Registration Day

On Friday we headed of to the Department of Immigration to Register for our residency permit. Everyone had told us of their horror stories so we went along a little anxiously. We kids had a major pep talk about their behaviour and I had the stash of Marie biscuits on hand. Saravanan met us there but was not allowed to come in with us. He warned us to be very patient and very polite.
And so the musical chairs began. There where about 10 chairs along each side of the tiny room in which you first entered. We where told to sit down and one by one as each person in front of us got ushered into the next room we moved one chair closer. you had no sooner sat down than you where up again moving to the next chair. The guards at the front door where constantly shooing away the relocation agents that went there with their clients. There was no way anyone not supposed to was getting into that space. And man do these guys have BAD manners.
We then got to room no. 2 and played musical chairs again, waiting for another 30 mins. When we got to the front we sat in front of a very beautifully dressed Indian women who flicked through the pile of paper work gave us another piece of paper to fill in and sent us on our way into room no.3, another 30 mins went by and our no. got called once again. Now 3/4 of the biscuits are gone, anything for peace.......
Usually you get told to come back in 2 days time and pick up the permit, but as we are starting to realise luck doesn't often come our way. The 18 Aug is when we go to get it...DARN.......
The reason for the delay is because all the expats we arriving back to Chennai after the summer break and going to re-register...
The delay also means that our sea shipment wont be released until we can provide customs with the paper work for our residency.. So guess what ? It doesn't pay to be super organized at home and get out of the house early to make the time in temp accommodation in India not as long, By the time we get out of here we will have probably have been in here for 5 weeks. Poor Pintoo putting up with us for that long. The poor guy doesn't even get a day off . And I am sure we will be really sick of the food by then.
We went to our new apartment today for a look and met the landlord who lives on the same floor as us, he is an elderly man and he was very pleasant, his wife and daughter live there also and the daughter will be very helpful.
As we where getting into the car our upstairs neighbors arrived home, they are a Swedish couple with a 1 year old baby girl. The girl was lovely and gave me her phone no. and told me to give her a call and to come for lunch one day. She has been living in Chennai for 2 1/2 years now so she will know all the helpful stuff. All these positives make life here a bit easier.
Tonight I even bought a bunch Bananas from a fruit stand on the side of the road outside the supermarket, I paid about 50 cents and when I got back in the car Victor asked me how much I had paid, He then said "Next time madame I will buy them for you". I had obviously gotten ripped off. Oh well, I thought I was getting brave and I need to start doing these things myself.
Well that's another hour of rambling on, my typing is getting a bit quicker. HA.
TTFN