Current Mood:  annoyed

Szplug, I’m so annoyed at the US Consulate in Zürich. I called them, weeks before Calliope was born, and told them my situation and asked what I should do, and they said “don’t bother applying for her passport and SS here, it will take too long, go away, do it once you get back to Australia.” So I followed that advice.

Now that I’m in the States, I’m discovering that I was supposed to declare the new baby to the US Embassy in Bern. Had I done so, it would be a LOT easier to get all her US Citizenship stuff while we are here. Because I didn’t do that (because freaking Zürich told me not to bother doing anything while in Switzerland), everything is that much harder.

I had thought Calliope would automatically be a US citizen… but she is not. She requires naturalization, because we are not currently permanent residents of the USA. So we have to fill out all this horrible paperwork to get her naturalized and pay a whopping $460 (already paid $50 to get her birth certificate translated into English). If I had got the paperwork from Zürich, it only would have cost about $50 and…