I have been planning on emailing you or something to tell you how it worked out, although since it hasn't yet totally worked out, I was afraid of jinxing it a little. So, here's the story of what we've done so far, and hopefully if I set it up that way, the whole thing won't fall through. .)
So we take the train, walk up to Skatteverket in Stockholm and find out that the office we thought we were going to.. only does ID cards. Great. We get directions to the OTHER Skatteverket and take the subway over there (which also involved a lot of walking, of course.) We walk in and take our number and talk to a person there that listens to what we want and says, YES, we can do that here, and also, it will be about an hour and ten minutes before we can see you. So M waited there while the rest of us took off to have lunch. We went back at about the time limit and stood there while the lady starts telling us that they can't do it. M and his sister were there, and they were doing the Swedish thing, and they're all agreeing basically that she needs to apply for Swedish citizenship first. I am sitting there telling them that she is ALREADY a Swedish citizen, but I mean, I don't even speak the language well enough to follow the conversation so how can I argue with three Swedes, one of which is a government official in charge of these things? haha. So anyway, the lady is quite nice and helpful, and she tried, but finally told us that we needed to go to Migrationsverket. I had serious doubts about that, but she called them and verified. So.. M calls them the next morning and is told no, they don't do that. (of course.) However, they did finally 'prove' that I was right and she already IS a citizen--therefore, why would they need to have anything to do with her? So the answer there was--so sorry, but we can't help, apply in the US.
So, she's a Swede. We want to get her a passport, but Sweden doesn't know she exists. So.. I formulate a new plan. M also had to get his passport renewed. I told him to ask them about her when he applied, but he forgot. When we stopped to pick it up on Thursday evening, I nagged him into asking. I mean, it makes NO SENSE that a Swedish citizen should go to another country to apply for a Swedish passport, you know? He had to repeat his inquiry about three times in different ways to get the guy to understand the situation--she needs a passport. We need a coordination number to put on the application. HOW DO WE GET A COORDINATION NUMBER? And THAT is when the guy at the police station.... told us that they could certainly request a coordination number from Skatteverket. It might take oh, UP TO THREE DAYS, though. That's in caps because he said it like it was a big deal. We thought it was funny because three days is nothing in the general schee of things. Better than three trips to a consulate.
So we went back the next morning with all our papers, and we filled the special application out, and we were told this time that it might take a week. The girl at the window this time was unsure about the process, but she went to ask and came back with what looked like a procedural manual, so theoretically, it should really be a valid process. We just don't have results from it yet. We're not sure it will be ready in time for us to pick up the passport, but assuming the number comes through, we're probably going to give it a try and see what happens.
Sorry for the novel-length comment. :) Keep your fingers crossed!
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Date: 2010-07-05 10:06 pm (UTC)So we take the train, walk up to Skatteverket in Stockholm and find out that the office we thought we were going to.. only does ID cards. Great. We get directions to the OTHER Skatteverket and take the subway over there (which also involved a lot of walking, of course.) We walk in and take our number and talk to a person there that listens to what we want and says, YES, we can do that here, and also, it will be about an hour and ten minutes before we can see you. So M waited there while the rest of us took off to have lunch. We went back at about the time limit and stood there while the lady starts telling us that they can't do it. M and his sister were there, and they were doing the Swedish thing, and they're all agreeing basically that she needs to apply for Swedish citizenship first. I am sitting there telling them that she is ALREADY a Swedish citizen, but I mean, I don't even speak the language well enough to follow the conversation so how can I argue with three Swedes, one of which is a government official in charge of these things? haha. So anyway, the lady is quite nice and helpful, and she tried, but finally told us that we needed to go to Migrationsverket. I had serious doubts about that, but she called them and verified. So.. M calls them the next morning and is told no, they don't do that. (of course.) However, they did finally 'prove' that I was right and she already IS a citizen--therefore, why would they need to have anything to do with her? So the answer there was--so sorry, but we can't help, apply in the US.
So, she's a Swede. We want to get her a passport, but Sweden doesn't know she exists. So.. I formulate a new plan. M also had to get his passport renewed. I told him to ask them about her when he applied, but he forgot. When we stopped to pick it up on Thursday evening, I nagged him into asking. I mean, it makes NO SENSE that a Swedish citizen should go to another country to apply for a Swedish passport, you know? He had to repeat his inquiry about three times in different ways to get the guy to understand the situation--she needs a passport. We need a coordination number to put on the application. HOW DO WE GET A COORDINATION NUMBER? And THAT is when the guy at the police station.... told us that they could certainly request a coordination number from Skatteverket. It might take oh, UP TO THREE DAYS, though. That's in caps because he said it like it was a big deal. We thought it was funny because three days is nothing in the general schee of things. Better than three trips to a consulate.
So we went back the next morning with all our papers, and we filled the special application out, and we were told this time that it might take a week. The girl at the window this time was unsure about the process, but she went to ask and came back with what looked like a procedural manual, so theoretically, it should really be a valid process. We just don't have results from it yet. We're not sure it will be ready in time for us to pick up the passport, but assuming the number comes through, we're probably going to give it a try and see what happens.
Sorry for the novel-length comment. :) Keep your fingers crossed!