Angola

I know what you're going to say, you haven't even finished slogging through my Tanzania travel blog and I'm already starting an Angola travel blog!

You're right. I know, but there you have it.

I haven't even bought my plane tickets yet and the adventure has already begun.

Normally at Abt Asociates we do not have to get our travel visas ourselves. We have the luxury of sending our passports and documents to an agent at Allied Passports and he takes care of the rest. We get the visas, stamps and anything else that we need through that process.

Angola is a little different; you have to go to the embassy in person to drop off and pick up your visa. Of course there is no embassy in Boston so I have come to our Bethesda office so that I can easily get to DC to take care of this.

They are surprisingly strict in their rules. It is normal that you have to provide passport photos that are separate from your passports when applying for a visa, but the rules state that in the photo, men must be wearing a necktie and women must have no part of their shoulders exposed and should have clothing that comes to the neck. I was separately advised to have no visible jewelry.

Since I had to make this trip down here, I was trying to be very careful to cross every t and dot every i before I left for the embassy but sadly I failed, but I'm jumping ahead.

I discovered that, even though I've made this trip a lot of times, it's still a bad idea to try to pack in the dark at 5AM the day I'm leaving. I forgot gifts that I had wanted to bring down with me, the keys to my mother's house, and my work shoes. I wanted to show up at the embassy with a nice conservative dress and nice shoes. My mother's neighbor, Josette, happens to wear the same size shoe as I so she loaned me a lovely pair of sandals.

I checked the route to the embassy -- seems pretty straightforward. I catch the Redline train to Dupont Circle and walk almost a mile to the embassy on New Hampshire street. About half of the way up New Hampshire street my right foot starts to feel funny and it starts to sting a little bit. I chalk it up to a kind of "new shoe" feeling and keep going.

I find the office without too much trouble and walk in to an empty lobby and a glassed-in reception with an unlabeled button. I think about whether I'm likely to conduct my business in this lobby or in an interview room and then I figure that I might as well push the button. As I'm waiting I decide to get everything in order so I reach into my briefcase to pull my papers out. A woman appears behind the counter and yells at me, "You pushed the button and you don't even have your paperwork out?! I'll come back when you have your paperwork out!" and she turns heel.

I apologize, pull out my paperwork the rest of the way and wait for several minutes. Did she want me to ring the bell when I have my paperwork out? I wait a few more minutes. Is she going to scold me because I didn't ring the bell when I had my paperwork out? I wait a few more minutes and then decide to ring the bell. A different woman comes out and starts looking at my paperwork until the first woman comes back and she yells at me, "You pushed the button AGAIN? I knew you were out here. You just have to wait!" and then she mutters something to her coworker.

Apparently, even though I had downloaded the form from the Angola Embassy website, I had downloaded the form intended for use only in Houston, TX. Suddenly I'm imagining having to go back to my office to download and fill out the form again and come back, but they hand me new forms and give me permission to fill them out in pen there but, "Don't scratch anything out!"

The new forms are entirely in Portuguese. I realize that almost all of the questions are the same exact questions as on the form that I had already done so some of it was obvious what to enter, but others I had to look on the translator on my phone. I finally get through the whole form and realize that she had handed me two copies of the same form. Did she want me to fill out both? I'm afraid to ask her because I figure she'll say, "I wouldn't have given you two if I didn't want two, would I?!" So I take a chance and fill out the second form and walk back to the desk. I hand in the forms and first she sees that I have filled out two forms and says, "You only need to apply once!" and she hands back one of the forms.

She looks more carefully at the form and says, "Something looks wrong." She rifles through a few stacks of papers, walks into a back room, back to the desk, back to the stack of papers and then says, "You have a money order?" I respond that I have checks and credit cards, but no, it has to be a money order. There's a convenience store just over on U street; you can get a money order there.

Ok, so I'm now wandering around U street looking for a convenience store. I find a convenience store and they only take cash to turn into a money order. Ow, this right foot is getting uncomfortable. Ok, "convenience" store guy, where's a bank? Just two blocks that way. Two blocks that way later and there's no sign of a bank. I pull out my phone; it says that the closest bank is... all of the way back in Dupont Circle! Wow, my right foot is really starting to hurt.

It was about half of the way to the bank that the shoe situation started to become clear, the sole of the shoe was broken right in half. By the time I get to the bank I'm starting to wonder if I'll make it back to the embassy before the window of opportunity to drop off the application is closed!

I manage to get the money order and stop at the ATM for some cash for later before hobbling back to the embassy. I hand over the forms and the check and the woman decides that I definitely have the wrong form so she goes into the back and apparently prints another form. This asked the exact same questions except the questions are written in both Portuguese and English. So I fill it out again, turn it in and now I'm allowed to apply.

"I'm going to take your fingerprints. First your four right fingers then your four left fingers, NOT YET! DON'T DO ANYTHING UNTIL I TELL YOU! (sigh) I'm going to take your fingerprints. First your four right fingers then your four left fingers then your two thumbs. Now your four right fingers."

When we were done she said that I could check whether the visa was ready on Tuesday. I could call or come in, but it should be ready by Thursday between 12 and 3.

I finally made it out of there, limped to the main road and took a cab to the office.