Visit to the British Embassy - 21st April 2009

The day finally arrived to go to the Embassy to hand in the notice of marriage. We picked up a taxi as we didn’t know if the embassy was in walking distance. As it turned out it was.

I’ve noticed this morning that I have a bit of a sun tan jejeje received thanks to Bucaramanga! (told you it was hot over there!).

The embassy is on the 8th floor of a 9 floor building and is not advertised at all. In difference to the French embassy which we came across a few days ago which appeared like a concentration camp with electric barbed wire, security and a large flag /notice signs. In contrast the British Embassy is very reserved although we did go through several security checks but you feel very comfortable. In true British style we were met by two queues, one at the entrance and another on the 8th floor. Luckily to smooth things out we were attended by the same official I have been dealing with via emails. She was very nice and took care of everything in less than 15 minutes so all in all from leaving the apartment and getting the papers sorted it took less than an hour. She still didn’t quite get why I had to come to Colombia for the notice of marriage so I cleared but like I told her, we are here now and its because of the lack of implementation of the law within the Gibraltar legislation as it has never been a requirement and now it is.

Oh as a funny note I handed in my ID card as they take a picture and give you a sticker which serves as your visitors pass. The official asked me if I had some other form of identification as the ID number was too long and didn't fit in the sticker (the program used didn't accept so many numbers jejeje). I gave her my passport which has a smaller number. When I told her that we are only just 30,000 people who reside in Gibraltar she just chuckled and said so many numbers for so few residents jejeje. Thought it was worth a mention.

Thanks to the Government of Gibraltar the notice of marriage has cost be an unnecessary £70 and the certificate will cost me the same when I go to pick it up on the 12th May as agreed with the embassy official.

The embassy official called me this afternoon as she couldn’t answer my question on arranging for the visa once we are married so my gatita can come back to Gibraltar with me. She informed me that it’s Gibraltar who grants the visa and she gave me the numbers of the Principal Immigration Officers of the Gibraltar Police Station. Its very good she cleared this and I'll be calling the station to see how quickly we can deal with this and even if I can start the process before being married and what papers I need to take back, for example photocopies of marriage, my gatita's ID/Passport etc etc.

On our return which we walked back instead we headed in to "Manny’s" which is rapidly becoming our lunch time local as the food is quite good. We have been regularly doing hand washing but today we decided to use the laundry service provided by the apartment complex as its starting to pile up. It cost us 6000 pesos for 6 hours which is dead cheap (30 pence an hour). Basically it’s a room with a large washing machine and includes a balcony were the clothes can be hang out to dry. By the way I am not winning the war against the mosquito’s, I haven’t been bitten again (I think) but the ones I have on my legs itch like chicken pox. To celebrate how smoothly things have turned out today with the embassy and I am very happy they did as all main hurdles have been overcome, we decide to celebrate by having a Chinese. We checkout the yellow pages and the closest one turns out to be the Chinese restaurant we visited last year. The food is very nice there. We ordered special fried rice, king prawn chow Mein & sweet & sour pork balls (8 of them and they were like donkeys balls jejeje huge). We couldn’t finish everything so ordered doggy bags jejeje. In Colombia the speciality is Peking Duck but you need to pre-order it a a day before. When we checked the menu out it was listed as costing 170,000 pesos (very expensive) that’s like £50.00. I am glad we didn’t order it jejeje.