Bureaucratic phone calls

The quest for a residency permit continues, as my 90-day visa gets close to expiry...

I suppose the possibility of deportation is enough reason for anyone to get motivated to make some phone calls. :)

Since I last wrote about needing to make progress, nothing had happened. Last week was spent "trying" to make a phone call, which meant that pretty much every day I "intended" to do it, but put it off due to the fact that I either 1) didn't have time 2) didn't have a working phone 3) didn't have the right phone number.

It's imperative to call during work hours, of course.

I know that a lot of this was due to my own procrastination, but it didn't seem possible that SO many things could go wrong when trying to make one phone call! 

Then there was the weekend...continue/-

Monday

This morning I woke up and picked up my cell phone to see that the balance was 3 rubles (about 10 cents). Not again! Then a friend came to my rescue and put some money in my account using an electronic pay station. :)

Now that I had both a working phone AND a phone number, I could finally get down to business. I dialed the number...and got a fax machine. Arrrrrrrgh.

This happened several times. I checked and rechecked the phone number and it was the one I had used before and that a friend of mine had recommended. And I still got a BEEEEEEP. So I thought maybe it was just an automated answering machine?

An hour later...success! The phone RANG and there was a PERSON on the other end. She looked up my last name and said everything was all set and I could go to the local office for pick-up....after Wednesday.

This is great, but I'm still not sure when I can actually get into the local office and get my hands on this piece of paper, or get the stamp, or whatever is going to happen next. I can't seem to get through by phone to that office. So far I just have a few words of verbal confirmation from the central office, and that will have to be my progress for the day...