It is Saturday March 2nd. Today is the flight to Sydney. I spent the night at my parents home, my dad is supposed to bring me to the airport. We get up at about 3am. I take a quick shower and we start close to 4am to the airport. We don\u2019t have breakfast. My dad and I want to have it at the airport and he wants to take some time to have a look at the new building there. The flight plan is: Vienna to Dusseldorf by Air Berlin then to Abu Dhabi and Sydney by Etihad Airways. Planned departure is at 6:25am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m at the check-in counter. The whole procedure is taking longer than expected. The Air Berlin employee is typing on the keyboard and she is looking concentrated into the monitor. Suddenly she asks: \u201cDo you have a visa?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
. . . . Silence . . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I:\u201dWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She: \u201cI have problems checking you in for Sydney. Did you apply for an ETA visa?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I: \u201cI need a visa for Australia?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She: \u201cYes, \u2026 \u2026 \u2026 … … But you can apply for it online.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ok, no problem. I have got my laptop with me and there is free WLAN at the airport. I leave the check-in counter with my whole luggage and tell my dad the situation. I start to search in the Internet for \u201cETA visa Australia\u201d. The homepage is found very quickly. I click \u201cApply online\u201d, entered Name, Address, Birthdate. Choose Country. So what? There are only a few countries to choose from. Can\u2019t be. So I read again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can apply for an online visa, if you are from the following countries.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Austria is not in the list. Reading on.\u00a0If you are from one of the following countries you can get a visa from a travel agency, another agent or from the embassy in your country.<\/em>\u00a0I started getting nervous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ok, I go to the Air Berlin counter and tell them my problem. Time is running. Then they say: \u201cSorry, we can\u2019t do anything. The flights are bound. But Air Berlin is only responsible for the flight to Dusseldorf. But without a visa we can\u2019t check you in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I asked them when the next flight will go. March 6. Meanwhile I check a flight-searchengine if there are any flights the next day. I too call the Australian embassy in Austria. Can\u2019t be wrong. Maybe someone is already in the office at 5am. Someone is picking up the phone immediately. Just joking, there is a tape running.\u00a0Office hours are from Monday to Friday from 8 until sometime.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I said to my dad: \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019m going to Sydney today\u201d. Thanks to my dad, he came up with the idea: \u201cTry it again. Maybe you can get to Dusseldorf. There you have a three hour stopover. You can try it again there. If not, you have to come home anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Back to the Air Berlin counter. The employee does the best to find a solution. He can\u2019t do anything, but maybe the employees from the airport flight service on the left. They greet me with the words: \u201cAre you Mr. Bauer?\u201d Looks like my problem made the round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A very big thanks to the employees from the airport flight service and the person from Air Berlin. For about an hour the did their best and tried a lot of possibilities to split the flights. Finally they succeeded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s 6:05am. Check-In officially closed at 5:55am. I move over to the check-in counter. The woman there is informed. She tells me that my luggage is going with the next flight. If I succeed to get a visa in Dusseldorf the luggage is checked through. If not, I have to pick it up from the lost and found counter. But If I take out all liquids, I can take the luggage in the cabin. Ok, all liquids out, shampoo, shower gel, deodorant, \u2026 you can get that in Australia as well. I too have to leave a bottle of Snaps at home. I wanted to take it with me. I got it from my grandma for birthday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The boarding pass was issued. At 6:20am, 5 minutes before take-off, I\u2019m in the plane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the speaker you can hear: \u201cBoarding completed \u2026 ready for take-off \u2026 here is your captain speaking \u2026 there is a lot of traffic, we will start in 25 minutes.\u201d I thought: They can\u2019t do that to me. Every minute counts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At about 8:30 I\u2019m in Dusseldorf. Passport control, there are a lot of people. I\u2019m still in the transit area and have to get out to the departure area. Another passport control. The security person asked me: \u201cWhere are you coming from, with the whole luggage?\u201d I told him the situation and ask him how I could get to the departure area quick. There, I needed to orientate. At the information counter, I ask, if there is a Etihad counter somewhere. \u201cYes, down there, on the left.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s 9am. The scheduled departure is 11am. At the Etihad counter I tell again my problem. They say: \u201cNo problem at all. Within a few minutes you will have your visa.\u201d I calmed down. But when they said: \u201cIt looked different in the training\u201d, I thought: That can\u2019t be true. Am I on \u201cHidden camera\u201d. I just waited that a lot of people jumped out from everywhere, screaming \u201cWe got you!\u201d. After half an hour the visa was issued and I was able to check in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I could have used a sip of the Snaps I had to leave behind in Vienna. So, there was only a security check between me and the flight. I put my stuff on the conveyor belt and walked through the security control. At the other side I waited for my bags. One of them was separated. I just thought: WTF? The security person said: \u201cGood day. Is that your bag? Yes? Could you take it over there please. We do a check for explosives.\u201d Oh yes, off course we do that. I\u2019m already prepared for everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hard to believe, but I found myself sitting in the plane. I got a not that bad seat where I had some place. And one of the toilets had a window \u2013 at least a great view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you for reading, J\u00fcrgen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It is Saturday March 2nd. Today is the flight to Sydney. I spent the night at my parents home, my dad is supposed to bring me to the airport. We get up at about 3am. I take a quick shower and we start close to 4am to the airport. We don\u2019t have breakfast. My dad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-bauer.at\/wp_australia2013\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-bauer.at\/wp_australia2013\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-bauer.at\/wp_australia2013\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-bauer.at\/wp_australia2013\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-bauer.at\/wp_australia2013\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/j-bauer.at\/wp_australia2013\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86,"href":"https:\/\/j-bauer.at\/wp_australia2013\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions\/86"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-bauer.at\/wp_australia2013\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-bauer.at\/wp_australia2013\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-bauer.at\/wp_australia2013\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-bauer.at\/wp_australia2013\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}