More visa headaches
6 JunThe visa run has been reasonably trouble free up until today. After travelling for an hour, I arrived at the Uzbek consulate to be told that it was completely impossible to collect a visa today.
The guy behind me in the line said if he didn’t collect his visas today 18 people couldn’t go on holiday, so they told him to wait. I thought if he can get a visa today, then so can I. I queued and approached the attendant again. The conversation went something like this:
Derek: ‘I traveled a long way and took a day off work to collect today. If that man can get some visas, then surely I can get mine’.
Attendant: [yelling] ‘The machine is broken. What do you expect me to do! I will post your visa to you when the machine is fixed.’
Derek: (Not wanting to give up) ‘Surely it was issued days ago’.
Attendant: [yelling and going red] ‘It is not possible’
Derek: ‘But I submitted the passports a week ago!’
Attendant: [calmly] ‘oh, a week ago’
...and with that he reached next to his seat and lifted Stephen and my passports.
I popped Stephen’s passport in the express post to Sydney, and continued to the Ukrainian Embassy to submit my papers. After queuing for half an hour my letter of invitation was rejected (albeit very sympathetically) for not appearing ‘official like’. The Ukrainian letter of invitation has been the most expensive so far, and it didn’t even work!
On the car front, I now have the MOT papers firmly in my grasp, and I think that’s worth a Friday afternoon beer for all of us.
