Yakup Çetin
This article was written in 13 November 2010, Saturday before Zaman Today Newspaper was confiscated by the new regime in Turkey and many its journalists either jailed or fleet from the country.
Recently, I was rather excited to visit Germany again after an interval of three years, when I was invited by The European Language Certificates for a meeting in Frankfurt. Upon receiving the invitation I soon started preparing the 13 items listed on the website of the German Consulate required for the Schengen Visa. Believe it or not it is rather exhausting, time-consuming, and nerve-racking as well as insulting for an academician to collect all those necessary documents including a copy of my ID, travel insurance, invitation letter, official trade register of the university, marriage certificate, and many more. When I also add the day I spent on travelling from Büyükçekmece to Taksim just for a 5 minute appointment with the Consulate representative; plus the expenditure I paid to one agency that helped me during the Visa process; entry permit to Germany cost me almost 130 Euros and some valuable days. In return, I was largely disappointed and annoyed to learn that I was given a visa only for eight days; I did not know whether I should laugh or cry at this relatively cold German attitude, for I was planning to attend some conferences ahead in Germany with the same…
