postcard 12: bureaucracy and christmas trees
we got an apartment and a passport for Hazelnut!
It’s Wednesday and on Sunday we won’t have anywhere to live. We’ve been Airbnb surfing for two and a half months now and while we could find another short term rental, the idea of moving to another temporary space has lost its appeal. That, and it costs three times more than rent would. We still don’t have our visas, but we’ve decided to risk it and have been apartment hunting for the last few weeks to no avail. While we chose one of northern Croatia’s more abundant rental markets to call home, finding a place that allows dogs and will let us stay through the summer tourist season has proven challenging. The gaudy purple listing that’s popped up on Croatian Craigslist is dubious but as we pull into the parking lot of a damp looking building, our eggs are admittedly all in one basket.
The landlord has brought a friend along to help translate, but it's unclear which one speaks better English. The stairwell is dingy and smells like burnt popcorn, but as soon as we open the door we’re flooded with natural light. The cabinets are eggplant purple and there’s a big purple lightning bolt on the ceiling. There’s an empty fish tank filled with fake succulents taking up half the counter, but it’s modern and there’s three terraces and, miraculously, a dishwasher. We make an offer as soon as we get back to our Airbnb, telling him that Hazelnut is “medium large” and he texts back in the amount of time it feels like a good Google translate session would take. We’ve beat out a pair of Ukranians, which we feel a little bit guilty about, and we’re set to meet him at a notary’s office the next day.
It’s pouring rain and there’s no parking downtown, so Topher drops me off and I sit awkwardly in the waiting room with our new landlord. I think he’s more nervous than I am. He tries to make small talk but his meager English mixed with my non-existent Croatian quickly brings that to a grinding halt. In the notary’s office, the business suit clad man with a distracting mole right between his eyes tries to translate. He heaves a sigh when we ask about using PayPal. Of course he knows what it is, but how does he explain it to our new landlord? Topher, who has finally made it in from the rain, attempts to use Google translate on the rental contract and that’s the final straw. The notary kindly calls a translator and our landlord offers to pay, overwhelmed with relief, it seems, that we’ll be able to understand each other. We arrange to meet again the next day.
“We will now have the reading of the rental agreement,” the translator begins and we both discreetly flip through the packet. Six pages, we’re going to be here for awhile.
An hour later, we’ve cleared up all confusion and our landlord walks us through the apartment again, pointing unhelpfully at each appliance before giving us the keys. We don’t have to pay him anything for two weeks, apparently (enough time to max out the ATM’s daily limit enough times to withdraw the first month’s rent and security deposit) and we’re now the leasees of a Croatian apartment. It takes five loads in the little rental car which we’re getting more and more attached to on each rental extension, and we’re all moved in.
We go out to celebrate, at a konoba (tavern) that has live folk musicians on a violin and a guitar serenading a table of older women. They get up and dance and the waitress is working on a crossword puzzle in between trips to our table. I order homemade pasta with “seashells” and Topher has the ravioli with prosciutto and we follow it with a beautiful plate of calamari and tiramisu to-go before driving around town. It's the first night of advent and the Christmas lights have been turned on. There’s no snow and boats bob in the harbor, but it still feels festive.
The snooze button get’s hit too many times two days in a row and on the third it’s too sunny to go stand in line at the ministry so we bundle up and hike through the deserted state park, letting Hazelnut off leash to chase the waves and stopping to pet the cats along the trail. We buy a Christmas tree from a Slovenian man in the furniture store parking lot who brought the pretty little confiers down from Finland. There’s only a handful of spiders in it when we set it up and decorate it with a tube of red balls and colored lights.
On the fourth morning, we finally make it to the cold steps of the MUP (pronounced moop) and I hold our place in line while Topher gets coffees and pastries. The ministry opens at 8, but the pro-move seems to be arriving by 7 to secure an early spot in line. The first set of doors leading to the take-a-number machine open at 7:30 and we crowd in amongst the grannies and the construction workers and one man who’s playing Candy Crush at top volume to get our tickets. We’re number two in the foreigners line, not bad at all. When the doors open at 8, it's madness as the waiting-area-less room full of windows starts calling numbers via a flashing board. We wait tensely as Mr. Candy Crush finishes at the foreigners’ desk and then get called up.
“English?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
“Italian?”
After several Google translate attempts, she goes and finds a colleague who speaks English and while our visas still aren't ready yet (should I be talking about my in-process visa on the Internet? MUP, if you’re reading this, please hurry, hvala vam!!!) we get a letter stating they are in process, which hopefully will let us travel past our tourist visa expiration next week. I offer a “buon natale” as we leave.
We might be in bureaucracy limbo, but Hazelnut has acquired her vaccine boosters and an EU pet passport without issue. Our little New Mexico stray is now a Croatian citizen, it appears 🥹
Moving abroad has been stunning trails and ancient cities and endless cheese, but it’s also been tedious bureaucracy and language barriers and more than a little bit stressful. It’s life, not vacation, but it sure is an adventure.
-Mikaela