slisk250
Straight Flush
This is the Causeway connecting Saudi to Bahrain. Depending on the night you want to fly out of Dammam and the destination, driving to Bahrain is a better option. It takes three gates to get out of the Kingdom. At the second (passport) stop they will check their system that your passports, resident permit and multiple exit/reentry visa are all good....but they fuck up semi-regularly. When that happens, they send you into some office where you try to sort it out. Usually, the most common error is they mark you out of Kingdom when you are in and for some reason that screws things up...but is fixable. Stated more clearly, it is exceedingly difficult to get in and out of this damn country if there are any government fuck ups.
What happens when the system says your wife's passport is expired when it is not? They tell you to go back and solve it tomorrow at immigration. You miss your flight, lose money, miss vacations...maybe this should be in the WTF thread.
So it's Parent weekend at Mercersburg Academy where my senior son is starring in a play. It is one of the very few reasons I can use to miss work. We get stopped at the passport gate, sent inside. Normally you get a paper that they stamp for each person allowed to exit. It took about 30 minutes of shmoozing and negotiating with a young Saudi agent while trying to get my very angry feminist wife to sit the fuck down and let me deal with this guy in a backwards country. No way I'm missing the trip and was about ten minutes from putting her in another taxi back to Dhahran (probably resulting in divorce proceedings). So I go in the back room without her and then he asks when I'm coming back. I told him next Wed. It was an odd question and figured he wanted to save the day but regulations prevent it. I was begging for him to use his "wasta" and call the captain for some resolution. It's about 10pm so I knew it would not really get solved in the system but if I could get him to stamp that fucking paper three times (us plus the taxi driver) we would be able to exit.
...and that is what happened. He walked us out to the gate, retrieved all the passports (they were holding mine too!) and told the guy it was fixed "mafi mushkala" I'm quite sure that nobody in immigration even tried to fix it. When we come back I have a problem and will most likely have to send her back to Bahrain when we try to enter, then take her passport to Dammam immigration the next day. It will cost us maybe 4 vacation days since she will then miss the entire work week (not qualifying for the paid weekend). It is a BS system. This is just one of many instances an oppressive society breaks down and denies people their freedoms. For different reasons, I'm sure victims of the Trump travel ban can relate.
Don't take your freedom for granted. Fight every attempt your government makes to take away your freedoms if you live in a place that allows for such protest/action.
#mywifeisluckytobedrinkingabeeratSchiphol
What happens when the system says your wife's passport is expired when it is not? They tell you to go back and solve it tomorrow at immigration. You miss your flight, lose money, miss vacations...maybe this should be in the WTF thread.
So it's Parent weekend at Mercersburg Academy where my senior son is starring in a play. It is one of the very few reasons I can use to miss work. We get stopped at the passport gate, sent inside. Normally you get a paper that they stamp for each person allowed to exit. It took about 30 minutes of shmoozing and negotiating with a young Saudi agent while trying to get my very angry feminist wife to sit the fuck down and let me deal with this guy in a backwards country. No way I'm missing the trip and was about ten minutes from putting her in another taxi back to Dhahran (probably resulting in divorce proceedings). So I go in the back room without her and then he asks when I'm coming back. I told him next Wed. It was an odd question and figured he wanted to save the day but regulations prevent it. I was begging for him to use his "wasta" and call the captain for some resolution. It's about 10pm so I knew it would not really get solved in the system but if I could get him to stamp that fucking paper three times (us plus the taxi driver) we would be able to exit.
...and that is what happened. He walked us out to the gate, retrieved all the passports (they were holding mine too!) and told the guy it was fixed "mafi mushkala" I'm quite sure that nobody in immigration even tried to fix it. When we come back I have a problem and will most likely have to send her back to Bahrain when we try to enter, then take her passport to Dammam immigration the next day. It will cost us maybe 4 vacation days since she will then miss the entire work week (not qualifying for the paid weekend). It is a BS system. This is just one of many instances an oppressive society breaks down and denies people their freedoms. For different reasons, I'm sure victims of the Trump travel ban can relate.
Don't take your freedom for granted. Fight every attempt your government makes to take away your freedoms if you live in a place that allows for such protest/action.
#mywifeisluckytobedrinkingabeeratSchiphol