Applying for RNE in Sao Paulo

So we are in the midst of getting our appointment with the Federal Police in Lapa and came across a really helpful thread on gringoes and wanted to copy it here as the more help you have, the more prepared you are and the easier (and less stressful) the process will be.  I will, of course, post a new blog on our personal experience when we finally have our RNE!! Wish us luck!


Note to self : never rely on cheap agents again!! We are currently photocopying all stamped passport pages to be notarised this morning and hopefully be back in Lapa this afternoon for our appointment.


This was originally posted on gringoes.com by user Molendinar:

Finally got my permanency on basis of marriage approved so a big thanks to everyone on here for all their help, in the end it was a relatively smooth process and has only taken 5 months from start to finish (I am in São Paulo).

My timeline was:

27-04-10 - handed in documents
17-06-10 - Police visit
09-08-10 - appears on MJ website - Aguadando Análise
24-09-10 - Proposta do Chefe - deferido
27-09-10 - Publicado no DOU

In order to get the page from the DOU I did two things.

First I went to the Imprensa Oficial in Mooca, Rua da Mooca 1921, São Paulo 03103-902. You go in the door past reception, go to the right and it's the second desk on the right. I asked for the DOU for that day but it hadn't arrived, this was about 3pm) so they gave me a phone number and said to phone the next day to check before coming (2799-9482, 2799-9797). I phoned the next day at 9am and it had arrived so I went back and they photocopied the page, reducing it to A4 and then stamped the back of it. I was charged R$2.

Because of the delay at the Imprensa Oficial I also printed a copy myself of the relevant page from the Internet (http://portal.in.gov.br/in select Pesquisa nos Jornais then "Leitura Completa dos Jornais and then put in the publication and the date) and took it to a cartório to get authenticated. They refused to do this initially but I insisted the only copy available was from the Internet and the boss agreed so they authenticated it and stamped it with "Esta AUTENTICAÇÃO não dispensa consulta à internet para verificação da validade". This was the copy I gave to the Policia Federal in the end and was accepted with no problems.

I then took all the documents to the Policia Federal in Lapa and joined the queue for RNE. I was then given a form to complete and a blank "declaração de desembarque" statement as well as a list of the documents necessary. I was also told I needed to make an appointment, luckily I was able to do it the same day, but I needed to go back to the ground floor and register at the first window on the left after you come through the metal detector. It was about 11am by this time.

After getting a number I had to then fill out the form, and the declaration then join the queue again.

I was asked for the following documents:

• RNE application form, which will be given to you at the DPF office when you arrive. You fill it in there and submit with the other documents. Only fill in the part in the red box, only sign it on the back - you sign the front in the presence of the police officer)
• Two (02) recent colour photographs, size 3cm x 4cm with a white background, no date on photos
• valid passport, plus authenticated copy from a cartório of ALL the pages except for the blank ones i.e. photo page plus every page that has a stamp in it
• autenticated copy of marriage certificate
•authenticated copy of page from the DOU reduced to A4, with no pen marks (if yo have been published more than once then you need to bring all of them)
• original protocol (this was a stamp in my passport)
• declaração de desembarque (fill in the blanks in the statement about when you arrived in Brazil)
• recpeipts for the payment of the two fees. Go to the web site https://www2.dpf.gov.br/gru/gru?nac=1 from which you need to print out vouchers for: Code 140082 (REGISTRO DE ESTRANGEIROS/RESTABELECIMENTO DE REGISTRO) R$64.58 and Code 140120 (CARTEIRA DE ESTRANGEIRO DE PRIMEIRA VIA)  R$124.23. Pay these at a bank before you go to the DPF office.

I was not asked for  a Consular Certificate.

Here's the paper I was given (he asked my nationality, when I said British he ticked the boxes):



Once I handed all this in I was told I had to come back at 15h00 to get my passport back and receive the protcolo. However, he never told me I would be called for fingerprinting, but luckily I decided to wait. After 20 minuted I was called to do the now digital fingerprints where they scan your fingers and take your photo. The woman there then told me I didn't have to come back till 15h30.

I decided to wait, not a lot of things to do in Lapa and by this point it was 13h00 and I'd brought a book to read.

At 14h30 they started shouting out people's names, it was very hard to make out what the names were, some of the police offices used a microphone and speakers while others just shouted the names. You really needed to pay attention. They do this every 10 minutes. Anyway, 15h30 came and went and finally at 16h15 my name was called and I was given my passport back and my protocolo.

I asked about getting a certificate to prove I was awaiting the RNE and was told to come back in 3 weeks by which time my name should be in the system and I could then request a certificate.

Hope all this helps someone.

For a good cause

One of my new lovely Sao Paulo friends, who is a native Kiwi too, has roped me into helping her out with the CIWS annual fundraiser. If you are around in a couple of weekends and want to eat, drink and be merry all for a good cause buy a ticket!  

All the profits go to Casa São José, a community center that helps 3000 families in Jardim São Luis.

If you are unable to attend but would still like to support in other ways you can contact us on 

sponsorship@ciwsbrazil.org or raffle@ciwsbrazil.org.

The CIWS is very happy to announce the 2010 beneficial event  

 “Luzes do Mundo” to be held on Saturday, October 23rd at the  

 Residence of the Canadian Consul General, Ms. Abina Dann.

All members of the São Paulo international community are invited 

to attend this evening of cocktails, dinner and live music. 

Don’t miss out on this great networking and community event!   

For those interested in obtaining a ticket (R$150) 

 please contact Sandra at reservations@ciwsbrasil.org

Looking forward to seeing you there! 

Canadian International Women's Society

www.ciwsbrazil.org 

Almost there!

In Buenos Aires trying to sort out our visas... not the worst place to be I guess but I am dying to get back to Sao Paulo to finally start settling in. We have been travelling since 29th December 2009 and our 3 month trip / living out of our suitcases has extended to Month No. 9!

Our visa story so far... 

March - process started

April - process for UK police reports takes up to 2 months (no online application so dependent on Brazil post which is actually not so bad...)

May - police reports need to be legalised at Brazilian consulate in London

June - agent submits application but won't be ready for our June London trip so we elect Buenos Aires

July - question about application comes back, agent re-submits with clarifications. Wedding cert and Sophie's birth certificate needs to be translated into Portuguese by an authorised translator. Agent also just remembers that these documents need to be legalised by the consulate (nice of her to remember after going already in June!)

August - one of Tim's colleagues sits next to someone who works in the Ministry of Trabalhadores and explains the situation. He takes her contact details and that week Tim emails the case file.

August 15th - one week later the visa is finally approved BUT we have to pick it up in Buenos Aires, which is a bit of pain as we are heading back to the UK for some weddings.

August 26th - another visit to the Brazilian consulate in London but (obviously) they will not legalise our wedding certificate which is New York issued. Nightmare! Tim finds an agent to send the certificate to in New York but it turns out that it needs to be notarised by the State Department first, and then the City Clerk before the Brazilian consultate in New York will legalise it. 

September 2nd - In Buenos Aires by now and the agent calls as he needs Tim to send a notarised letter giving him permission to have our wedding certificate released to him. There is a specific letter format required. The notary system is not as simple as it should be (in New Zealand I had just called up a notary in the yellow pages, went to visit him and it took 2 minutes, literally). A client of Tim's recommended some notaries but we couldn't find one that spoke English so we winged it with one. It turns out that they have to produce a separate formal letter to confirm that they have checked his identification and have it sent off somewhere else and it was going to take 6 hours. When we returned at 5pm they told Tim that it wasn't complete as the formal ID letter also needed to be sent to the School of Notaries to be stamped..... we decided to Fedex it up to NY as it was anyhow.
September 3rd - the NY agent managed to get the certificate legalised at the consulate and fedexed that night. woohoo! Appointment had to be rescheduled for Wednesday as Tuesday was a public holiday.

TODAY - WOOHOO our passports are with the Consulate now. Our appointment was for 12:30 and we turned up but it was really just to submit our forms and passports. She was happy with all our legalised documents, thank god! We were honestly prepared for something else to happen to delay our visa! The fee was much higher than we thought. Our agent in Brazil had told us it was Peso $421 for all of us but it turned out to be $2,400 instead! I think there were additional fees for processing only the British passports but because I hold a NZ passport (and New Zealander's love Brazilians, they have a study/work visa available for Brazilians) there was no additional fee for me.  There was no way that they could fast track it so we pick it up on Monday. Flights have been changed to Monday evening now and we have an extra 5 days here in Buenos Aires so going to make the most of it as don't think we'll be back here for awhile.


*I haven't mentioned the Brazilian agent's name as we haven't completed the process quite yet and I don't want to jinx it! But I will do once we have them in our hands as a warning to anyone not to use her... I guess we got what we paid for, and less : (

A weekend away in Switzerland - NOT!

We couldn’t decide where to visit this weekend so we flipped a coin for the beach or the interior. The coin said the interior – the coin was wrong! We had glorious sunshine all weekend and, as you can see from the map, we were nowhere near the beach : (. Taking heed of this adventure here, we took our trusty GPS and I memorised the map (as Tim was insisting that we just needed to get to Taubate and turn left).

We visited Campos do Jordao which is a small town in the interior, about 2.5 hour drive from Sao Paulo. We hired a car for the weekend which only cost us Rs 150 for the entire weekend (friday through to monday) but it was a special rate for Father's Day! Normally it would be Rs150/day and we've yet to find a decent rental place nearby.

I had had this town on the list of places to visit as it is THE town to go to in the winter. I found two heliports on the map - that's how many rich people from SP like to come here and be cold. There is a winter festival there all through July and if you look at all the local gossip rags (very good for learning portuguese, seriously!) most of the local celebs will have been papped by papparazzi here. Mainly Paulistas, and some Carioca's, travel here to play cold (OK, Sat night did drop to 12'C). It's a chance for them to bring out their big fur coats, woolly hats and mittens  I have to be honest, I was a little disappointed with the town as it doesn't look anything like Switzerland. I honestly thought it was going to be a picturesque little Swiss village in the Brazilian countryside....

We had managed to book last minute, Pousada Piano Piano which was about a 10 minute walk (part of up a hill) from the main part of town, Vila Capivari. Places were still pretty full this weekend and most require a minimum 2 night stay which is a little pricey at Rs350 per night.* They were very family friendly, provided a cot for Sophie, had a great selection of movies and electric blankets! It was such a gorgeous day we desperately wanted to sit outside for lunch. We walked around the square and found Baden Baden, famous for it's brews, which had lots of outdoor seating but it's where everyone wants to be / be seen. There were lots of places for fondues and hot chocolate but we really couldn't bring ourselves to pretend to be cold when it was about 25C. We eventually decided on a beautifully terraced Italian restaurant who were a little snobby but didn't bat an eyelid with Sophie throwing spaghetti around our table. 

We then took a drive to Pista de Itapeva (10km) which turned out to be a pretty breath-taking view of the surroundings. You could see 3 towns in the distance, and beyond that was really impressive mountain range. This photo doesn't really do it justice.

We had dinner at Baden Baden as a table was free and I was up for trying their fondue. We actually ended up with a hot 'tepid-warm' plate instead of a vat of hot oil, but it was really good aside from waiting an hour for our meat to cook ... I understand that being cold is a novelty to most Brazilians but, now that I think about it,  how many 'winter' countries do al-fresco dining? Sitting outside at 12C, is not a pleasant way to dine!

On Sunday we took drove to Horto Florestal (10km from Vila Capivari) which is their state park. I wish we had done a bit more research and been prepared with walking shoes and backpacks as this was definitely the highlight of the area. There were a 6 different trails of varying difficulty, and lots of forest and fauna and waterfalls to see. We, instead, went to the chocolate shop (not quite Swiss but very, very good) and the local cantina. It was Father's Day in Brazil and lots of families were out celebrating. Tim even had other father's shake his hand and say 'Congratulations' on being a father, so lovely!

So in summary, if we come back to Campos do Jordao, we would come back with a bunch of friends, rent a big, lovely house, drink lots of baden baden, cosy and warm next to a fire most nights, and plan some great outdoor activities each day (horse riding, mountain bikes, off-road trips). OK, I should be honest - I doubt we'll head back to Campos in the near future. We've moved to  Brazil for the beach and sunshine. I don't need to pretend I like winter and we'll get our dose of it when we are back in the UK for a visit!

*Note to travellers use to great value accommodation in places like Asia - you can pay silly prices for very average places. Don't be surprised!

Brazil on The Pearl Report

The Pearl Report, Hong Kong, focuses on Brazil this week.

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jr55sxi533g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5rcatqcW68
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYEFMAfSgLk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rsf1ptRFMQ

E.CO

Sorry I haven't been blogging in awhile. We were travelling for most of June and had a friend visiting the start of July, and it always takes me a bit of time to mentally return to 'normal'. We are also still waiting for our visas, which is taking longer than expected. We really shouldn't be surprised. So we are in a 'holding zone' for now  - it's hard to make plans if you're not sure where you're going to be next month. That said, we are still making the most of Sao Paulo being our new home. On the weekend we went and did some exploring of parks. Spent some time chilling in Parque Ibirapuera and Parque Vila Lobos, hunted down a pretty decent chinese restaurant in Liberdade (Tenzan on R. Galvao Bueno which has giant portions, you only need one or two dishes for 4 people). We also visited Centro Cultural Sao Paulo  which is an open building next to Vergueiro metro. It serves as a library, meeting place, exhibition space, shelter from rain; courses, various performances and collections can be also found there.

There is a fantastic photography exhibition currently running called E.CO - a display of 20 photographic collections from Latin America and Europe. My favourite collections were NoPhoto (Espanha) which was a series of photos of chinese cyclists training in a chinese metropolis, Documentography (UK) which showed the impact of urbanisation throughout the world and SupayFotos (Peru) which depicted local life. I think everyone nowadays, with a digital camera and photoshop, fancies themselves as a photographer, but this exhibition has reminded me of why photographers are justified in calling themselves professional. Most of my photos are stored away on my computer somewhere never to see life in print. Seeing these well thought out images blown-up, close and personal is truly enlightening. Definitely worth it! (and then Liberdade is just up the road for lunch). 

*p.s if you are lover of photographic exhibitions and travel a bit, here are some other spaces that are worth visiting if you are in NY (International Center of Photography near Times Square ) or London (Getty Images Gallery near Oxford Circus).

24 hours in Rio

22:00 – Taxi to Lapa from Copacabana Rs. 21

22:25 – A caprinihia and 2 caprioskas to line the stomachs (not each!). A little strong… Rs.18

22:27 – Chicken on a stick Rs. 6 for 2.

22:30 – Stroll around a block filled with street art (or what others may call graffiti) and smelly-pee doorways.

22:40 – Find a ‘bar’ playing Queens of the Stone Age and Pearl Jam. Jon oh-so-very excited.

22:45 – Cervejas and  unrecognizable shots. Rs 16

22:53 – Jaime gets chatted up by the Brasilian equivalent of McLovin’ from Superbad.

23:00 – Drunk man sleeping on pavement wakes up for a boogey. Rs 0.

23:06 – Drunk man comes to make friends with Tim.

23:07 – Get a taxi to Rio Scenarium which is just around the corner – Rs 6.40

23:45  - Enter Rio Scenarium. Supposedly one of the best bars in town and usually filled with tourists but luckily we are here in a Brasilian winter! You get given a card as you enter and you have all your drinks marked on it, and pay your bill as you leave.

23:50 – Check out all the floors but the music is too good to be not on the dance floor.

00:18 – On the dance floor trying to samba or not to samba as it was in the boys’ case.

00:25 – Brasilian ladies come over to teach us (well, Tim and Jon) to samba.

00:45 – Don’t know any music / can’t sing along but the singer is absolutely amazing.

01:01 – Tim disappears for awhile and brings back some new Brasilian friends.

01:14 – Jon disappears to get more drinks.

01:28 – Samba is beautiful – learning when drunk is probably not the best way. Can anyone recommend a good school?

02:35 – Leave Rio Scenarium though Jon has ripped up his receipt before leaving Rs???

02:35 – Hungry

02:37 – Order pasta, pizza and sandwiches at an empty restaurant

02:38 – Jon falls asleep at table

02:52 – A beautiful girl pops in to dance samba with the band. Jon wakes up.

03:19 – Finally the food arrives but only the pizza (I don’t know how we get our orders so wrong still!!)

03:22 – Finished eating. Rs 65

03:23 – Jon insists on going back to rock bar (the hole on the wall with speakers on the road).

03:31 – Rock bar closing up. Boo for Jon.

03:32 – Taxi home though we end up going the long way round as Tim insists on giving directions.

08:30 – Forgot to turn on aircon, wake up in nice sweaty room with not-so-nice sweaty husband.

08:35 – I can hear Sophie crying - thank god for Juliete, our ‘Princess-Diana’/nanny.

10:00 – Coxinha de Frangos and the strongest shot of coffee for brunch. Rs 12.

10:45 – It’s 24 C, bright blue skies. I like Brasilian winters!

11:00 – Sweat out alcohol on Copacabana Beach sem Sophie.

14:35 – Back home for showers.

15:07 – Drive to up Corcovado to visit Cristo Redentor but hadn’t realised we couldn’t drive up all the way. Train not working until 20^th July either. Mini bus up to the old Hotel and another bus up to the top. Rs 45 each.

15:45 – Forgot that it’s a little bit cooler up there! He’s so worth shivering a little bit for. I always get a little bit emotional going to see this Art-deco Jesus, up close and personal!

17:52 – Rescue car from some little boys sitting on the hood.

18:00 – Jon decides he needs a picture of Cristo Redentor in his Brasilian colours and gets out on the main road around Lagoa only to have to run on his broken ankle to get back to the car. Picture was totally worth it, don’t you think?

18:45 – Decide to have a very quiet night and stay local.

18:55 – Find Bip Bip but they haven’t started music yet and recommend Italian around the corner.

19:00 – Pasta at Spacca Napoli – comfort food essential. Limoncello not so essential. Rs. 187. Limoncello Rs 0.

20:18 – Walk off food down Copacabana. It’s as Rio as you can imagine – beautiful bodies playing beach volleyball on floodlit beach, old sun-wrinkled fogies walking their dogs and tack sellers packing up for the day.

20:25 – Absolutely stuffed but always have a room for a churro filled with doce de leite! I’m not even a dessert person but these are SO sweet and SO good they make up for all the chocolate and cake I don’t usually eat! Rs 4

20:30 – Try to convince Jon to buy some really tacky art. He buys a piece for Rs 20

20:35 – Bip Bip …. a barzinho which is owned by a grumpy old man called Alberto. Pick up your beers from inside and let him know as you leave so he can keep your tab. Collective of old and new generation musicians play old samba on Sundays. No clapping please – click your fingers to show your appreciation. Lots of locals as well as tourists (yankee cougars!). Rs 45 for 8 beers and a Bip Bip CD.

*photos to be added when back in Sampa