Help from Unlikely Source

Today something odd happened.

As I have said here before, my wife Rhodah and I meet in other countries while we wait for her to be allowed to move here. I have no interest in taking an expensive 35-hour flight so I can visit Zambia, and she wants to see new places.

We tried to get visas from various Schengen Area countries in Europe. Sweden and Italy rejected us. The lady at the Italian embassy was extremely rude to Rhodah and also lied to her, telling us we needed to buy airline tickets in order to get a visa and that if we did, the visa would be issued.

We bought the tickets, and she didn’t even get back to us. Rhodah had to go to the embassy after the customary processing time had passed. Once again, the lady who worked there was rude. She didn’t have the courtesy to leave her office. She sent out an underling who spoke no English, along with a bilingual Zambian, in order to tell Rhodah she had been rejected. Through an open door, she shouted at Rhodah from her office without leaving her chair.

We lost over a thousand dollars because this woman lied to us, and while Rhodah was at the embassy, the same woman fawned on a white family.

The form that “explained” our rejection appears to have been prepared frivolously. It said they found our expression of the purpose of the trip unreliable. In other words, they did not believe we were tourists. They thought Rhodah was going to abandon her house, car, friends, family, and move to Italy, where she wouldn’t be able to speak the language. Instead of the life she leads now, which involves receiving checks, shopping, and doing nearly nothing else, she would presumably find a good toilet-cleaning job in Naples and share a room with 15 Nigerians.

It’s pretty obvious they made no effort to investigate. I believe the lady who lied to us simply put the application in the trash and issued a standard explanation for rejecting it.

Upon reading our materials, even a monkey would have known we were trustworthy tourists. We made the mistake of buying tickets for both of us. This was not required, but it showed we were sincere, because it gave me powerful motivation to go to Italy. What kind of fool would think an American with a cushy life, real estate, and a nice house would want to move to Italy and have a much lower standard of living, combined with political instability, corrupt courts, and extremely poor government?

Maybe there is a constant flow of American retirees, moving to Naples to take advantage of Italy’s unreliable economy and its history of borrowing billions and not paying them back.

Italy is a wonderful country in many ways, but if I wanted to move anywhere for economic reasons and stability, it would be Singapore or Switzerland.

Italy is a sexy girl you date and then forget during your gap year. Singapore and Switzerland are girls you marry.

We decided to try the Czechs. Czechia is known to be easy when it comes to visas. They seemed encouraging, and they told us to make an appointment. Then they stopped responding to our inquiries, which they had told us to make.

After this, I learned that Austria is liberal with visas, so we decided to give it a shot. Then we learned the Germans handle applications in Zambia. That did not sound good, for reasons too obvious to explain.

Rhodah went to see the Germans, with no appointment, and they told her what to do. Then she made an appointment for this morning to bring them the required…PAPERS!!!!

Sorry. Couldn’t resist.

The Swedes supposedly handle visas for a number of Schengen countries, but in reality, they hand the job off to an apathetic, unhelpful company called VFS Global. Rhodah wasn’t given an embassy appointment when we tried to go to Sweden. She had to go to VFS Global, where she dealt with low-level employees from Zambia, not Europe. It was not a quality experience.

We went to Ireland this year, and the Irish process visas at their embassy, because, I guess, Ireland is a real country that doesn’t delegate its responsibilities to McVisa. They treated Rodah like royalty, even though Ireland is very strong economically and a much better destination for illegal aliens than Sweden or Italy.

Ireland gave us no trouble at all. We got our visa in around two weeks, I believe. There was a delay because someone in the US failed to communicate with them when they checked to see if we were really married, but Rhodah helped the Irish get proof, and they were apologetic about the wait, which was not their fault.

Now you know what Rhodah experienced in her visits to various outfits that provide visas. So what happened at the German embassy?

First of all, the building is very nice. Much nicer than the one the Italians occupy. Everything is kept up well, too. Clean and orderly. The Italian embassy was disorderly and generally gave a bad impression. Rhodah said it was easy to tell Germany was rich and Italy was poor.

Second, the lady who worked with Rhodah is German, not Zambian, and she was very kind and polite. The official German policy is that if your application materials aren’t perfect, they send you home. The German lady found a little issue with our papers, and instead of rejecting them, she told Rhodah we could fix it and email them a file. That’s what we did.

She didn’t shout at Rhodah. She didn’t try to get her to buy airline tickets. In fact, the Germans advise people not to buy them before approval. She also told her she should receive a decision very quickly. They have 15 days to get it done, but we could have a decision much sooner.

Here’s the best part: as Rhodah left the embassy, this nice lady said, “Have a blessed day.”

I don’t know about Germany, but in the US, “Have a blessed day” is something Christians say. It’s not something you hear from unbelievers. Here in the most conservative county in Florida, people say it all the time. I believe God steered us into the hands of a German Christian, and that’s remarkable, because Europe is overwhelmingly against Christianity. Some countries give lip service to the pope, but Catholicism isn’t really Christianity, and one of its big appeals is that it allows people to do whatever they want as long as they go to mass and confess every few years.

I don’t know whether we will be approved or not, but at least the Germans treated Rhodah like a human being. The Italian embassy is a disgrace.

In order to maximize our chance of success, we tried to make our application as palatable as possible. We were concerned the Germans would be rigid and hard to please, and that they might be more reluctant to approve people who intended to spend most of their time in Germany. This is probably not true, but we factored it in anyway. We created an itinerary which puts us in Austria about 60% of the time.

I don’t know a lot about Austria. I have visited Salzburg a couple of times. That’s about it. Austria is very beautiful, and it’s full of alps. I really, really want to see the alps again. I recall the food being very good, with the caveat that you have to watch out for the stuff that’s overly Teutonic, like piles of beans covered with sausages and melted cheese.

I have never seen Vienna. It looks great on the web, and it’s a practical place to fly into, so we will be spending a few days there. It appears to be very much like Paris in that it’s packed with history and excellent sightseeing. It seems to have a similar feel, with cafes and so on. It looks like a place a person could enjoy for months, not days. We will see whether my impressions pan out.

We also chose Salzburg and some places not too far from it.

We are set to visit Munich. I am not sure about that one. The hotels are extremely expensive given the second-tier status of the destination. Munich is fine, but it’s not London or Rome. Let’s be honest. I’m not sure Germany has a big city which is a truly top-notch destination. It’s loaded with incredible smaller towns, though, and the natural beauty of the countryside is extraordinary.

When we started looking at Munich, I didn’t know Oktoberfest was a threat. For some strange reason, I thought Oktoberfest took place in October. Turns out that is not the case. It’s really Septemberfest.

In case you’re wondering how “September” is spelled in German, it looks like this: “September.”

My understanding is that Oktoberfest is mainly about getting kneewalking drunk on beer. They set up tents all over the place, and you have to have a reservation to sit in a tent and get hammered. This sounds insane to me, but it’s what I’ve read. A reservation to sit in a tent.

I don’t see the appeal. I could see going to one beer garden and having one stein of beer with the wife, but that would take maybe an hour. How do you kill most of a day with nothing to do but drink beer? Yes, I did it when I was young, but I was pretty stupid back then, and Germans are not stupid.

Like Jesus and the disciples, I am not a teetotaling Christian. I used to make my own beer from my own recipes, and with reference to all other beers I’ve had, it was incomparable. I like a really good beer. Thing is, Germans are not that high on the list of good brewers. Americans are at the top. AND bottom. We make unbelievably bad fake beer like Coors, and we also make the best beer in the form of microbrews. Belgians are probably next. After that, I would give third prize to the Irish. German beer is extremely well made, but it doesn’t taste all that great. It’s bland. Like drinking the 5-series BMW with the small engine.

People think the Germans make the best beer, but that has never actually been true. They make boring beer to exceedingly high standards. Like they’re making it for NASA.

They make some very nice beers, but good luck finding anything as impressive as Flying Dog Snake Dog Ale or Chimay Triple.

I’m not knocking a good Spaten lager or the nice weissbeers that come out of Germany, but if I had to present an alien ambassador with the 10 best beers of Earth, it would be American, all the way.

Actually, the Turks make a truly wonderful lager. It’s called Efes, which is the Turkish name for Ephesus. It has a marvelous balance of sweetness and hops. On the dark side, leaning toward amber, and rich for a lager.

I’m starting to think we should forget Munich and fly into and out of Vienna.

What ever happened to Switzerland? That was our original dream destination, after Israel. We might be able to go there during this trip, but as of now, it seems safer to leave it off our application materials.

After the horrible experience with the Italian lady, we are very grateful to be treated better by the Germans. Granted, they made intrusive demands for the most private documents imaginable, short of medical records, and that was clearly unnecessary, but I think that’s just the Germans being German. There is nothing they can’t overthink.

After the abuse Rhodah suffered at the Italian embassy, I felt God was showing us to stop involving nasty people in our lives unnecessarily. We listened, and now we’re dealing with someone who appears to be a Christian.

I hope we get in. Otherwise, it’s back to Ireland, perhaps with a side of Turkey, depending on the breaks.