Immigration is a war of attrition.  They try to wear you down, form by form, bureaucrat by bureaucrat, year by year.  If you can resist -- if you can stand firm -- throwing enough time, energy, and money at the situation, the immigrant's war of attrition can eventually be won.

But it's not easy.  And it's not fun.

We thought and hoped that we were getting closer to closing one chapter of our family's immigration adventures, though it now appears that it these hopes were in vain.  After five years of uninterrupted legal residence in the Netherlands, we should be qualified to receive unrestricted residence permits -- which would allow us to live and work in the Netherlands for as long as we'd like, without having to continually reapply and pay more fees for limited residence permits (which must be secured every year, or every three years -- presumably depending on the mood of the bureaucrat who happens to process your application).  But now, we're being told that we have not, in fact, maintained legal residence for the entirety of our 6+ years in the Netherlands -- that there was, apparently, a three month period in 2005 where our residence permit applications were being processed but not yet granted (even though we have proof that the applications were submitted on-time) -- and they're now proclaiming that we do not qualify for the unrestricted residence permits.

We're not giving up that easily.  We've got a immigration attorney helping us as well, so our prospects are not entirely hopeless.  And even if we eventually have to run up the white flag and simply apply for our next round of limited residence permits until the spring of 2010 (when we should once again qualify, according to the Dutch government's current interpretation of the laws and our circumstances) for the unlimited residence permits.

But until then, we have to continue our war of attrition.  Today, I set out determined to get passport photos of Cor (required for his application for residence), copies of birth certificates for the kids, and copies of our city registration records (uitreksels) before Cor's nap at 10:00.

I should have known better.

When I arrived at our neighborhood city hall (stadsdeelkantoor), I learned that the office of records -- where I would be able to get our city registration records -- would not open until 10:00, as their hours are from ten o'clock in the morning to seven o'clock in the evening.  And if that wasn't bad enough, I learned that I would have to bike across town, to the Department of Personal Information (Dienst Persoonsgegevens) on the Stadhouderskade to get the needed birth certificates (even though I've always previously been able to arrange for copies of these documents through our neighborhood city hall).  Their hours of operation are from 8:30 in the morning to 4:30 in the afternoon, but I wasn't prepared to ride the bicycle in the pouring rain for an additional 15 minutes there and 15 minutes back -- so I gave up that goal as well.  Fortunately, I was able to get the passport pictures without any significant problems (except that it costs €8 for these four tiny pictures!).  And when I finally succeed in getting together all of the information, I'll have to bring it way across town (about a 45-minute bike ride away) to the Immigration and Naturalization Department, whose hours of operation are limited to the morning hours (I think 8:30 to 11:30, or something like that).

So you see... it's a war of attrition.  This morning, as I blundered through the Dutch bureaucracy, I found myself humming the tune to an old 1980s song by Petra called "Beat the System."  I looked the song up on YouTube and found the following (supremely fabulous) video of the song for your enjoyment as well.  Here's to "facing the heat, daring to beat the system!"