Do your Swedish relatives work with/in the government at all? Or are regular, expat Swedes just invited to these events?

None of my such-invited Swedish relatives work against the government in any form -- none of them are anti-monarchists like myself -- but the few invited to foreign meet-ups with their birthright head-of-state do not have a work history for or with the Swedish government in any official employment or contractor relationship as far as I know.

The invitations seem way more likely when you are registered as a local resident with the local embassy in a far-off country that is not home to many of your fellow citizens and you happen to have a rather established public history in the locality; but that doesn't explain it as much as being registered with the embassy in a locality with few if any of your fellow citizens there.

Each country is a bit different. The more elitist or paranoid your country's average ambassadors tend to be (or are encouraged to be), or the less generally egalitarian your home country's society, then the less likely a local resident expat will get an invitation to such kind of events with officials (unless connected with the government/government figures running the local show, in charge of the local show, or a beneficiary of governmental assistance). The more fellow expats of your country there are in a host country, the less likely an invitation all other things being equal.

My visits are pretty boring and generally pleasant-

New passport - Guangzhou
Pages - Hanoi
Pages - Jerusalem
New Passport - Doha
4th of July party - Cairo

. . .

If someone wants to lay a bet that the Indian consulates and embassies aren't the worst in the world, I'll join you! Many of them have been outsourced to cox & kings, especially for visa services and this is about the one in new york

A year ago on a cold wintry day, I arrived at the destination only to see a queue of about 50 people standing outside. They started giving out hand-written numbers on post-it's to all in line. Finally folks started getting in the door but my guess is most folks were waiting outdoors for over an hour. Upstairs, it looked like a refugee camp and it turned out the guy giving out post-its only knew his numbers till 100 so when a 57 was called, there were like 3 folks standing up. Finally after waiting 4 hours, I decided the time for honesty was over, claim an emergency of requiring to fly out that night or I would have never been out of there and gotten my visa-stamped passport back. When I left, i could see a swarm of agitated people who had gathered around the officer's demanding to themselves go to the backroom to fetch their passports

I wished my wife's county (a small European country) had a real diplomatic post out here so we'd get invited to function but we live 2,200 miles from the embassy. She's also a native citizen of the country we live in though.

An old flame of mine is now an U.S. FSO in a South American country. Haven't really talked to her yet about life there. She authored some article a few years back profiling U.S. F.S. employees (didn't use the word "officers" ~ and it seems it includes anyone working under Chief of Mission authority) and it'd appear, from survey results, that 2/3 are female and 84% are single (never-marrieds or divorced).

F.S. includes both officers and speicalists.

In the early 70s, trying to get a visa for Chad at their embassy in Algiers. The official looking probably head fellow spent a bunch of time looking at the pages in my passport, and said to come back tomorrow to pick it up. It turns out he had someone hand draw a fancy looking visa "stamp" to mimic those of other countries. Coolest visa I ever got!

More recently, a young acquaintance went to the Indian embassy in NYC - took the bus down, doing it as a day trip. The queue was as crazy as posted above and things were not getting anywhere - they were not even letting people into the building. So she bribed a guard and got in - had to pay the guy in the elevator because there were cameras everywhere. We (my Indian friends and I) thought this was a hysterical "entrance exam" where you had to demonstrate the ability to give baksheesh just to get into the country

LOL mojaveFlyer - you say it so well! It is indeed the training exercise they want you to go through but only few figure it out and they are well awarded

btw - was the fancy drawing an actual visa of algiers that was drawn out?

A few years ago, I sent the passports of my wife and myself to the Kenyan and Tanzanian high commissions (term for embassies between British Commonwealth countries) in YOW (before unified visas were offered). I had submitted enough postage and envelope for one of the high commissions to send it to the other, with a reg number and all.

Panicked when I could not trace the mail, I called the high commission that the passports were sent to first. They said the high commissioner or consular officer sent the passports by car to the other high commission. And yes, I got my pre-stamped envelope back too.

I walked in on a consular officer watching "adult entertainment" on her computer when I went to apply for a visa last year here in DC

Any Canadians with experiences at Canadian missions ??

Most of my consulate/embassy visits have been painless, though getting visa renewals in Nepal was trying, as is most things that require paperwork in Nepal. "Island time" has nothing on 'Nepal Time"

My most amusing anecdote involves the Indian Embassy in Ktm, 2 Canadian students and a somewhat gregarious Indian gentleman.

Feb 2005 and politically things were interesting in the capital. I'm standing in the queue behind the aforementioned students who are being asked why they wanted a visa for India.
Their reply was that it was a requirement from their home university - they were on exchange to Tribhuvan Uni, due to the unrest in the region. The embassy staffed member could barely contain his mirth as he told the girls they were being ridiculous, over cautious and that nothing would happen in the capital.

I didn't think anything of it until I wandered back outside the gates and noticed all the taxi drivers huddled around their radios all but ignoring fares. It appears the King had sacked the Govt while we were standing in the queue. Oops.

After 44 years of leaving abroad, the stories in consulates, embassies, legations, high commissions, nunciatures (name for Vatican embassies) are innumerous. Here are some of the most interesting:

Waking-up the Soviet consul in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1990 at 12 noon on the way to the airport to catch the Aeroflot flight to Maputo, Mozambique, with stops in Moscow and Aden, Yemen, because my visa was signed by the Soviet Foreign Minister at the time...

First Thanksgiving ever was at US embassy in Praia, Cape Verde, West Africa, invited by my Peace Corps friends, with the turkey flown in by diplomatic pouch in a C-141 USAF plane...

French embassies parties always have the best food and cheese, flown in, anywhere in the world. The more remote the location the better. To get in, if you are not French, marry somebody French...

Requesting a French church marriage license (involving disparity of cult) in Mozambique, needed to receive the authorization from the local bishop and the Vatican Nuncio, with official translation from the French consul...

The best meal ever was at the Austrian consulate in Barbados, were the consulate happens to be installed inside a restaurant...

The best overnight stay in a consulate was at the Monaco consulate in Bordeaux, France, were the consulate happens to be installed inside a guesthouse...

The best reception locations, so far, it is a tie between the residence of the Swedish Consul in New York at a mansion on Park Avenue and the former residence of the Portuguese consul in New York, at the Dakota building on Central Park West, facing Central Park...

After spending all morning queuing at Ukranian embassy in Prague, Czech Republic, was told that I needed to go to the Czech post office across the street to pay for the visa by money order... strange, even more so when provided with the receipt noticed that I paid ten times more than the value on the receipt. That was sophisticated corruption...

When applying for a US diplomatic visa at the US embassy in Ottawa, I had one of the best US consular staff ever, he himself a third country national (non-US nor Canadian) and the best service ever...

The best ever Vice-Consul was in the Portuguese consulate in Bordeaux, France, where after a vacation house fire all my documents were destroyed. Over the phone, he was able to solve all the paper work, so well that when I arrived at the consulate with my black and white instant photo he just glue it to my temporary travel document (passport) and I was done in 2 seconds...

Nuno - are you some sort of embassy officer yourself? That's my only guess