Always One Step Ahead

Latvian bureaucracy. Always one step ahead.

I got up extra early this morning so that I would have time to not only eventually get to work, but also to stop in at the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs to see what I could do with my documents (as I may have mentioned, yesterday was a bust because yours truly forgot her passport at home). I get off at the respective bus stop, correctly guess which street to turn on, walk up to the building and LO! The door is there, but there are no signs, no indicators, nothing. I try the door - nothing. A woman who was also milling around asked "Excuse me, but do you know where the OCMA is?" Me: "That's what I'm trying to figure out. It was here not too long ago..." Then I went to the computer accessories/office supplies store on the same block and asked a nice elderly man if he knew what was up.

Me: "Excuse me, but do you know if the OCMA has moved office?"

Man: "Yep, they sure have."

Me: "Geez. Do you know where to?"

Man: "Oh, sure, out in Ciekurkalns in the direction of Mezuparks..."

Me: "......where??"

Man: "You take the 11th tram, across the B--- bridge, second stop, past Mezaparks cemetery, it's on the right side, a huge, glass building. Ugly box."

Me: "...thanks?"

Basically, whenever I think I'm one step closer to my goal, or that I'm almost to the finish line, they somehow manage to top it. They've moved office and left zero notice on the prior building. The only advantage is that the new office has been in service since May 6th (there were a few weeks in April when I wouldn't have been able to do anything anyway since they had locked down for the move), meaning that, hopefully, other 'immigrants' will either a) not know where the office is or b) be too lazy to head out that far to get their paperwork taken care of. Let's hope that Latvia is full of lazy people who want citizenship, right?

Kidding. But I could totally use a nap.

If I can figure out where the new office is, I'll try again tomorrow. In the words of Chumbawamba: "I get knocked down, but I get up again - you're never gonna keep me down! (repeat ad nauseum)"