GETTING A SCHENGEN VFS STYLE

( C.P.O. means "Claus Peter Offen Tankschiffreederei" , which is a german company) 

 

For the moment "MCA" signing part on my medical is being put on temporarily hold for 24 hours , to attend on a more urgent matters like getting a Schengen Visa. CPO Crewing manager assured me that a liaison officer will be attending me and my co-worker "jayson" while were at the VFS Visa Company in Ecopark building in makati, In fact he said specifically that we don’t have to bring anything at all when we're going there and that the liaison Officer will be bring all the paper documents needed. For security purposes were also told that we shouldn’t bring any back packs or bags as well.

 

I came to Ecopark building very early since traffic in EDSA highway is very unpredictable and I had to be in VFS at exactly 10am. My co-worker "Jayson" arrived early as well because he lives far south like Cavite area. At first there was a bit of confusion given that there are two 7-11 stores nearby, I don’t exactly know which of the two is the actual meeting place. Good thing "Jayson"  clarified that it was the 7-11 store on the ground floor that was the meeting place for us and the liaison officer.  The Liaison Officer was very brief on his instruction and gave us our documents , he said he cannot accompany us inside with the security around and that only visa applicants are allowed inside.

 

Once inside it was the usual stuff like in any Visa application company (or embassy). Full of people minding their own business. Frankly European Visa is not strict when it comes to its applicants compared to the U.S. Embassy, Security checks are very light and very comfortable for any applicant. According to what our liaison officer told us we should proceed to the VIP processing section after going thru the I.D. picture booth. The I.D. picture booth was not exactly that "functional" as its wasn’t flashing when it took my picture , as a result I had the most embarrassing I.D. photo ever taken in my life, I literary looked like a retard version of Mr. Bean.

 

The VIP process section as I describe , is nothing more than a small lounge with snacks and a drink area with just only one attendant checking the documents. We only stayed a couple of minutes there but it was very comfortable , after that we proceeded to booth number 3 for the payment and after that we went on to booth number 6 for biometric data capture (actually it's just a finger print section). After that it concludes our Schengen Visa application, and we went outside to tell our liaison officer that were already finished with the Visa application. He told us that we had to wait a couple of days and he'd be carrying the documents we have back to the office. Based on what I read on the documents before we handed them to the liaison officer, it looks like that the Schengen visa I'm going to have is a bit inferior to the one's issued by Career Ship  Management. From what I read it’s a 3 day transit type visa compared to before that it’s a thirty day one , anyway a Schengen Visa is still a Schengen Visa.

 

"Jayson" and I rode a jeep and headed west direction towards the main EDSA highway, After that we parted ways since I'm going to back to my house and him on NAIA terminal 3 to fetch a relative.

 

On Cubao, I took the change in getting some cash by exchanging my 100 U.S.D. left on my wallet to the foreign exchange booth. I got from the exchange on that day is 4,585 PHP and will use the money to patch up my PSCRB seminar cert.