I'm curious how much help you can expect from the embassies of various countries around the world.

I'll share our recent, less than satisfactory experience with the Canadian Embassy in Dakar, Senegal.

For the past two years we have been working in a humanitarian capacity in a small village in Sierra Leone, a village with no courier or mail delivery. We are now on the way back home and have decided to travel overland through West Africa to Europe. I was able to purchase and get insurance for all ECOWAS countries in Sierra Leone and was able to purchase insurance for the remainder of the trip on-line. Naturally these documents need to be delivered in a secure fashion, something which was NOT possible in our work location. As the Dakar Embassy is the first embassy of Canada that we would pass they were the logical place to have these documents sent to.
I sent several e-mails to the Dakar Embassy along with a phone call or two just to confirm that they would receive these documents and turn them over to us when we passed through Dakar. I never received an answer to my e-mails and only an unintelligible answer by phone. As I have NO OTHER OPTION I had the documents sent to the Embassy. After arriving in Dakar we called the embassy to get their location so we could pick up these documents. The location given was over a mile from the actual embassy location! Once we finally found the embassy we talked to someone who quickly found the envelope and proceeded to tell us that they would not give it to us!! It either had to be returned to sender or destroyed. Passing it on to us was not possible!?!?
After contacting my Member of Parliament we were able to have the documents picked up by courier (NO I could not pick up these documents even though they are addressed to me, a courier HAD to do it).
Over $70 later and now, hopefully, the documents are coming to us by DHL at the guest house where we are staying.

Not exactly a pleasant experience from the Canadian Embassy in Dakar, Senegal.

What is your experiences, good or bad, with embassies from your country?