My gripe for today: Embassies and Visas.
As some of you know, I am about to go visit my brother in Australia soon and I've been spending a lot of time trying to get all the information together for the visa... You know the stuff: Proof of return to South Africa, Letter from my employer, letter from my brother inviting me to Aus, Proof of foreign currency..etc.etc.etc. It's a HUGE schlepp. Anyways, I went this morning IN PERSON to the embassy to make sure that I can get a 4 year visa and then I won't have to go through this pain every year if I want to go see my brother. I was going to use an agency to get my visa, but then I was sure to only get the short stay visa. Anyways, to make a long story short... I stood there in the queue for about an hour and a half, and then it took about 2 minutes to actually get my visa.... The visa agent didn't even ask to see ANY of the above supporting documents. Just my passport and application form... and guess what... I got the short visa. ARRGGHHHHHH!!!!!
What I don't understand is that if you go apply for a visa knowing that you have ONE little piece of proof missing, they will ask for it and you won't get your visa. But how come when I had EVERYTHING in order to get a long stay visa, she didn't even ask for anything... Just bam, short visa, thanks for coming. *sigh* Oh well... Next time I see Murphy, I'm gonna take his laws and shove them right up his #@%#%. Humph.