This week I had the privilege of assisting my mate Omar in attempting to break the Guiness World Record in Visiting the Most Embassies in 24 hours (we were in London). It is something you don’t do every day, so I thought I tag along. I had to act as a witness: taking pictures and keeping time of all the embassy visits. As a witness you are only allowed to work for 4h so I only joined for the afternoon.
It was quite an unique experience. Omar tried to get in touch with as many embassies in advance, but not everyone replied or was ready to help out. We ended up running all over town between embassies which expected us and additionally marched into other ones which were not on the official list. We also tried to avoid certain embassies altogether like Saudi-Arabia for example for obvious reasons.
I was immensely surprised by the range of reactions we encountered. Some, even a few among them which had agreed to our visit beforehand, acted like it was the end of the world to sacrifice two minutes to sign a piece of paper and let us take one picture inside the premises. Naturally some of the ones who didn’t know that we were coming weren’t impressed either or started shaking their heads no before we even had the chance to explain what is what about.
On the other end of the spectrum were embassy representatives and staff who were extremely delighted to have us and even prepared some gifts like in Canada. For others we were clearly the highlight of the day so that they posted on their social media site about our visit as soon as we had left the building. The three friendly ladies in the embassy of Papua New Guinea were sceptical initially, but by the end of our visit told us all about their country and urged us to visit it some time. Some even acted as if we part of an official state visit: there was a friendly security detail attached in Slovakia, plenty of hand shakes in the Philippines, photographers and Omar even got to meet a few Ambassadors themselves like in Guatemala.
While the main focus for me was supporting Omar and rushing from one place to the next, my attention was very much on the great variety of reactions we received in different countries. My mind desperately wanted to match the hostility and friendliness of staff to the country they represented, but this turned out to be impossible. Either they were grumpy and even hostile, or they were welcoming and showed a sense of wonder and adventure - no matter the nationality of their embassy.
PS: Omar did break the record! Previously set at 15, he managed to visit 32 embassies in one day. Congrats!! 
