( 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.
