¡Muy ausente!

So, the first thing I must do is apologize for my long absence from posting anything on this blog. I know that there are just oodles and oodles of people out there wondering how Jan and I are getting along, and I've been slack in providing the wanted information. Well here it goes.

We went over to the town hall, or districthuis, here in Deurne, to file the necessary paperwork in order for us to get married. I figured it was going to be similar to the forms one would have to fill out in the States. Oh, how wrong I was! First, there is just the sheer number of documents needed by both of us. We need birth certificates, criminal records searches, affidavits that we've never been married before, proof of citizenship (and no the passport is not enough, go figure that), and finally some crazy document stating what the marriage rules in our home countries are (I have no idea why this matters). While obtaining all of these documents is not difficult, rather simple actually, every single one must have a apostille stamp, which is a stamp that certifies the document as internationally legal. Furthermore, every single one must be translated into Dutch. Uggh! What a pain in the butt. So what was a relatively simple task, has turned into a time, and money, consuming chore. Sigh.

So I obtained, though my Mom, a certified copy of my birth certificate, complete with apostille stamp from the Colo. Secretary of State. All good and legal. We went to the districthuis to turn in the documents we had gathered thus far, the woman got a really puzzled look on her face when I gave her my birth cert. Well she wandered off to confer with some colleague somewhere; we could hear them prattling back and forth. When she returns, she says that they don't know if they'll be able to accept the birth certificate! What? Why? Well it doesn't look like their example. You've got to be kidding me? Well after them showing me their example, which was a copy of a birth cert. from Michigan! After sighing heavily, and I'm sure there was an eye roll involved at some point, and went about explaining to these bureaucrats that every State has a different certificate, and there is not one national certificate issued by the U.S. government. Well, what I thought was a rather simple concept, took a full 20 minutes discussion. Them saying many different things, and me saying the exact same things over and over. Finally, they said it would be accepted.

We were told that we would be giving a date where we would have to appear for an interview. The kind of interview that people in the States have to go through with INS if they're getting married to an immigrant. Our interview, was scheduled for the 24th of April, which was of course last week.

We appeared at the appointed time, and in typical Belgian fashion, the interviewer was 20 minutes late. Any who, she interviewed us separately, asking us questions about each other. "What's Jan's fathers name?" "What did you do last weekend?" "Were did you meet?" Blah blah blah. No big deal, really. She told us afterward that since we'd been together for so long, with pictures and everything, she didn't ask us very probing questions.

Now, she sends the interview back to the districthuis here in Deurne, and they will get back to us sometime over the next three weeks, with an affirmative or negative decision. My god, what a process! So that is where we stand right now. We're just waiting for the letter. Belgium is a lot like the Navy, in that everything is hurry-up and wait.

With all of that said, I will endeavor to keep this blog updated from now on. Cheers for now, and watch your back out there.