I wrote: “with Paris’s notoriety for being inhabited by some of the rudest and nastiest people on the planet”
There are plenty of nice Parisians, too. However – the French, who rather tend to be a peevish lot, will freely tell you that the folk of their capital city are often stroppy and unpleasant in their dealings with their fellow-humans – even for France.
In my late teens, I spent half a year in Paris, and was on the receiving end of a lot of general snark and shit and sometimes outright hostility, from the locals – though also, many folk were OK, or in fact kind and pleasant – and I was probably an annoying little twit.
I understand that under German occupation in World War II, the Parisians got maximum mileage out of their proverbial speciality: they judged to a nicety, just how obnoxious they could be to the occupiers without getting horrible consequences from so doing…
HAHAHAHAHA! Oh, my goodness. Citizens are told that it’s a loan and given the information for repayment, but nobody really expects that to happen, and quite often it doesn’t. Nobody has the resources to go after a debt that small, so it’s just written off.
If your passport is taken, you can’t get out of the country you’re in or into the US, unless there is some serious paperwork and the customs agent knows what the hell he’s reading. The senior officers I worked with took it as a given that the money would never be repaid.
I have heard nothing but horror stories about the US embassy in Port Of Spain, from both US citizens AND locals using the visa services. When a spokesperson or PR person appears on local talk radio the callers quickly degenerate into a hate fest.
They also appear to have a problem with corruption if stories I have heard is true.
I’m going to have to deal with them for both a passport renewal and CRBA so hey I’ll have updates
Ditto - not my experience at all. I’ve always enjoyed interactions with Parisians, and cannot recall a rude or nasty one at all.
I do recall seeing many bewildered Parisians trying to deal with anglophones who think that if they only SPEAK LOUDLY IN ENGLISH the French will suddenly understand them. :rolleyes:
I don’t think the OP’s point is at all limited to Americans. People of all nationalities have seen too many movies and think an embassy is some sort of Hogwart’s of magical ways of fixing your problems.
The British are no different:
An embassy is not a heavily staffed thing with lots of people sitting around waiting to solve every tourist’s problems.
Couldn’t tell you about that, as I was only a duty officer, not a consular employee. The embassy in Lisbon had zero money to give to people. The best they could do was to point the person to a flop house and help them contact somebody back in the states to wire them cash. Luckily, it didn’t happen often. Usually it was somebody who had their passport stolen. I don’t know why people don’t carry a photocopy of the front page with them. It saves a ton of trouble for everyone concerned.
Absolutely, but the citizens of smaller countries don’t seem to have those expectations, it’s not like Luxembourg can send a SEAL team here. It’s usually citizens of largish, first world countries that have the most unrealistic expectations.
I can imagine some of the crazies that roam around here demanding that the queen be briefed of the situation.
I know an American who needed to go to U.S.A. for heart surgery at V.A. The Consulate bought him an airplane ticket … but confiscated his passport upon his return to U.S. waiting for loan repayment.
The same guy was turned away decades later when he arrived at Consulate for a simple service (notarization) because he hadn’t made an appointment via Internet.
The Consulate in Bangkok often provides misinformation, and I’ve watched officials insult Americans for no good reason. Even the security checkpoint on entry has become silly, with belabored queueing instructions.
Simple services are now expensive. One American who complained about the $45 notarization fee regretted her complaint: Consulate official got her revenge by charging $45 per page on the ten-page document.
Overseas Vote Foundation will also help you vote, and it’s non-partisan, if you’re into that.
Otherwise Carol is correct, although I find American Citizen Services at the Sydney Consulate to be super helpful for the things I need, which, granted, are limited to renewing my passport and when my son was a minor, renewing his. If I wanted to get my husband a green card, that’s where I’d start.
But yeah before I was a dual citizen I wouldn’t have expected them to bail me out of jail or anything and I’m always perplexed at people who expect this in cases where they are getting punishment for breaking the law.
For Australians, just look at the Schapelle Corby debacle and the expectation that Australia ‘do something’ - why? It’s all a bit silly.
And would it kill to (at least in the case of trading partners, whatever) accept the notary equivalent of some countries? In Australia it’s called certification, it’s done by the exact same process as American notarisation but will the Embassy accept it or government offices accept it? No! Gah!
I’m happy to pay for it if there’s no alternative but I live somewhere that has those services available from a justice of the peace or other person with the same training a notary public in the US gets. (I know, I’ve done both.)
It varies, but overall I have been largely unhappy with my US Embassy encounters (I am American). We’ve always had good service from the Embassies in Prague and Tbilisi. The Dubai consulate is generally a bit rude, and the US Embassy in Canberra, Australia wins for worst - we were not even allowed in despite having US passports. It was not an emergency case, so after 5 minutes of arguing with the Marine guard at the entrance, we left.
Weird, I have no issue at all with the Consulate in Sydney? But then I always have an appointment, that’s the only reason I can think they might not have let you in. Sydney requires an appointment (easy to make online) unless it’s an emergency.
My daughter was in Paris a couple of months ago and missed her flight home (by minutes. The Metro line that goes directly to the airport was shut down and a very nice French couple gave her a ride to the airport but she was turned away at the check-in counter). She called me in tears, and I ended up e-mailing the US Embassy in Paris for information. They could not have been more helpful; they actually called me at work, then e-mailed me with the information I had requested (regarding hotels near the airport).
I was very impressed that they were willing to help.
I’ve had poor dealings with the consular office in Cayman. (We don’t rate a full embassy).
I went in to get the paperwork to renew my passport , a relatively simple matter I would think. They advised to download the application and follow the instructions on the State Dept website.
I brought the completed forms and payment back a few days later. That is when the fun began. What the consular office felt was acceptable payment was not the same as what the State Dept website said.
State Dept website instructions: Get a cashier’s checks payable to XYZ.
Consular office: Cashier’s checks made out to XYZ are not acceptable.
US Embassy: You can pay in US or local currency instead.
Consular office: We won’t take cash.
US Embassy: Visa or MasterCard is fine
Consular office: We don’t take credit cards. We’ll take a cashier’s check made out to ABC.
Consular office (different employee next day): We cannot accept a cashier check made out to ABC.
Eventually I gave up and sent my application thorough one of those expediting companies.
Professionally, I have had to contact them. A couple times their emergency phone was simply turned off and we had to send a police officer to the home of the consular office to wake her up.
This was in 1996 and no appointment was needed. We wanted to add pages to our passports and get out of the heat since we had walked there… Canberra is not really a walking city. The stern Marine at the gate examined our passports and then would not let us in nor tell us why “I don’t have to give you a reason” he said coldly.
You can’t get into the US Embassy in Jakarta without an appointment, but I understand that; it is a security measure. My work takes me to the Australian embassy from time to time and it is the same way there. I wouldn’t expect either embassy to behave any differently in the post-911 era, especially in a majority Islamic nation. Sucks but that’s the real world. I don’t blame the embassies.
Iggy, I had an experience like yours once, where the website information was different from what was written on line. I forget the particulars but it was related to renewing our son’s passport - the website said a parent had to be present but the official insisted that BOTH parents be physically present, I think. It’s been a while so I have forgotten the particulars. But I know I lost the argument and had to do what the official said, not what I read on the website.
Given the horrible Jakarta traffic, it takes close to half a day to visit consular services now, so if I must do so, I over-prepare so that I can avoid a failed visit: if they say bring a photocopy, I bring 3. If I have filled-out forms to notarize, I bring a blank copy of the forms as well in case they are not happy with the filled-in version. Etc.
I wish Surly Chick would come back to this thread and comment on what steps, if any, are taken to get people to pay back loans they received to repatriate themselves in an emergency.
Let me generalise and claim that this is not limited to France. People from outside the capital of the country, state, whatever tend to have that opinion. You should hear the discussion in Sweden.
