to be made.

In the meantine, Sarah now has a sticker in her passport, allowing her to remain in The Netherlands until May 2006.