Vital Stats - 28 August, 2009

Vital Stats - 28 August, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving!

No, it's not really Thanksgiving, but it is time for Turkey...

Time: 11:15 am
Location: Delhi (map)
Health: Perfect
Weather: Hot, wet, hot, wet, humid, hot, and wet. And hot.
Mood: Annoyed
Bowels: A+
Beard: Moderate
Next Destination: Ankara, Turkey

Yes, it's official. Officially official. Not that it was ever officially unofficial, unofficially official or unofficially unofficial. But one thing's for sure, it's now official. At least 90%... ish.

I'm going to Turkey! When? Well, tonight, hopefully.

I told some of you about this ages ago, and some of you again more recently after I started to receive some very confusing correspondence, but for those who know nothing of this, let me fill you in...


Round 1 - PJ vs. Turkish Postal Service

Way back, I mean waaaaay back in January, I applied to a programme run by Turkish Rotary to spend some time doing a bit of post-grad study in Turkey. I sent off my app and received a reply almost immediately: "insufficient address".

Not a good start.

I scanned the addressed envelope and emailed a copy to Turkish Rotary to ask what was wrong - they said the address was fine, so I resent. All good.


Round 2 - PJ vs. Turkish Rotary

Then I hear nothing. Nothing for months. And then, just days before I left for India, I received a rather cryptic (Engrish) email, which basically said "congratulations you are accepted into consideration", which I now know meant "you're in". I sent a copy of this letter to a few of you, and the jury was split, no-one could quite decide what it was saying.

So I replied to Turkish Rotary politely asking for clarification. Then nothing. I emailed again, nothing. Anyway, after a lot of pestering I finally got a response: I was accepted.


Round 3 - PJ vs. Turkish Embassy New Delhi

So I was in, but the war wasn't over yet. In fact, the worst was still to come...

I haven't really written a lot about Delhi in my blog because even though I've visited twice and spent nearly 2 weeks here, most of those 2 weeks were spent waiting outside the Turkish Embassy, on my way to the Turkish Embassy, calling and emailing the Turkish Embassy, or just sitting in my hotel room cursing the Turkish Embassy. I've never before met such a painful, uncaring bunch of bureaucrats!

And even after a month of visits, calls, emails and a stack of paperwork, it's still not over. I received an email 2 days ago saying my visa was finally approved. Good? Well, you'd think so. But when I turned up at the Embassy they surprised me by telling me "Oh, it still takes 4-5 days to come through even after it's approved". Through from where??? Who knows.

I'm supposed to be leaving for Turkey tonight as my course starts on Monday! So in about an hour I'm going to head down to the Embassy to see if my visa has arrived from it's mystery origin. If it's not there, I'll be stuck in Delhi for the weekend and be late for my first week of school. *sigh*.


And the winner is?

Me! I think.

I don't want to sound ungrateful, because if I can push my hatred of the Turkish Embassy from my mind, then I'm very much beyond, under, around and over the moon about the opportunity.

If I don't get my visa, I'll probably be back on here to bitch some more. And I am sorry for all this venting, but it's been a frustrating experience, and one probably made a lot worse by the fact I've been trying to deal with it alone and in the middle of a holiday. I dare say, this has likely been the biggest Aus-Turk battle since 1915. And a few times, I honestly contemplated just giving up on Turkey altogether. But I'm glad I didn't; my ANZAC spirit pulled me through.

So, my dear readers, please keep your fingers crossed for me. If all goes well today, this may well be my last post from India!

I'll update you again very soon!

Love
Pj.