Brazilians sure do love public notaries

I just don't get it. Why the fascination with notaries? I mean, really, aren't they only supposed to be used in the incident that you need someone to verify that it is in fact YOU that is signing "that" document? Not for everything else.

But I swear that everything that I send to the Brazilian consulate has to be notarized. The problem I have with this is that it's a pain in the behind. I have to go out of my way and depend on other people. Apparently this is something that I don't enjoy doing because it makes me royally annoyed every time.

We had to ask friends to follow me around town to have their signatures notarized when we were legalizing our marriage in Brazil. My signature had to be notarized when I wrote the letter to the consulate swearing I'd never been married to a Brazilian previously. Now for E's passport renewal we have to do it all again. And this time it's not just to verify that E is who is he when he signs the application. We also have to have his documents notarized stating that they are in fact copies of his documents (passport, military ID, birth certificate).  I don't get that, but then again, I don't want to send his birth certificate in the mail so getting a notarized copy is a better choice. The thing is that the bank, or notary, has to make copies and then notarize them. They won't accept the copies I made.

So here's the story.....

I tried to hurry home from work today to meet E so that we could go to the bank together. We made it before they close at 4 p.m. and didn't have to wait too long before we were called on to have our documents notarized. Luckily for us, the banker who helped us recognized my husband and knows one of his trainers, AND is Brazilian, so he used his "jeitinho brasileiro" (for lack of a better translation, his "Brazilian way") to persuade his co-worker to notarize everything since his commission had expired. He knew exactly what to do as far as notarizations for the consulate and he, and his dissatisfied and grumpy co-worker who just wanted to go home, took care of everything for us. We were in and out in 20 minutes (which is good for our bank).

I feel everything was done to par since the Brazilian banker knew what he was doing. E's passport will be in the mail by the weekend - heading to Miami. I called the consulate this afternoon just to verify that we have everything and that we don't need to send originals (yea!!!) besides the expiring passport (obviously). I'm a satisfied customer.