You might think it would be somewhat comforting to know that government bureaucracies work pretty consistently around the world. Any such comfort disappears, however, when you’re running around a strange city in below 0 temperatures (that’s 0 Celcius, and below with the windchill). Decidedly uncomfortable.
The started a little late because my wife had to first run to her apartment to grab some documents, and to her mother’s to do the same. She was in such a rush, she grabbed more than was needed. But better too much than too little. We then caught a city bus over to the bus station for the trip to Donetsk.
Because of our slightly late start, we actually considered taking a taxi. It’s quite common and generally very easy to hire a taxi to take you between different cities in Ukraine. As in the US, it’s usually quicker to grab a taxi than to rely on mass transit options, and over here it is usually quite a bargain. (It’s also way cheaper than renting a car, but I still would like to try that one of these days.) We didn’t get a taxi, though, but that is only because the guy who usually goes to Donetsk (I guess that in Mariupol at least, they divide up the different destinations) had wandered away, didn’t seem about to return, and, I’m told, was waiting to go until he filled his car (4 people). So we were stuck on the bus. It’s not a horrible way to get around — only about 5 bucks (40 UAH) to get you to a city 100 km away — but is not by any means the fastest or most comfortable way to travel. I survived it pretty well, but my wife felt like she was going to throw up for about half the ride.
Anyway, we got to Donetsk, and boy, are my arms tired. No wait, that’s not how that joke goes… We got to Donetsk, and it was freezing. Mariupol had been sunny and a comparatively balmy 1-2 C; Donetsk had gotten some rain earlier, was still overcast, and with the wind, was easily a couple degrees below freezing. There were some patches of ice here and there on the side streets and walkways.
We had a short walk across a couple streets and caught a city bus to take us to our presumed destination. We were kind of in a rush at this point, because according to whomever my wife had asked, government offices shut down for lunch at 1, and were already looking at 12:30 in the rear view mirror. (Of the bus we were on, of course.) But this is where the info starts to get a little faulty. First, lunch actually started at noon, with most places back to answering the phones by 12:45. As errors go, that wasn’t a bad one and it actually would have been in our favor… if we had been at the right place. We had gotten to where we needed to go, but that wasn’t where we needed to be. Still, it only took a couple phone calls and some information desk answers, and we found the department we actually wanted was back where we came from, nearly by the bus station.
So, back on a city bus, find the new address we need, check at the reception desk, head up to the office they tell us… and it’s the wrong office. But we’re only a floor off, so it’s down a flight of stairs, over to another office… and it’s the wrong office. But we office we actually did want was just a couple doors down. So we head in there, my wife plops down the documents, explains what we need, sweet talks the clerk with a little bribe of some chocolates we’d picked up, and we’re asked to return in a couple hours for the completed documents.
So we walk around a bit, find a cafe and have some lunch, finally. Get back to the office, wait about a half an hour more (we are talking a government business after all), but finally do get our documents. It’s a good thing they were done when they were, because we had just enough time to get back to the bus station and catch the next bus back to Mariupol. My wife did much better on the ride back, but it was too hot for my tastes.
So why’d we go through all this? It’s all for the immigration paperwork, which needs to apostilled so I can submit it to the US government. Ukraine makes it a little hard, because before you can get the apostille stamp in Kiev, the documents have to certified/stamped by the regional office. Mariupol is in the Donetsk region, so I got to spend a few hours on busses today. But we got this piece done.