Well, being from a country where they have 3 official languages is really hard, especially when as…read moreme, you happen to speak the one that only 3 people actually use, (Me, Thierry Neuville and probably some other guy LOL) as Flemish and French are widely used, German is as good as forgotten, because there are only some small regions (were Belgium already small is) were it's used, thus making it even harder, and as this regions are in the french part of Belgium they all can speak it french, so german is widely ignored in official documents.
I'm a Belgian citizen with flemish roots, lived in the flemish region, and guess what, i can't speak flemish, i learned german since i was 4, but that ain't matter, i'm flemish, Period.
Thus i receive everything in that weird language.
So i got this letter from the consulate that i had to fill, and of course it was in flemish, i could understand maybe half of it, and the other half i helped myself using Google Translate, i could actually fill it completely :-) yay!
Fun fact: in Belgium you're forced to Vote.
Yeah, literally forced!
I haven't been in Belgium for almost 4 years, i don't know who the candidates are, i don't know the parties or even who is governing right now. But i'm forced to give a vote, maybe void it, but i must vote, otherwise i could lose my privileges of being a citizen, and living in a foreign country, well that's sort of a bad idea.
Nice, right?
I think not even belgians living in Belgium know it :-P
Watch this http://youtu.be/Ceg6NQKHd70
With that being said, i had to come here to register for next years elections.
I was informed i could vote personally either in Belgium or here at the consulate, or thru a third person also in Belgium or at the consulate, or even per mail.
I came here to tell them, or actually to return the letter i became telling them i'm voting personally in the consulate.
I've been here many times, first, when i moved over to Cologne to inform them that i'm now living here. That's also a duty.
Then when i moved here in Cologne, to update my address.
2 times for elections and some other times for some random information.
The ladies here, are actually really friendly, my problem is always when they see my ID, being issued in the flemish region, the start babbling in flemish until i stop them and ask to speak german. To which they laugh a bit, and ask how come, my name, my last registered address and so on was in flemish region and i can't speak it.
They always do their best to help, and answer all the questions i have.
Every time i come here has been nice to know that bureaucracy is not always annoying.
Why can't there be more people like this?
I know it's diplomacy and not just any kind of bureaucrats, but i've seen worse, a lot worse.
I'm kind of lucky for having the consulate here in Cologne, and this in the Downtown Area, and not having to travel to another city for something like voting!
I can also get my ID or Passport here, so yeah, that helps a lot.
Here in Germany only the Consulate in Cologne and the Embassy in Berlin can issue Passports or eID's, because only here they can get your biometric picture and fingerprints.
Kudos to the ladies for being so nice, friendly and help-oriented.
Their opening hours are also something to applaud, normally embassies and consulates as any other government offices have ridiculous opening hours, well here, my fellow lands people are open M-F from 9am to 1pm and 2pm to 5pm.
