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Posted by on August 08, 1997 at 13:56:02:
Hello!!
I am wondering if we need a swedish visa to travel from Finland to Norway
by train. I have both Finnish and Norwegian visas, but could not get a
Swedish visa.
I don't know if this happened to anyone before, but I thought I share my
experiences with the swedish consulate in NY. I called up local swedish
consular office in my city to enquire about the minimum time required to
get a tourist visa to Sweden. The local consulate officials were very
nice, they patiently listened to my questions and told me that I should
apply through the NY office and if my visa application is complete, the
processing time would be at the most a day or two. So, with this valuable
information I federal expressed (with prepaid return envelope) my
application to NY, only to know that it is just lying there. Whenever I
call up this long distance number to find out about the status of my
application, I was just put on waiting for almost 1 hour. And finally
when I got a chance to talk to someone there, they asked me to fax some
other document and call back after couple of days. I faxed the document
and called the next day, only to wait for 45 minutes in vain. And now
when I finally got an other chance to talk to them, they (this time a
different person) tried to reject my application saying that my
application was not complete. Finally, after a long conversation I
managed to convince her that my application was complete and I need this
visa sooner, so that I can apply for other visas. But, now after all the
time and money I spent for this visa they tell me that they won't be able
to guarantee a visa for me before I leave. Therefore, I don't have any
other alternative, I have to cancel my trip to Sweden and the resources I
spent are down the drain. If they don't mail my passport (without Sweden
visa) back soon, then I may have to cancel my trip to couple of other
countries in Europe. Infact as I write this mail, my visa application for
Sweden is still in Swedish consulate, just sitting there for a week now.
One of the employees there suggested me to report this to Swedish foreign
ministry in Stockholm.
I did not have any problems with Norwegian, or Finnish or Dutch
consulates. Everyone there was so cooperative and helpful.
I am sorry to bore everyone here, with this frustrating story. I don't
aim to achieve anything from this but just hope that nobody goes through
this experience.
But, if anyone could let me know if I need a Swedish visa or not, while
travelling from Finland to Norway by train, I appreciate it.
Thanks in advance.
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