I have been
privileged to be an intern in the Finnish Embassy here in Madrid for this summer.
The first month of working has been really interesting and I’ve learned at
least a lesson or two. However, after chatting with many people, it seems that
quite few people actually know what embassies are for – to be honest, neither did
I before starting my internship. Therefore, here is a summary what embassies
are, or at least should be, for:
1. They represent the home country in
foreign location communicating with the local decision-makers, media and etc.
taking care of the diplomatic relations.
2. They communicate through different
media to the people living in the host country in order to advance the
knowledge of home country culture and brand abroad.
3. They help the home country nationals
staying in the host country with accident or crime situations as well as during
local crisis, disaster or other challenging situation.
4. They issue passports for the home
country nationals who need a new one when being abroad as well as help
foreigners with residence permits and other official documentation to enter the
country legally.
5. Furthermore, the embassies and
consulates are the official representatives of the home country and their
underlying task is to participate in building up a good image of the home
country through customer service and diplomatic relations.
As you can
see, the type of information given from an embassy or consulate is that kind
that it needs to be correct or a client might lose his job, study place or in the worst case
get into a jail. Therefore, it is clear that the embassies are trusted a lot
and their advice is followed which makes is absolutely unforgettable if wrong
information is given. Moreover, the customer service in the embassy or consulate may be the first link between a foreign customer and the home country culture.
Now that
you understand how the process should go, I’ll share with you my eclectic story of being on the
other side of the desk of an embassy when trying to apply for a student visa
for Chile which is my destination for the autumn term. So far I’ve had the honor to visit the Chilean
consulate four times in order to have the papers sorted out…
I made sure
already when leaving from Finland that I can apply for the student visa in
Spain if I’d get accepted to Chile. Well, I got accepted and started the
process of applying. Luckily I was told from my home university that it might
take even three months to get the visa so you’d better get started immediately.
Calling to the Chilean consulate was one of the first things I did here in
Madrid and after trying to call them every day during two weeks I managed to
get somebody to pick up the phone. That time I was told I couldn’t apply for
a visa here because I’m not a student in Spain. Not being too discouraged by this, I dared
to get to the consulate to ask about the application process. After ringing the
bell three times, they finally opened the door and when talking with the
personnel, it became clear (written on a paper) that I don’t need to be a
student here, it’s enough that I have the acceptation letter from the Chilean
university and then, of course, the other documents that were listed on a separate paper. Win!
Being happy
about this easy solution I started working on getting all the necessary
documents including a medical certificate and filled form stating, among
others, my height and the color of my eyes. When entering the consulate again
thinking I had all the necessary documents, I was told that you need to have “a
document that states you are a European Union citizen”, which by the way wasn’t
mentioned on the list of documents I got on my first visit. Anyway, for a moment I felt happy since
I had my European Union passport with me. Well, I obviously counted my chickens before they were hatched because I was told passport doesn’t state this, I need to have that green paper
that they showed me. Thanks to the help of my local friend, we figured out that
with this document of “European Union citizenship” they are referring to the
residency of Spain - which doesn’t have anything to do with stating me being European. Being turned down again, we left for some office to register me for Spain and finally managed to get me a Spanish social security number which hopefully
would do for the visa.
Once again
trusting I had finally all the documents, my friend went to the consulate with
my papers in order to check everything was okay and I could turn in the
application. Everything was fine except the economic solvency paper from Kela (they
pay for the student allowance) because there wasn’t a stamp. Well, I then
printed another paper that stated I will have a separate grant for the exchange and went
to the consulate later that day to leave the papers by myself.
Somehow the opinion had changed during those few hours and my criminal record
and acceptance letter from the university didn’t do anymore but the economic
solvency paper that was ruled out earlier was now fine. Luckily, they probably were
already fed up with my face because they let me turn in the application and I
could bring the “missing” documents when I come to pick up the visa which by
the way costs only 390 euros… How friendly from them! At least I still have a chance of getting the visa before leaving Spain.
I can tell
you that during this month of trying to sort this out I have considered quite
many times not even going to Chile anymore because this really left a bad taste
in my mouth. Being given wrong information so many times and, what is more,
getting horrible service the clerks really saying right to my face that “it’s
not my problem” has really made me wonder where the hell I'm going... But I guess this is just the first phase of the culture shock even though I'm not even on the South American continent yet.
What did we
learn from this? 1) it’s never too early to try to start the application
process of a visa, 2) never think that the bureaucracy would work the same way outside of your home country as it does within its borders and, most importantly, 3) choose well the person who comes with you to the
consulate or embassy to help you with the possible language problems or other things in
order to be able to maintain the relationship also after the losing-my-mind and
getting-pissed-off explosions you’ll have when being frustrated with the
bureaucracy and the different way of handling things.
In the end,
I’m once again happy and slightly hopeful that I might be having all the
necessary documents for executing my last student life dream of going to Chile
now that I have gone through this application disaster. I still believe it's gonna be worth it! However, I guess that
without my lovely friend I would still be calling to European Commission being stupid and asking
for a document to state that I’m an European Union citizen so if I’ll one day get
the visa all thanks go to him… Muchísimas gracias a mi amigo por ayudarme y lo más importante, por no
perder tu paciencia conmigo durante los momentos de frustración finlandesa!
Eres el mejor!
