Your ID, ma'am?

Boy. Getting your identity card sorted in Poland is quite the ordeal. 

I already have self-image issues, but that's just the beginning. 

About 4 weeks ago, I finally got to pick up my .... card. I'm not entirely sure what it's good for, but dammit, I've got it.

In fact, it took so long to get this little card, from the beginning of the process until completion, that I had almost forgotten all about it. The photos for this ugly thing were taken in June 2007. I finally received the card in October 2008. 

The office that deals with this stuff is reputed to be the most difficult in the city. Or perhaps in the country. Polish people just moan and roll their eyes when discussing this organisation.

Anyway, the whole thing involved numerous trips to the town hall in Zoliborz with our elderly landlord and his wife, to prove I live at the address on the card. Papers, birth certificate, passport, visa, husband's visa and passport, rental agreements, pointed queries about my parents names. Blah blah blah. The fact that I'd kept my maiden name as my middle name after marriage seemed to pose a particularly curious mystery to the clerk. ("But her maiden name is the same as her current middle name!! Did she marry her first cousin or what? Is that really how they do things in the USA? Hmmm." Raises one eyebrow.)

It would have all felt really worth it except that the photo on this ID card is absolutely hideous. Here's me on my US driving license. I look relaxed and happy, like I just rolled out of bed at 11 am on a Sunday morning.

And now here's me on this ridiculous ID card.

I look like some kind of stalking bird of prey. My hair's been cropped out and I'm definitely not smiling. In fact, I look extremely tense. Probably because I know that this hideous photo is going to be ME for the next couple of years. Ugh. 

Can't you see that I'm getting a headache? It looks like a migraine with all those shimmery stars and stuff above my left ear. Man. I'm going to go back to bed, preferably in a really dark room. And it's going to be a room without mirrors.