Germans stole my passport...

As a follow up to James’ post, I now have also braved the German Consulate, and returned relatively intact. It is worth noting that there is officially no good way to get to the damned place. Forewarned by the peak hour traffic conditions James had faced, I thought I’d be clever and take the train. On a map, it doesn’t look too far away from South Yarra station…. right?

It was a comedy of errors. I planned to catch a train that gave me plenty of time. I missed that one, though this was a blessing in disguise, for in my preparatory haste, I’d failed to pack several vital pieces of information I’d need for my application. After getting hold of everything I needed, I'd missed another train. Technically, I could still get there on time - the trains I'd missed would have delivered me early, now I'd just be cutting it fine. Yet my hopes were dashed - clearly I haven’t been watching the news in the last month; all it takes is a warm breeze and Connex just gives up for the day. Flinders Street was awash with the chorus of 'Train not taking passengers'. By the time I got to South Yarra I was already running rather late, and that isn't counting the dash from the station to the consulate. What I learned: Metlink maps can make things look deceptively close together.

I must say, given that I was 40 minutes late for my appointment, they were remarkably polite, and despite a waiting room full of people I was called within moments of my arrival. They took my forms. They took my passport.

If all goes well they’ll give it back to me soon.

P.S : I found this in our travel insurance fine print, under incidents that they ‘do not cover at all’:

‘A loss caused by, arising directly or indirectly from or in any way connected with the use, existence or escape of nuclear weapons material, or ionising radiation from, or contamination by, radioactivity from any nuclear fuel, or nuclear waste from the combustion of nuclear fuel.’

In short, we aren’t covered for nuclear war.