I arrived in Costa Rica on 16 June 2008. I started the process to become a resident of Costa Rica over a month before that. All of our paperwork was handled to immigration lawyers.
And we waited.
And waited.
And waited.
All of our documentation expired, and we had to obtain new versions of all of it. (Doing a police check when you no longer live in the city you last lived in? Not easy…)
Then we waited some more.
And waited.
And waited.
I have no idea why we waited so long. I’m sure, somewhere, there’s a reason for all of this waiting. I know we were waiting for certain other paperwork, but even that took an extraordinarily long time.
But it’s mostly all worth it. Because now, after 487 days, I’m finally a legal temporary resident of Costa Rica.
Okay, not entirely true. I was a legal resident about two months ago, after the initial government approval came through. It just took two more months to get the paperwork filed, visit the immigration offices, get yet more pictures taken, and then today get our official identification cards.
Which makes me an official card-carrying temporary resident. Which is also kinda sad, as I was rather enjoying being an illegal alien. How many times in my life will I be able to say that?
And yes, as you might expect, there’s a “but” coming. But that’s another blog post…
