PLOCK

A new week and a new visit at the german consulate. This time for another purpose, since for the visaapplicaton we switched already to the french embassy.

So this time I wanted to apply for a new passport. For me, and in this issue it had less complications, beside that I needed to fill out the application form again since my previous one was partly eaten by our cat (just one corner actually). Second point was the fee…. after arranging more or less complicated a confirmation from berlin, that I don’t live their anymore, because without this confirmation, I would have had to pay 60 euro more, I finally didn’t need that confirmation at all, because I need to pay the 60 euro more anyway, since my previous passport is from india …. great, not that I haven’t mentioned that on the phone to them before … however, after all the previous struggles I wasn’t in a fighting mood anymore.

The guy in front of me at the cue was in such a mood…. compared to him my behaviour from last week with the embassy consultants was quite gentle. The german guy in front of me also needed also anew german passport …. he lives in macao and it was already the third time he needed to travel to hk for attempting to apply for it. The german consulate doesn’t seem to catch certain differences between the govermental structures here and in germany.

In Hong Kong and Macao people don’t need to register for a certain address, if they live here. BUT the german consulate insist on exactly that….But it can be tricky to proof, if the renting contract doesn’t contain an exact address. Alternatively bills, such as gas, water electricty can be shown. In my case each of this bills get send to a different name, even though to my address, simply because it costs money to register a new name, so most people just keep the name of the previous or previous, previous flat owner. I, luckily had at least an internet bill on my name…. but not so the german guy from macao… because he has an all inclusive flat and all side costs are paid by the landlord.

To find another proof for his residential address he went to the macao goverment requesting a confirmation about him living at the certain address, belonging to his renting contract….. this confirmation was in two languages … portoguese and chinese … so the guy from the german consulate didn’t want to accept it… and that was the moment when it got loud. The applicant said:”They only provide in these languages and also I think I could expect u to speak chinese if u work here” The consulate guy answered sth with, this is a german embassy and he can expect german or english documents, which the applicant answered with:”I don’t see why I’m responsible for ur inabilities, I want to talk to ur boss”

At the end, even though the applicant clearly won the wordfight in points, he will need to come a fourth time after all.

Enough abut this crappy embassy…. by the way, the french one is extremely fancy! With Led-decoration, LCD screens, nice view and metal detector.

However, after the embassy trip we spend a short visit at citysuper - international supermarket. I found it always interesting, which products, from which countries make it to here. E.g. polish juices are very popular here, whereas german salad dressing seems quite common after beer, butter and milk products tend to come mainly from new zealand…. I sometimes imagine which products might also sell well in germany….

And then I found the following article…. not sure if it would sell easily in germany or not, but the probably would need to rethink the name for that….

what a nice closing for the embassy story …