Herculean visa task

Came in early before work today to fill out my visa application for Russia. It ended up taking a very long time, because they wanted to know all the countries I’ve visited in the past ten years. I don’t deny their right to ask such a question. It simply took me a very, very long time to reconstruct the list of every country I have visited since 2002, even with records as complete as mine are.

Assuming I didn’t forget anything, I seem to have crossed a national border 145 times since 2002, and it took quite awhile to piece those all together in proper order.

The most common experience with lists of this sort is: “What? It was already three years ago that I was in Belgrade?” Things like that.

I also had to list my two jobs prior to my current one. That goes back to 1990, and it was not easy to find the requested contact information for my boss in that case.

Yes, I’ve heard that U.S. visas are just as big a pain to apply for. I’m not complaining, just sharing. It will be well worth it to see a bit of Russia, though a 4-day trip obviously isn’t going to quench my thirst and I’ll need to go back again. But this will be a great starter trip.