"ILLEGAL! YOU ARE A CRIMINAL! GET OUT OF MY OFFICE!
screamed the overweight, moustachiod female civil servant (aren't they all?) in the Warsaw Foreign Residents office.
When I moved here, in the golden dawn of Poland's ascension to the European Union, I needed to get a residency card. And, in a nostalgic homage to WW2, an Identity Number. And, like all good Communists, I needed to be registered at an address.
But my landlord wouldn't register me, because that means paying tax on the flat. And without a registered address, you can't get an ID number. But you can't get an ID number without a residency card. And you can't get the card without an ID number OR a registered address.
And although THE LAW states that you have to fulfil ALL these requirements within 72 hours of arriving in Poland, their own office states that it can take up to three weeks (in my case, 14 months) to get the residency card WHICH YOU HAVE TO CARRY WITH YOU ALL THE TIME ELSE THE POLICE ESCORT YOU TO A DETENTION CENTRE FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS.

Now, Im a civil human. For fucks sake, I'm a citizen of the British Empire. How the fuck can I be an illegal immigrant? The whole world belongs to Britain anyway - visas, residency permits and ID cards are things to be laughed in the face of. And yet, in a freshly painted office that I'd queued for four hours to get into, here was a filthy BO'd potato-farmer's daughter spraying spittle on my freshly-ironed shirt, hailing the guards at yet another breach of Poland's Borders.

You think all those slim sexy waitresses that have come to England are wonderful? You should see the ugly sisters they've left behind...
( Grrrmachine the indifference engine, Sat 28 Jul 2007, 21:48, Reply)