Die Anmeldung

One of the things you have to do in Switzerland is register with the Gemeinde (community) in which you live. You have to present yourself at the Gemeindeschreiberei (I guess that would translate as something like the city hall) and tell them that you live in town. When you move out, you have to tell them you are leaving (abmelden), and then register yourself in your new hometown. You have eight or ten days (I'm not sure which) to do this. (Other than a fine, I'm not sure what would happen if you failed to register. I'm trying to find out - I thought about asking yesterday as we were registering, but they seemed kind of busy. Plus I didn't want it to seem like I was fishing for information for some friend who was unregistered. I do know that you need to show your documents when you get hired, and often when you sign a rental contract, so if you don't register you're sort of condemned to doing all sorts of things illegally.)

Before the move, we lived in Small Village. Dealing with the Gemeinde there was always very easy for me. There were just over 1,000 residents in Small Village, and only about 20 Ausländer/innen (foreigners). I can't remember a single visit to the Small Village Gemeindeschreiberei when there were other people there trying to get something done at the same time. I never had to wait for a single thing. Renewing my residency visa was a breeze - about a month before it was set to expire the Small Village Gemeinde sent me a letter asking me to bring the current visa, my passport, and a picture to the Gemeindeschreiberei. They collected copies of the necessary documents and forwarded them on to the Kantonal (like states) Fremdenpolizei (immigration). The Fremdenpolizei would send the extended visa back to Small Village, they would sent me a letter telling me I could pick it up, and presto! Instant service.

Well, we live in Big City now. We went to register yesterday. When we showed up, we took a number. Picture something like a big city DMV - you take a number when you show up, there are about a dozen counters serving people, and a board indicates which number was being served at what counter. We waited about 15 minutes for our number to come up. At the counter we sat down and said we were there to register. We presented our Familienbuchlein (literally the little family book, but it's a meaningless translation for Americans - it is the collection of documents that verify our status), my visa, my passport, our Abmeldung from Small Village, our AHV cards (like Social Security numbers), R's Niederlassungsausweis (I don't even know how to translate this - it confirms that R lives where he says he lives), and a photo of me. The man helping us ran through some basic questions for each of us: Have you ever been registered in Big City before? Are you employed? Where? What's your confession? (You need to report your denomination so that you are billed the proper church tax.) R also applied for a new national identity card. This had nothing to do with the move - it's just that his old one had expired. The whole thing took about thirty minutes and cost 178CHF (about $140 US), and at the end of it R had an updated Niederlassungsausweis (Small Boy and I do not have one, we are attached to R's) and I had an updated visa. R's ID card will come in the mail.

Less painful than I expected, actually.