The Romanian Visa Paradox - I

PART I - The Romanian Post Office Conundrum

        Tell me, do you know which country has the tightest borders? Which country is the most difficult to obtain a visa to enter?

        If you thought it's post-9/11 United States, that's a fair guess. But from my experience it is Romania.

        Not because of counter-terrorism measures. But because of the self-conceited assholeness of its immigration officers.

       This is a story that I have been meaning to tell for years but never got into it. Now, in the last hours of my winter vacation, I decided to give it a shot.

        It was in 2002 when I decided to move to Romania because I was going to marry a Romanian citizen. Yes, bad move, I know. Don't get me started. This is material for another article.

        So I needed to know what would be the procedure for me to obtain a residence visa, as I intended to move permanently to Romania. So I called the Romanian Consulate in Tokyo and talked directly to the Consul.

        He informed me that the best and easiest way, as I intended to get married in the first few weeks after moving to Romania, was to enter the country with a tourist visa and after getting married, going to the immigration office with the marriage certificate and require a residence visa.

        So that's what I tried to do.
        I obtained a tourist visa and entered Romania in September, 2002 and started the procedures for my marriage.

    I needed a few documents from Brazil so I had them sent via priority post, which should take a maximum of 5 days to arrive.

        After waiting for 10 days I decided to go to the post office to inquiry about it. The post office lady was apparently extremely busy gossiping with her colleague and I dared interrupt her. I explained to her that I was supposed to receive some important documents via priority post and they should have arrived 3 days ago. She nonchalantly said it is impossible for we don't have priority post services. I pointed out that Priority Post was listed on the Romanian Post services in the big printed price list behind her. She said yes, it is written there but we don't have this service. So I asked: if it comes via normal  post, how long should it take? And she answered: 7 days. I pointed out that it's been 10 days since it's been sent and I haven't received it yet so I asked her if she could check if it hasn't arrived and not delivered by mistake.

        On her side there was a huge box full of correspondence. She looked at the box, didn't even pretend to have the intention of shuffling through the letters, looked at me and said: No, it haven't arrived yet.

        I waited one more week and still nothing. So I decided to call my family in Brazil and ask them to make yet another copy of the documents and send them via normal registered post.

       And guess what?

        Five days later I received BOTH sets of documents in the same day. The one that was sent via priority post and should have arrived 3 weeks ago AND the new set that was sent via normal post and arrived in 5 days.

        I know, it sounds like a Monty Python joke. But it isn't. Believe me. It's true.