Schengen visa

I love the Chinese culture, especially the language. I think the Chinese language is the most beautiful, complex, powerful language that ever exists. One Chinese character projects to you a story, two characters a movie, four characters contain the whole universe. I'm so much in love with this language that I feel thankful I was born a Chinese.

Very rarely do I feel frustrated being a Chinese – when I apply for visas.

Switzerland is a small country located in the heart of the Europe. Basel is a city right at the border of Switzerland, Germany, and France. More than half of the Basel population do their regular grocery shopping in Germany or France, because the price is less than half and they get the tax return. The border of France and Switzerland cuts right through my company campus, so half of the campus is located in France and there's a custom in the campus. If I forget to get off a train or tram that I'm riding on, I end up in Germany or France.

However I need to be careful not to override because I don't have a Schengen visa to go to these Schengen countries.

Half of my friends live and work in Germany or France and come to Basel every day for socializing. The other half go to Germany or France daily to socialize. I'm probably the first person they've met in their lives with such a "special situation". The YAG bible study group in my church used to meet occasionally in Germany but now we meet in my apartment instead. My friends have to change their life style to accommodate their dear new friend Mindy, by organizing all the activities to take place in Switzerland only.

In return they get all the entertainment from the discussion about the ways to smuggle me cross the border. My friends are very creative and adventurous and they've come up with thousands of ideas, some of which are indeed quite feasible I have to say. They've taught me all the access points along the border where there's no custom, I should be able to cross freely in theory. They've also suggested me to go jogging in the forest and accidentally "get lost" in the German side. I could also just walk through the French custom after \n8pm, because "French don't work after 8pm". I could cross the custom on a bike with helmet and sunglasses on, etc. Usually 80% of the topics are centered around smuggling. They also sometimes threaten me by saying they'll have a party in Germany.

Since I'll have an interview in Frankfurt I went to apply for a Schengen visa. The interview takes place July 26-27. The visa officer at the German Consulate looked at my brand-new passport and said: "ok, I'm going to be very generous to you. You will have a Schengen visa July 25-28. " I wonder what he would have been like if he had wanted to be nasty. Nevertheless my visa fee for 4 days is the same as those of 6 months.

There is a unique point which is the border of 3 countries: Switzerland, Germany and France. There is a restaurant built upon that point. My friends suggest me to go there and I'm really tempted to circle that point many times so that I cross the borders many times – just to make my visa fee worthy of the money…