License to Travel

One of the drawbacks of being pinoy is we need a visa to travel most anywhere (other than South East Asia of course and Morocco!). Other than the hassle of providing documentation, I've hardly had any trouble getting a visa (if you exclude the bleeping USA, that is).

My European visa was surprisingly easy to get, given that when I applied I was an unemployed design student. My Australian tourist visa was easy enough to get as well when I first applied for it about 5 years ago.

So imagine my surprise when it took almost FOUR WEEKS to get my visa from NZ. Four freaking weeks. When their average turnaround time is 7 working days. No reason given at all for the delay.

I was ready to call the NZ visa office (or whatever they're called) to follow up and ask what the hold up was. I was also about ready to tell them to forget about it and just cancel all our travel arrangements to NZ(which would've been a pain but doable). I was going to give them until Monday next week before I rang. Thank goodness my passport arrived today stamped with my new NZ visa. A limited one-time entry visa at that.

I'm still excited to travel to NZ for our holiday but given the grief I went through getting a visa, I don't think I'll be travelling back there any time soon. Until I get my oz permanent residency that is.

Btw, out of interest, it doesn't cost Filipinos anything to apply for an NZ tourist visa. Some reciprocal agreement between our governments, I think. Just be prepared to wait if you do apply.