A Little Preface

My friend Jessica was off to Europe for 3 months. She had just graduated from school (or university, as it is now fashionably called) and I woke up one morning feeling quite empty. There were at least 2 reasons for feeling this way: 1) I might never see her again due to the unpredictable nature of fresh grads in their early 20s exploring Europe and the wealth of possibilities in a continent re-awakened to the fact that it can, once again, be a major player in world economics, culture, and politics.

The second reason was that unlike Jessica, I didn't have the luxury of a favorable passport that allowed me to cross borders just like that. See, Filipinos have to really plan out their travels by getting visa, setting itineraries, and packing those gigantorious balikbayan boxes that look like a masking tape chew toy for the monster that lives inside the baggage claim converyor. If you read the thick red marks on the side of the box, Procopio Cementerio, Sunnyvale Phase II, Liwayway, Bulacan, you could decode where this box was headed, and which poor bastard would bravely struggle to roll/tip it onto his luggage cart, to the incredulous looks of mere mortals.

What I did have was a ticket to watch the Police in Twickenham, London, and a discount airline ticket to England for a week’s duration. So there I was, that morning, feet dangling off my loft bed, thinking--nay, feeling quite sorry for myself, when I got inspired to extend my vacation from a week to a month, and expand my knowledge of Europe to include France, Italy, Spain, and Germany. It looked great on paper. However, having lightly touched on the setbacks of having a disadvantaged passport, it was an ugly ordeal getting a Schengen Visa.

If you want to know what it's like to go to a first-world country with an inferior visa, imagine you wanted to go to the moon tomorrow, and think about all the things you would need to know and paperwork and money you would need for that to happen. Now multiply that by 4, and that’s roughly what people from third world countries have to go through.

It wasn't long, therefore, when I was pressured into hatching a plan B in case the French Consulate denied my short stay visa. So while I was talking with one of my many friends about alternative destinations, I blurted out another country that began with E. Egypt.

That’s when things started to get exciting.

Doing some calendar math, I realized that no matter how much my friends in France helped me, there was no way I was going to get that visa. I bought my ticket online to go from LCY to Cairo International three days after landing in England, and went to the Egyptian Consul General on Pacific St., and they told me to come back in a day and half. Cheerio! No questions. No references. No bank statement or proof of ample funds for the last three months. No itinerary, no hotel bookings. Just an airline ticket in and out of Egypt.

Now of course it’s all clear, how and why Egypt accepts the tired, hungry, and poor Filipinos like me. They know what it’s like to haul hexahedra miles upon miles.