So, because I’m staying at an apartment and not a hostel or hotel, within three days of arrival, I had to register my address with the foreign police. When I first read this in my guidebook, I thought, “no problem.” I’d just go to the local police station, tell them where I’m staying and all done.
Then I started looking for where I was to go online, and found stuff like this. With recommendations like “If you’ve already been to the foreign police, then you know what to expect. If not, expect trouble. Long lines, not a word of English, and just general unpleasantness.“ And this. And the recommendation that you would have to arrive before the place opened at 7:30am to get a reasonable shot at getting in that day. Finally, all the online info, from the Czech Ministries, from the Foreign Police website, from bloggers and other sites, said that EU+Switzerland, Norway and Liechtenstein all go through one door that is relatively easy, and all other countries get to go through together.
Fun. So, I knew last night that I would have to get up this morning at 6:00 to have a hope of getting there before 7:30 and therefore a hope of getting to see someone today. Had to get up at 6:00. Therefore, of course, I could not fall asleep at all last night. I think I got two hours of sleep. That I am writing this now, and being even remotely coherent, is amazing.
When I awoke, I looked online, and saw that the Red Sox were still playing on the West Coast. That kind of blew my mind.
Anyway, up I got, took the tram over, and found the building. I would estimate that there were some 400 people in line in front of me when I got there at 7:15. The line was much more orderly than that shown in the above video, however, and it moved relatively quickly (we were close to actually getting into the building within an hour and a half.) As we were getting close, I heard a woman behind me, I think Russian, who was speaking some English, so I asked her some questions. She told me that as far as she knew, Americans go through the EU door, and a police officer keeping order confirmed this. Nowhere is this written!
So I was allowed to go to the other office, in which it took all but five minutes to meet with a clerk, who was very nice, but told me that I had to go to another office in another building a ten minute walk away (!!) But once I got there, again, everything was taken care of in minutes.
Ahhhhh! I wish they would give some of this info out. I don’t necessarily like getting this preferential treatment, but I would have liked to have known. I especially felt uncomfortable when I left the Vietnamese, Indian and Russian people in the hour-long line, but I was also very relieved to not have to stand in it anymore.
Ok, now to bed.