I was finally able to register with the federal police yesterday. I went through a similar bureaucratic process when I lived in Austria for a year. However, the Austrian process pales in comparison to the Brazilian process.
First, about a week ago, I had to pay around $115 in taxes to the Brazilian police. I couldn't just take the money directly to the police, though. That would be too simple. Instead, I had to fill out and print two forms from the website of the federal police and then take the completed forms and cash to the bank. At the bank, I had to explain what I needed to the official at the front desk, who then gave me a number, and sent me through a metal detector. Only after I passed through the metal detector, was I allowed to speak with a teller. Once I got to the teller, the process took fewer than five minutes. I gave her the two forms and the cash and she gave me two large receipts in return.
Once I paid the taxes, I went to a photo booth to get two 3 cm x 4 cm photos for the temporary ID. I still had several 2 x 2 passport photos from the U.S., but the Brazilian ID requires a different size. Once I had the photos, I had to make copies of four specific pages of my passport and have the copies notarized. This step proved to be quite the challenge. First, given the anti-counterfeit security features of the passport pages, my passport wouldn't copy clearly on a regular copier. I had to go to a Xerox copy store and have them copy the passport using a high-quality laser copier. I then took these copies to a notary, whose address I had found online. The official at the notary told me that he couldn't notarize the copies without a translation of the entire passport, which would cost me around $4 per page. (For reference, there are 24 pages in a U.S. passport.) I had heard of other students in my language class who had gotten their passport copies notarized without translations, so I asked them where they went. It turns out that they went to a different notary, one that offered basically the same services, just employed different people. This notary notarized the copies of my passport in about 15 minutes and charged me about $14.
By this point, I had paid the taxes, had two official photos, and had the notarized copies of my passport. Yesterday, I took all of these documents, plus my original visa application and my passport to the federal police. Two students from the language class learned that they could register with the federal police in Niterói between 8am and 4pm instead of having to take a taxi all the way out to the international airport at 5am, which is when the line begins forming for the registration process at the airport. So I thought I'd take my chances and go to Niterói instead of the airport. I think it was the better option. At least I didn't have to get up at the crack of dawn.
Niterói is across the river from Rio. I thought there was a bus from Gávea (where I'm living), over the bridge, and into Niterói, but after waiting 40 minutes for the bus (remember there are no schedules), I concluded that there must not be a direct bus to Niterói, at least not from Gávea. What to do next? I went back to the house to look up other options online. That's when I learned that there was also a ferry from Centro, which is where I had taken the language class, to the center of Niterói. (I knew this before, actually, but had promptly forgotten once I heard about the mythical bus from Gávea. Okay, perhaps the bus does exist, but it just wasn't coming yesterday!)
Armed with this new information, I ventured out into the 95-degree heat again. By this time, it was 11am and there was not a cloud in the sky. After waiting 20 minutes, I boarded the bus to Centro and rode about an hour into the city. When I got off the bus in Centro, I walked two blocks down to the dock. (In the two weeks of the language program in Centro, I never realized the center of the city was so close to the water!) After paying $1.65 for a ticket, I took a seat on the second floor of the ferry and had a nice view out the back window. Unfortunately, Rio doesn't have any open-air ferries like the ones in the U.S. Considering how crowded the ferries can get, though, this might be a good thing.
When I arrived in Niterói 20 minutes later, I began asking people for directions to the federal police since my directions were from the bus stop of the bus that never arrived. (The students who went before me told me ahead of time that everyone knew where the station was, so I didn't bother looking up new directions, especially since Google Map's coverage of Niterói is sketchy at best.) It turned out to be about a 20-minute walk from the ferry to the station -- not too bad, considering the size of the city. What I hadn't counted on, though, was that there were actually two police stations: one for the military police and the other for the federal police. I went to the military police station first because I saw it first. It was immediately apparent I was in the wrong place, particularly when a fully armed soldier came to the iron gate to greet me. However, I figured both stations were police stations -- the military police must know where the federal police are located. I was correct, and as it turns out, the federal police station was just two blocks down the street and around the corner. I thanked the soldier and made my way quickly to the federal police station. By this point, it was 2:30 pm and the office would close for the day at 4pm.
Once I arrived at the federal police station, I was relieved to see how small the station was and how clearly everything was labeled. This should be a piece of cake. I took a number and five minutes later was called to report to an official. The official took a look at my documents and handed me another form. I filled out the new form (luckily, I brought my dictionary) and gave it back to the official, who then sent me into a backroom to be fingerprinted. After being fingerprinted and washing the black ink off my fingers--do you know how hard it is to get black ink off your fingers without any sort of scrubbing implement?!--I returned to the original official. He took another long look at my documents, filled out the spaces designated for "official use only", instructed me to sign on two more lines, and finally, with the flourish of his pen, approved my application for "temporary foreigner" status in the country of Brazil. He glued my photo to my temporary ID slip--it's not even a card--added a barcode sticker, a stamp, and a raised seal, and finally gave it back to me. In that moment, I became an officially registered estrangeira from the EUA. Finally.
A former participant of my exchange program described this registration process as our "initiation". It certainly is; I'm just glad it's done. I hope to return to Niterói on a much less stressful day to visit the famous Museum of Contemporary Art designed by the Brazilian architect, Oscar Niemeyer. When I do, I'll write all about it here.
