There is an old sport in germany, called government office ping pong. Unique about it is, that the player is also the ball. Itis also the only game played with „a ball“ I know that’s taking more than a day or a week; sometimes the games lasts for serveral weeks or even months.
This game started on the 05. of June 2009. I wrote a mail to my city if a marriage, done in another country, is valid in germany. I got the reply, that there is nothing to be done in germany once we got married somewhere else, except to add an so-called „Apostille„. Unfortunately, Canada did not join the international treaty which apostilles are based on.
We contacted the office of foreign affairs, which in turn said that the marriage will be recognized being valid without that.
First turn.
We got married on August, 29th in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. For private reasons, we decided to move together April, 2nd, 2010. The visa was issued under my wife’s married name and she got to germany (good :)). Today, we went to the registration office.
Second turn.
First, I wrote a mail what we will need for registration. Reply: Passport and marriage certificate. Well, once we got to the counter, we said that we need proof by the renting company.
Third turn.
The registration office refused to register my wife neither under her married name (her passport says „Fritsche“) nor being married. We have to go to the marriage office now. Oh so great. I can only cross fingers, that there’s somebody who can at least imagine that
a) Canadian marriage certificates look different than german ones and
b) can imagine that „the stamp“ is not the executive’s sword as it is in germany.
… to be continued …
