To prolong tourist visa in Brazil, as you can only imagine, there are a bunch of pointless processes and papers (probably no more than in any other country, but still, POINTLESS), among which one absolutely nailed me:
There is this certain document by which a Brazilian person who is your friend states s/he will be there for you if you are broke or need to go to the hospital. But it's not that easy. The Brazilian good friend needs to go to cartório, a notary's office, to validate the signature.
To get this information in the first place, you need to go to the office of Federal Police. You need to go there, because there is nothing about it online (of course not).
I need to underline the fact of HOW big a city São Paulo is: 20 million people.
So, "going to the office of Federal Police" is no joke! You need hours to go and come back - just to get the information! AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT!!
And here comes the punchline:
Once you've reached the Federal Police office, they give you the infamous paper, but THE EXAMPLE. The real one, that you are actually going to fill in and validate, you need to TYPE YOURSELF!!
Say whaaaaat?!?
Wait, did I get this right?? So, I WENT to the office to get the information and they GIVE me the paper they already had to print and prepare, but not in such state that I can actually use it?!?
I need to TYPE it, seriously???
Nothing online?!
Nothing online. I looked all over the place. It's nonexistent.
I, as a foreigner, a TOURIST, need to type a document in Portuguese!
I had like a little nervous breakdown yesterday about all of this and then I had to eat a lot of chocolate to come down.
But then today, I decided to always look at the bright side of life.
Why not type it? I've never typed a document in Portuguese before! It's a whoooole new experience for me! Maybe I will learn something! (And I did. Now I know how to write letter "ã" and "ê", for example). I am sort of learning Portuguese anyway! (Are you getting the vibe of an always-positive-person - ticking-time-bomb, that is always so happy that you wait for her to explode any minute? Damn right.)
And to crown the turning of the horror into something you can benefit from, I've decided to see all this struggle as the way to my spiritual growth and give to the world! And so I made the draft pdf of a bloody document and it is now in my public Dropbox folder. Hopefully whoever next needs it will be able to find it there and copy-paste it, as befits.
PROLOGUE
As I finally found myself back in the Federal Police office with all the receipts, certificates, copies and nonsences, inevitably I got a FT1P - a formula, probably invented in Serbia, by which the lovely lady teller working there is always going to find that one paper you are missing which makes the procedure absolutely impossible to proceed!
It was 15 minutes to closing time of the last day of my visa, and the counter boss, an elderly guy wearing the Brazilian football team shirt you could easily imagine selling the delicious corn at the street to you with the smile on his face under that mustache he has, apparently wanted to go home. He and the lady discusses my case a bit, I could overhear: "What? She doesn't have this-and-this-paper?! Well, she doesn't have anything", and at one point he just looked at me seriously and asked (in Portuguese): "Are you with Corinthians?"
OF COURSE I AM! THEY ARE MY FAVOURITE TEAM IN THE WORLD!
I got a: "Woooooo!!" from the background of the office, a smile, and a stamp in my passport for another 3 months in BRAZIL.
There is this certain document by which a Brazilian person who is your friend states s/he will be there for you if you are broke or need to go to the hospital. But it's not that easy. The Brazilian good friend needs to go to cartório, a notary's office, to validate the signature.
To get this information in the first place, you need to go to the office of Federal Police. You need to go there, because there is nothing about it online (of course not).
I need to underline the fact of HOW big a city São Paulo is: 20 million people.
So, "going to the office of Federal Police" is no joke! You need hours to go and come back - just to get the information! AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT!!
And here comes the punchline:
Once you've reached the Federal Police office, they give you the infamous paper, but THE EXAMPLE. The real one, that you are actually going to fill in and validate, you need to TYPE YOURSELF!!
Say whaaaaat?!?
Wait, did I get this right?? So, I WENT to the office to get the information and they GIVE me the paper they already had to print and prepare, but not in such state that I can actually use it?!?
I need to TYPE it, seriously???
Nothing online?!
Nothing online. I looked all over the place. It's nonexistent.
I, as a foreigner, a TOURIST, need to type a document in Portuguese!
I shit you not.
I had like a little nervous breakdown yesterday about all of this and then I had to eat a lot of chocolate to come down.
But then today, I decided to always look at the bright side of life.
Why not type it? I've never typed a document in Portuguese before! It's a whoooole new experience for me! Maybe I will learn something! (And I did. Now I know how to write letter "ã" and "ê", for example). I am sort of learning Portuguese anyway! (Are you getting the vibe of an always-positive-person - ticking-time-bomb, that is always so happy that you wait for her to explode any minute? Damn right.)
And to crown the turning of the horror into something you can benefit from, I've decided to see all this struggle as the way to my spiritual growth and give to the world! And so I made the draft pdf of a bloody document and it is now in my public Dropbox folder. Hopefully whoever next needs it will be able to find it there and copy-paste it, as befits.
PROLOGUE
As I finally found myself back in the Federal Police office with all the receipts, certificates, copies and nonsences, inevitably I got a FT1P - a formula, probably invented in Serbia, by which the lovely lady teller working there is always going to find that one paper you are missing which makes the procedure absolutely impossible to proceed!
It was 15 minutes to closing time of the last day of my visa, and the counter boss, an elderly guy wearing the Brazilian football team shirt you could easily imagine selling the delicious corn at the street to you with the smile on his face under that mustache he has, apparently wanted to go home. He and the lady discusses my case a bit, I could overhear: "What? She doesn't have this-and-this-paper?! Well, she doesn't have anything", and at one point he just looked at me seriously and asked (in Portuguese): "Are you with Corinthians?"
OF COURSE I AM! THEY ARE MY FAVOURITE TEAM IN THE WORLD!
I got a: "Woooooo!!" from the background of the office, a smile, and a stamp in my passport for another 3 months in BRAZIL.
