Visa & Vaccination

Good day, I hope that you have noticed that I have included a photograph with each day’s post. Click on the image for an enlargement. If you are inclined comments can be posted – see the comment link immediately following each post. Unfortunate the photographs do not include a legend. At this point, the photographs are unrelated to the subject of the days post; the future promises a more coordinated approach to the use of photographs.

The photograph on January 2, 2007 is a panoramic view of Lake Mead in Nevada taken on a trip to Las Vegas for my niece’s wedding in late September 2006. The photograph illustrating January 3^rd, 2007 is of shop window taken in Greenwich Village in New York City on October 5^th, 2006. The photograph illustrating the entry of January 4, 2007 was taken in Sao Paulo, Brazil in February 2006 of a woman in the train station. The photography included with today’s post is of public art in the Sumaré Metro Station in São Paulo. In the future I will include a legend with the photographs.

Today I am picking up my visa for Pakistan. I applied for the visa on Tuesday. The application requires two photographs, a $120.00 fee, my passport and the usual personal information. Visas are applied for at the Consular Section of a country’s embassy. If you are applying in-person, it is important to know that the Consul office is frequently in a different location than the Embassy. When I applied for my Indian visa last week, I went to the Indian Embassy only to discovery that the Consular Office was five long blocks away – I was running late.

Follow the instruction exactly – read everything. When I applied for the Indian visa, the consular officer instructed me to return that afternoon between 4:30 and 5:30 pm. Unfortunately, I was making my flight reservation for the trip and I was unable to get to the office that afternoon. No problem, I planned on returning the next morning. The office was scheduled to open for Consular business between 9:30 am and 12:30 pm. Upon arrival the following morning I discovered that the morning was reserved for the application process and the afternoon was reserved for pick-up. If I had carefully read the sign posted on the window, I’d have saved myself a trip. I had glanced at the sign, but interpreted as a notice of the afternoon hours.

Misreading the notice cost an extra trip to the office, and it delayed my application for my Pakistan visa; I could not apply for my Pakistan visa until my passport was returned by the Indian Consul. By the time I pick-up my Indian visa that afternoon it was too late to apply for my visa to Pakistan; due to the long weekend I could not apply for the visa until the following Tuesday. It did not make much difference, I had plenty of time – the visa only takes 3 days and it is still a couple of weeks before I leave.

Early this afternoon I have an appointment to have my tuberculin skin test read, and receive a hepatitis ‘B’ vaccination. I had to have a blood test before I could have the hepatitis ‘B’ vaccination, so I could not have it with the polio booster, the typhoid, and the hepatitis ‘A’ vaccination and the tuberculin skin test I had on Tuesday. Later this afternoon I have a dentist appointment to have a root canal. I was originally schedule to have the root canal on the 19^th, but I wanted to have this stage of my dental work completed before I left. I did not want to leave for a month with a temporary crown.

After today I will have only one more vaccination - yellow fever. Kaiser Permanente does not include yellow fever vaccinations in any of its plans. I believe you need a special license to give yellow fever vaccination. Kaiser referred me to a provider licensed to give the injection. I’m a little confused about the yellow fever vaccination requirement. It seems the World Health Organization requires it for international travel, but unless you have traveled to a ‘yellow fever country’ within six days prior to your arrival (at least in the case of India) you are not asked for your vaccination certificate. The vaccination is good for ten years so I decided to have the injection and forget about it.

Some of the vaccinations require boosters. For example, hepatitis ‘A’ requires a booster in six months. The hepatitis ‘B’ requires a booster in one month, and then in six months, and finally in one year (I better check). They are all starting to run together. I currently have a diphtheria/tetanus vaccination good for several more years. A couple of years ago I was bitten by a dog while riding my bike so that vaccination is still active.

The final health related preparation is my traveling first aid kit. I have to convince my internist to prescribe an antibiotic cream, an anti-diarrhea, and an antibacterial cream.