Greek Passport

It's my turn to blog about bureaucratic circumstances in acquiring a necessary documents for traveling (well, actually I managed to avoid all headaches, but ONE). Though, firstly, I should say that I am very grateful to have dual citizenship!!! Ok, so here's the story:

Of all years, my Greek passport had to expire in March 2013, during which we would still be galavanting around the world! 

Ok, you ask....why couldn't you just have used your US passport?? And the answer to that is : I wanted to save some money and more headaches (on top of those Rakesh has been through). With a Greek passport, I would be able to travel without requiring any VISAs to the countries we plan to visit, except for a VISA upon entry to Cambodia!


Headaches I've been able to avoid: 

      #1: I would have had to obtain a Brazilian VISA, prior to traveling, for $160(!!!). Why this much? Well, it's only fair I guess, as this is a reciprocity fee. FYI, Rakesh only had to pay $20 for his!

      #2: I would have had to pay for a $131 at the airport upon arriving in Argentina (another reciprocity fee)!

      #3: Guess what?! Correct! Another reciprocity fee.  $140 to enter Chile!!

      Possible #4: One more reciprocity fee - $130 to enter Bolivia (which may be one of our destinations). 

So if my calculations are correct: I have saved us $431 or possibly $561 (if we end up in Bolivia)!!! Waaahhhoooo!

Notice, I have not even started to mention VISAs for countries in Southeast Asia (except for Cambodia), as my research for these countries has not been as extensive (i.e. regarding cost for US citizens) and now that I have my Greek passport renewed, I don't even need to bother.

Getting my Greek passport was not a piece of cake. I managed to keep fairly calm and my positive vibes helped, I'm sure. Though, admittedly about 2 months into the process, I was pretty much on tenter hooks and probably checked my phone for a voicemail, at least 10 times a day (ok, slight exaggeration), hoping to hear that my passport had arrived!! 

Here's the story. I'll try to be brief. 

I was happy to be on top of renewing my passport EARLY. I believe it was last April or May when I called the consulate to request an appointment in order to renew my passport. Well, disappointingly, I didn't get very far....The lady asked me: "when does your passport expire?" and I said: "March 2013". The response was: MMAAAARRRCH TWO THHOUUUSAAAND THIRTEEEEEN??!!!...I can't do anything about it now...don't call me back until November!" Yikes! I attempted to tell her that I needed my passport in order to leave for my travels in October, but she clearly didn't care and told me nothing could be done so far in advance. HHmmm! Here's my theory, she was inundated with too much work and didn't want to take on another job. I felt somewhat defeated, but not completely...

Luckily, I stuck to my guns, looked up the renewal process online again, and sure enough I read that one could renew their passport up to 12 months prior to the date of expiration of the current passport.  However, by the time I got the impetus to look into all this again, it was July! I called the lady again, and of course she didn't remember me...The story begins pretty much the same way as above...I anticipated her response the answer I gave her regarding the date of expiration. I was prepared with my armour!! I said "listen.." She did! I told her about my research on the internet, and I won! But then I couldn't believe the words that came out of her mouth..."it will take 2 to 2.5 months to get your passport"....aaahhh! I was practically shattered. I ran to the calender after I hung up and counted the days over and over again...I thought, there's no way...I MUST get my passport BEFORE we leave....

and I did (a week ago). The lady was right. It took 2.5 months for me to get my passport! 

Phew!!

Oh! Just to let you know what the process entailed..

1) Appointment with Consulate general to file application (luckily this was only 2 days after my phone call to the lady)

2) Application sent from SF Greek consulate to Athens Immigration Police department

3) then to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in Athens

4) then to NYC Greek consulate (!)

5) and finally back to SF consulate

(and what is worse...is that the passport is sent with bulk mail only when Diplomatic documents are sent. Approx. every 3 weeks)...Hence, the required timeframe for the whole process 2.5 months!!!

I want to thank my brother-in-law, Alexandros, for making a few calls to inquire about the whereabouts of my passport. The information he relayed to me helped to calm my tense nerves, shortly before receiving my passport!

Argentine visa

OK, so Argentina does not have a consulate in SF.   I am flying out to LA for this.  I  take an early morning flight to be just in time for rush hour traffic in LA. Great! This is my first time in LA and excited to spot the Hollywood sign on the hills. We pass through these oil rigs on the way...what is this place???Oil rigs in the middle of the city, and they have a smog problem.  What is the big surprise here?

Anyway, I am an hour and a half early at the consulate.  I look up for a local cafe and find this place called Sicily cafe. I walk in thinking that it would be a Italian cafe, but it has breakfast burrito on the menu.... :(.   Not what I was expecting.  I just have a English muffin sandwich.  The people serving the food are nice so I guess it was a OK place.

The consulate is empty and I am very happy.  This should go very smoothly. Apparently not.  By the time I get to my turn, the place is full. Still, the staff seem to have things under control. So here is the quick succession of events that happened.  I had the wrong application form.  The Argentine application form  for LA is not available online and is mailed out to you when you make the visa appointment by e-mail. I had missed it and had fought all night to find the application form from New York.  The lady was nice enough to give me the LA application form. I submit my forms and plead with her regarding my itinerary.  I don't have a complete itinerary yet, and explain that I plan to leave the country by bus(for which I can't purchase a ticket 3 months in advance).  She agrees to proceed with my application.

What happens next is great! One of the best people watching episodes of my life. Guy with trendy glasses and a laptop walks in trying to sweet talk the consular staff regarding something.  The girl keeps a straight face and gives him the bad news.  He continues to sweet talk her, she breaks into a smile, but he has little luck with his work and goes away disappointed.  Some staff member calls for a "Gomez" from inside the office.  I run up to the door because I thought I head Venkatez...No luck.  Now I am engrossed in reading my copy of Financial Times I got at the airport, when some dude shakes me.  Apparently this time they did call out for Venkatez, and I thought I misheard again.....confusing.

While this is happening more interesting people walk in and the consulate is really full.  Middle aged lady, who looks like she can break into a tango any minute. A rowdy baby, who is ripping apart the tourism promotional magazine, a family of six and only one of them has official business at the consulate.  Two girls, one of whom is making monkey faces at the baby tearing the magazine , who is now the center of attraction for all the people in the consulate.  Awesome!!!

One thing that popped to my mind was the seating layout at the consulate.  It was so informal.  They had a coffee table in the middle and all the chairs were facing each other.  It was not the usual classroom style seating.  This was so conducive to the kind of human interaction I saw.  People generally seemed to be interacting and having a fairly decent time.  It was great.

After a few more "Gomez" and "Venkatez" incidents, I get to meet with the Consulate General. 2 min interview on what I do etc etc.  He finally agrees to give me the visa!!! Terrific.  I have the wrong mail in envelope, so I walk across the street and get the right one.  I am still waiting for the passport to arrive.

Update: I got my Argentina visa by mail!! Only Chile visa remaining (3 working days until my flight leaves, this is going to be nail biting).

Brazil visa

The best visa interview ever.........  The Brazil consulate in SF is awesome.  Very colorful and very pleasant people working at the consulate.  I had completed the online application form and was prepared with every document possible.  The consular officer did not ask me for  anything more than what they had advertised for on their website!!! how often does that happen??? The consular officers were having a strike when I submitted my passport. So it took 5 extra days for them to complete the process.

Crazy incident when trying to get the visa back. I landed there at 3pm and the consulate was closed.  Found this other lady who was screaming and yelling that she needed her passport back as she was leaving for Brazil the next day.  The consulate was closed the next day, as it was their independence day. Somebody generously offered to look into the passports.  They opened the door and took our receipts and went inside to look for our passports(it was now 3.10pm...beyond their closing time).

Next  thing I know, this lady turns to me and starts dissing the Brazilian consulate!!! complaining about their work ethic, blah blah blah.  It doesn't stop there.  Now she is dissing Rio and how she does not want to go there and she is going only because her class is going there.  She does not feel safe going there etc. etc..  This is freaking me out on the inside.  Woman... did you not read on their website that aggressive behavior at the consulate can get your visa app revoked??? I, in no way want to be a part of this drama. I calmly reply to her that I live in Oakland, and have had my car broken into a few times, and that traveling has its own risks, and we all do it knowing about these risks. The funny thing was, she was doing it right in front of the intercom where anyone on the other side could have easily heard her.   Anyway, they could not get our passports back(the passport people had left for the day)  and returned our receipts. I thanked them for the effort, and picked up my receipt.  As I was walking back, I heard the consulate officer threatening to call the police if the lady did not calm down....

Nicole picked up the passport for me the following week....

Peru visa

Peru visa: Done!....$40 and a grueling 3hr wait at the consulate.  The 3hr wait is grueling after having lived in the US for 10 years now.  It was routine when I had to renew the ration card, pay the KEB bill,   procure the chalan for BE exams from State bank of Mysore....times change.

Travel visas

Being Indian, I require a visa to go everywhere in the world (well... most of it). In fact,  for some countries, I require a visa to just transit through their airports. Thats right, a visa to take a leak when connecting between flights!
Even though obtaining the visa can be a harrowing experience in some cases, there is always a good story associated with the experience.  I will try to capture some of my visa experiences here.  If you are looking for specifics on the application process, please visit the consulate websites or e-mail the consulate (they were very responsive in my case).
The next few posts for Peru, Brazil and Argentina are from older posts from my personal blog(which I will not contribute to anymore; typing for one is enough for this trip).

To travel, or not to travel - that was the BIG question!

As we pondered with the idea of traveling, the biggest question we had to solve was "what are we going to do with all our attachments?"

Attachments:
1) house (rental only, hence no mortgage to deal with)
2) TWO cars (!)
3) all our possessions
4) our cat (the biggest worry of all the above, as kind of like having a kid).

Little, by little we chipped away at our question, and the answers began to reveal themselves!

By placing an ad of our rented house on craigslist, we were able to find the best match. A young couple, looking for a short-term lease in our neighborhood AND pet lovers, too! So how, perfect! Not only will they be subleasing, paying the full rent etc. BUT will also be looking after our cat, too! As for them, they get a great house, which will be fully furnished. Ah, such a relief! So that takes care of numbers 1 and 4.

As for number 2: A good friend of ours, recently moved to California, and hinted that she needed a car. How great! I decided to loan her my car. So what about the second car? Thanks to this very same friend, we will be able to store Rakesh's car in the back yard (all concrete) of her cottage! Thank you dear friend!

Our possessions...Rakesh and I have had a disagreement: he thinks we have too much, whereas I think we have just enough! I'd say that's a "Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus " type situation. Anyway, too much, too little or just right, we still have possessions (can't help it). Well, ok, so we did have a basket full of "stuff" that we had been meaning to sell in a yard sale. We had that and made a fair earning, and the rest we gave away to a Salvation Army. Luckily the furniture was the least of our worries, as we knew we'd have no trouble finding someone to sublease our house with the furniture in it, too. But what about all our other possessions? Where were we going to store these? We wanted to avoid having to pay for storage, and thanks to family and friends, we will be distributing our boxes between 2 to 3 houses. So, voila, that takes care of number 2! Thank you friends and family!

So, these attachments, will still be attachments, but at least we'll be detached from these attachments for the duration of our travels! Phew! 

Just a dream?

One day last summer of 2011,  Rakesh and I went to visit the botanical gardens in the hills of Berkeley, for the first time. It was a beautiful day and we were surrounded by a diversity of plants, trees, fauna and more, from all over the world. We moved between nature from Africa, to Europe, to Asia...you name it, where we saw all kinds of wonderful shapes, sizes and colours. It was during our walk in these gardens, that Rakesh and I were very much inspired with the dream of traveling in the near future.

Little did we know, that this dream started to become more of a reality from around March of 2012. We  put our heads together to figure out a way to bite the dust and make this dream of ours come true! We decided that in order to see this beautiful world we live in, we had better do it now, before settling down and before starting a family!