Embassies & the corresponding countries

My favorite countries often also happen to be the most efficient.
You can always tell how a country is by the way their embassy handles a visa application.
Take the last few embassies I engaged with for example:

1. Luxembourg embassy:
The 1st thing the consulate wrote was,
you won't need a visa.
I had to clarify,
I live in 🇳🇿 but I don't have a kiwi passport,
Their Reply:
you're 🇨🇳, you don't need a visa.
Sweet~!
❤️ it.

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2. the Polish embassy:
Just show me that you'll be in 🇵🇱 for the longest time amongst all the countries you'll be visiting.
I got the visa in 3 business days.
I kid you not.
+
Everything (including the visa application form) was entirely filled out and submitted online.
There is an electronic automatic acknowledgement and receipt.
Just like that of 🇦🇺 & 🇳🇿.
Smooth,
Seamless,
swift,
hassle-free.

****************************************
0. Not my favorite At All:
Spanish Embassy in Wellington 
- this is a negative example:
​
I had to deal with this stupidly redundant office of a place
before I ended up having to cancel my trip and my flights altogether.

I didn't cancel my trip because of them.
But I swear to travel deity if there ever is one:
I will never
ever
apply for a visa with the Spanish embassy ever again
in this life!

At first,
their office advised me that I could not apply 3 months in advance,
& said August would be better for traveling in October.
Fine.
I emailed in August to ask Can I apply now?
They said to me:
No,
Apply at the end of August.
Cutting it close.
Sure. I can work with that
as long as you promise efficiency.

At the end of August,
I put through my application.
And I asked by email,
"2 questions if I may:
Can I skip the Include A Return Courier Bag part, I'm based on The Terrace,
And can I please be allowed to walk to your office to pick up and drop off my passport,
as I do not want to lose my passport in the post."
Clear communication right ?
Office replies:
"Yes to both questions."

1.5 weeks later,
After daily chase-up by 📧,
I got rejected in writing right away because I had 2 countries on my itinerary that both get visas handled by the Italian Embassy
(even though a 🇨🇳 can go visa free into 1 of them)
and I had a 1 day excursion to a tiny country inside Spain but not a Spanish country ,
They rejected my visa application outright.

I said,
I will "cancel" all 3 other countries that I was intending on going to on my plan,
(Which is totally not true, I will still go as long as I get given the damn visa)
just to demonstrate my intention on traveling in Spain.
I wrote back saying:
"please know I didn't book anything, this is just my proposed itinerary.
I will prove that I will stay in Spain the longest with the following accommodation bookings."
So, for the purpose of the visa application,
I booked 4 nights of accommodation each in 3 separate Spanish cities that I would love to visit over time (not all at once).
I even paid for them , just to demonstrate my resolve to travel IN Spain.
And emailed my bookings through.
They returned my application anyway.
By post.

I called them, asked: um, what ?
They said: You need to wait for your letter.
I was almost getting mad: No, just tell me on the phone.
They said,
you didn't include a return courier bag in your application,
And you aren't spending have enough days in Spain.
I protested, But I emailed 2 weeks worth of accommodation bookings through to you this morning, including 4 cities in Spain.
The embassy lady bitterly and emotionlessly said: Email submissions don't count.

Then why not telling me that on the spot when I emailed them through, 
and point out that these things need to be POSTED
like the 1900s???

Wow.

'Nuff said.
This country is as behind as this embassy's system.

I withdrew the application.
Not because of this stupid embassy,
But because my team suddenly became short staffed,
my TL was not making it much a choice for me to go traveling.
I chose to stay, cancelled everything...

But I swear,
What a useless embassy to say the least.

I will never ever apply for a visa through the Spanish embassy here again.
And I do NOT recommend going through this embassy to get your visa for Schengen, 
it's not worth it.
Go to Polish embassy. 3 days, it's done. Everything online on their website, easy, efficient.

Below are my communication trail with the Spanish Embassy in Wellington.
The email trail shows the inconsistent information they provided,
the effort I put in to support my application for the visa, 
the atrociously ancient undigitised process they have
​which led to my cancelling the application out of frustration.

Most inconsistent, unreliable, inefficient, and heartless embassy I've dealt with.