My husband and I decided to go for a long due honeymoon... ok its not very long due really, we've only been married for about 3 months!
So we decided to go somewhere that will be easy for me to get in, as in, easy visa! and Turkey was the best option, not far from Egypt (where I live) and not far from Belgium (where my husband lives). its about 3 hrs by plane from both Egypt and Belgium so that's another reason why it was a good option.
We spent ages online trying to figure out the best trip plan and best prices possible, considering we are traveling end of October, which is a high season cause its Eid, so was a bit hard to find some nice cheap prices for tickets and hotel bookings, but hey, its a honeymoon - so who cares?!
We managed to book the whole trip and plan on which places we want to visit and what activities we wanted to do. after all this planning I got all my bookings and tickets printed and headed to the Turkish embassy here in Alexandria.
I checked the website before I went to the embassy, and it said that they are open from 9am to 12pm. so I headed out at 8.30am. I never knew where the place was but it wasn't hard to find, parking there was such a hassle, I went around that area 2x till I found a valet who works for a bank a block down from the embassy who offered to park my car. I was very grateful and thought that was a good start for a day am applying for a visa. P.S: I seriously hate applying for visas, I always feel like I'll get rejected so any good sign makes me somewhat optimistic!
I walked down the block till I was at the embassy, it was 9:15am and the doors were closed. there was a paper hung out saying that they start working at 9:30 am till 11:30 am. so turns out the information on the website was somewhat incorrect, but didn't bother me much as waiting for 15mins isn't such a hassle.
At the door I found a guy with a paper and he was writing down names of people who wanted to apply, so I gave him my name and waited at the door with my Kindle.
About 30mins later the door opened and they started calling names, by that time there was a mass of people outside. Even though I thought I put in my name early, I was number 25.
I waited for about 40mins outside till my name was called, I went in, filled out an application form and sat at the waiting area which is outside, no AC and not enough seats for everyone. there were about 50-60 people at the waiting area, had maybe 20 seats.
Luckily the weather was fine, cause I ended up waiting for 2 hrs before my number was called. I went in and handed in my application at the application window which was in a nice air conditioned room that had only 5 seats.
The guy took my application and didn't look at it, he opened up my passport and asked me about the Australian visa that I have, he asked if it was still valid or not (couldn't he check the date on it himself?!) I told him that it was expired. He flipped to the next page and found my American visa, he asked again if this one was valid or not (again why didn't he check the date on it?!) I told him that it was still valid. Then he informed me that I am to get the Turkish visa from Istanbul airport for $20, then he handed me my application and passport back and told me goodbye.
I headed back to my car thinking oh ok, that isn't bad at all!
I went back home and tried to find this info online and couldn't find anything regarding that matter. So I am worried about it. But since I was told that it was OK at the embassy, then I assume they know better - no?!
Well here's hoping that they let me out of the airport here, they usually ask about visas on departure, so if they don't know about the U.S visa thing here at HBE airport then I will be royally screwed :)
