Greece Lightnin'

Finally after two weeks of toiling around with the requirements and another two weeks of waiting, Enol and I got our Schengen visa today for Greece. We are going to visit Blanca and her husband, joining our friends, Xon, Rosey and Nicole, for a weekend getaway in Athens. Seriously, it was one of those times when we wished we were an American citizen just because of the perks of easy international travel. We are going on our sixth year here in the States and are eligible for citizenship but we never got around to exchanging our Philippine passports. Hence, we dabbled with the stress that is the application for the Schengen visa. There's just a whole lot of requirements to complete this thing -- credit card and bank statements, W2s, health insurance, employment certificate, postal money order, flight itineraries. In my case, the terrible thing was securing my employee certification because the HR department of my hospital changed telephone numbers and offices that it took me way longer to get hold of them and finally give me what I wanted. On the day of submitting the requirements, it rained so hard in New York City that we got soaked entering the Greek Consulate on Park Avenue. The consul was nice and wasn't being difficult. After examining our papers and asking us a few questions (What's the purpose of this travel?), we were told to come back in two weeks. And here we are. And Greece, see you in a few!