LUCK? Or DESTINY???

When it comes to traveling, having a Colombian passport sucks!
Nobody knows anything good about Colombia, but EVERYBODY knows about the drugs, bombs, and guerrillas. That’s why getting visas is rather difficult. In airports Colombians can expect questions like “Are you carrying any drugs?”, excessive and often prejudice screening of luggage and sometimes even getting personally searched. Thank God these kind of things have never happened to me, but I’ve heard stories like these too many times … none of which were fun.

Ever since I decided to come to Europe, I’ve had all kinds of unusual experiences with the visas I had to apply for. The first one was the visa to come to Germany in 2002. The day before I was going to apply for it, I met the German consul of Colombia in a Vienna café in Bogotá. He gave me an appointment for 9 o’clock next morning and by 9:30am I already had my Schengen visa which allowed me to travel freely around all the countries that make part of the European Union.

In an equally spontaneous manner, I received my Hungarian visa. In august 2004 I decided to travel to Hungary. Two days before the trip I found out that I needed a visa to travel there. I went to the Hungarian embassy and after telling a big story I got my visa in less than an hour, which is NOT common. For that same trip, I was supposed to meet Chris in Vienna and go to Budapest together. Austria is part of the European Union, so I didn’t need a visa, but in order to get there by bus I had to go through the Czech Republic, which I didn’t have a visa for. I got kicked off the bus by the police at the border. After performing the most amazing show, I got a hand written visa at 3 o’clock in the morning.

Not only that, the border patrol went so far as to help me hitchhiking, because my bus had to left without me.

On December 2004 I applied for an American visa (which we all know is a pain in the ass to get). I went to the embassy with all the papers they asked for, plus many others, but the guy not only didn’t look at any of my documents, he gave a multiple entry visa for 5 years!
On June 2005, Chris and I decided to visit our friend Anna in Moscow. That visa is also very hard to get. Me being Colombian I had to pay more while Chris being from the States had to fill out twice as much paper work. Apart from not understanding a word in the embassy, we got it fairly easy through a travel agency.

A month ago, I was living in Copenhagen, when I decided to go to Berlin for the weekend. I didn’t have a visa for Germany anymore (my Schengen visa had expired) and as luck (or destiny) would have it, I got stopped by the police at the border. They took my passport for the 3 longest minutes of my life and after me thinking that they where going to deport me, the police officer brought my passport back and wished me a nice trip… I still don’t understand how did that happened!! In my opinion the only explanation is a MIRACLE!!!

Finally two weeks ago I went to the Danish Foreign Affairs Office, where they are suppose to give me my residence permit to stay in Copenhagen, to tell them that I was going to Norway and Sweden and that I needed a temporary visa. The woman said clearly that that wasn’t possible, but suddenly she asked me, “Do you have Danish ancestors?” After simply repling “Yes”, her attitude changed completely … gave me the ‘impossible visa’, again hand written, and gave me lots of advice about how to apply for a Danish passport.

Luck?? or Destiny??