What's up with Hatim?

I have recieved my stamped residence permit today. I spent a good deal of time yesterday trying to trace it. By calling the Embassy, FedEx and even going to the Embassy. The lady who talked to me from the Swedish embassy was very bitchy. I in fact needed my passport for another journey late this month so I was concerned that Swedish embassy is sitting on it for a while. I an extremely bitchy tone she said that if you need your visa right now I can send it to you unstamped. I said no thank you as I didn't want to risk delaying the process.

Today I got this on my FedEx status

So I went to FedEx office to pickup my visa. There was a very small queu of people recieving visas back. My visa has been granted from Aug 1 2008 till Oct 1 2009. After getting visa , accomodation and plane ticket now the only thing left is packing.

Since I recieved my admission letter from Chalmers University, Software Engineering Masters program, I have been preping to apply for visa. This year's visa process for studies in Sweden for Pakistani students has few changes. First of all one would need to apply through Visa drop box (which is essentially Gerry's/FedEx office). They handle visa documents and fee. Swedish Embassy charges 10500 Rs (roughly 100 Euros) in form of Bank deposit and visa drop box further charges 1000 Rs (10 Euros) cash. I also got my pictures snapped from a studio in F-6 Super, they knew exactly how to snap  the pic. The toughest past was to get a Bank Statement, I had to borrow some money from my parents and buy Euros of it. Euro is becoming expensive by the day. They have other requirements filled in on Embassys's website. One thing which people don't know is that all photocopies should be on complete A4 page and should not be torn in any way.

I went to FedEx Gerrys office on Thursday (before I submitted my docs) only to find out that they only accept documents from Mon-Wed , 9 am-12 pm which is really a pain. So finally I reached the visa drop box office, this Monday early morning. There was atleast one more student there before me, also applying for Visa. After submitting my documents I was given a date of June 9th for intreview. Hopefully it will be a breeze :)

I am already looking out for cheap air travel from Pakistan to Sweden. It seems that one has to reach Sweden directly or has to fly through France, Netherlands or Germany for some new European Immigration procedure. I am eyeing on a late bird Luftansa from Lahore on Aug 25th now, costing me about 490 Euros. Not bad for half way around the world eh.