So yesterday, we both took half a day of vacation to run down a laundry list of documents and items needed for our dossier. The day started across town at the USCIS Application Support Center, where we both needed to be digitally fingerprinted as part of our I-800A application process. The workers there were nice for the most part, though we both found it curious that, at what is essentially an Immigration office in San Antonio, Texas, the guard who people had to speak to at the front desk spoke no Spanish. We discovered this when a lady who spoke only Spanish tried to get assistance, and he had her sit off to the side until somebody else could help her, and then didn't bother to get anybody to provide said assistance. Odd situation.
As far as our appointment, all went well, and we were out and on to location number two by 9:00. We next headed downtown to collect some additional paperwork from the Bexar County Courthouse. That was where the fun began.
First of all, approximately 1/4 of the city was parked within half a mile of the courthouse, possibly because there was a foreclosure auction being conducted on the front steps at about the time we were there. After driving around for about 10 minutes, we found some short term metered parking that accepted credit cards along a side street, paid, and headed in.
I had called ahead - 4 or 5 phone calls in all - to find out about the documentation that I needed. What I learned over the phone was that I needed to go up to the 5th floor Law Library, pick up and fill out an information package, and take it to an office in the basement. When we got inside, we checked the building directory, and saw only 4 floors listed, plus the basement. We decided to head downstairs to ask about the missing 5th floor.
After pressing the down button and getting on the elevator, we noticed a button for the 5th floor, but decided to continue downstairs to confirm.
T was a little nervous walking through the basement level, likely due to the various people walking around with shackles, orange jumpsuits, and police escorts. We found our room along a nondescript side hall. When we went in and talked to the gentlemen behind the counter, he informed us that he wouldn't be able to get us the documents we needed even if we had gotten the paperwork from the 5th floor. He also explained that the 5th floor was only accessible from some parts of the building.
He then redirected us to Civil Records, which was located down the hall, through a tunnel, across a breezeway, into the next building, and to the left (I think). So after double and triple checking the directions, we headed out to the second location. Along the way, we passed the courthouse cafeteria. They had a big display stating that they now sold sushi. (Mmm, tasty - courthouse basement sushi, my favorite) When we got to the next building, we had to ask somebody for help - it turned out that the room we needed was tucked away in a nondescript corner of the building. It was also called something different.
We went in and asked the woman at the desk about the paperwork I needed. She brusquely informed us that she didn't have that info, and that we would have to go to a third location, back in the 3rd floor of the original building. Her attitude led us to believe that our unwelcome interruption deeply disturbed her from the gossip in which she was actively engaged. So back across the breezeway, through the tunnel, across the hall, and up the elevator we went.
Fortunately, the third location was the charm. The lady here was very friendly and helpful, and provided the documentation we needed without further searching. And as an added bonus, there was no wait.
From there, we headed a couple of blocks to the west to the SA Police Dept. We needed to get fingerprinted - again - for a DPS State criminal background check. (Side note - hopefully both of those will come back clean. ;-) ) We got into another line. There were two windows open. One was for a young woman who was seeking a police report about an aggravated robbery for which she could provide no concrete information, such as date, location, or any details that might help them actually look up the case. The other line was for the rest of us, of which there were about 15. After about a 20 minute wait, once we were finally next in line, the lady behind the desk asked the queue if anybody was just in line to get fingerprinted. We eventually got through and got our second set of digital prints.
Its funny, so far we've been able to get through the adoption process with a relative minimum of bureaucracy and line waiting. Hopefully yesterday got us mostly caught up on both of those fronts. On the bright side, we're now three steps closer to completing our dossier. Only a few items left, and we should be able to submit the dossier and get started on the waiting. I even got our taxes done tonight, a copy of which I need to include as well. That may be the earliest I've ever done our taxes.
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