05. Our Visa document and almost empty handed
The students who have not traveled to Turkey before (including me) have been in a very small part of it. Before the required visa-documents where part of our passport, we had to visit the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam. This building could also be placed in a random Turkish city.
Walking through the detection port the main door was leading us to a large hall where it was very crowded. Much is comparable to the way the Netherlands was 30 years ago. No modern design, everything grey and beige. People take there time for getting there papers. They’re all sitting in the hall waiting and watching some program on TRT in the meanwhile.
Luckily our waiting time was not that long, but it wasn’t quick service like we’re used at dutch service points. Personally I didn't have anything against it at least when it's not every day. I have to make the Turkish people a compliment for not knowing any stress and just being patient.
When we had our number and entered the second floor where we could find the visa document desk there was a “small” problem. Our papers where ok, but there was a missing document which was not mentioned anywhere.
We had our visum-request document, the pass photo’s an acceptance letter from the Anadolu University, perfect! But we ‘didn’t’ have received one from our own NHL.
Now it was the right time for stress.
So we dialed the number of the NHL, discussed, waited, discussed, said thank you.. and just in time we had the acceptance by fax. Closing time was nearing,we where done on half past eleven. Finally we could pay for the document and wait till we could get it the next week.
I bought myself some cola turka from the automatics as souvenir..
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