Vegas, baby, Vegas!

We were briefly panicked by the notion that I needed to have a "legalized marriage" certificate before entering Taiwan but I actually only need it for Shirley to apply for her ARC and she is not coming until July so we have some time, luckily, because he have some issues...

There is a process by which some documents need to be "legalized" before they can be used in Taiwan and they prefer that you do this in your home country. Someone from TECO translates the document into Chinese and then notarizes it. Mark, at TECO, was very helpful and said his office can do this. When I said I needed to get a marriage licesnse legalized he asked, "Where did you get married? What state?" When I said that we had been married in Nevada he quickly retorted, "Las Vegas!?!?" Yes. I thought he was going to ask if we were married by Elvis but he avoided that one. Unfortunately, he can't help us, we have to deal with the San Francisco TECO branch as they follow jurisdiction.

Shirley got a hold of someone equally helpful at the San Francisco TECO branch who fortunately was a veteran in dealing with Vegas marriages and she quickly asked that we take the marriage certificate out of it's frame and examine the back. Upon examiniation it was apparent that this was a "replica" marriage certificate and that we need to file with the Clark County courthouse to get a certified original mailed to us. I guess not only the Eiffel Tower is fake in Vegas. This is shaping up to be a bad Ashton Kutcher movie, as if "bad" and "Ashton Kutcher" is not redundant. I wonder if we're even married. If we find out we're not...I want our marriage penalty taxes back.

So the process is, pay $15 to Clark County to get a real marriage certificate, get it in 7-10 days, mail to SFO TECO, pay ~$15 + $29 shipping for them to send it to Taiwan. Then we can file for Shirley's ARC.

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