Oh, I forgot to tell the story of my US Visa. I had heard that the visa-people can get quite strict, so I packed a stack of paperwork the size of a Vogue magazine. This included evidence on how much I love the UK and how I very much intend to return here, how much money I've got, how I very much live here and pay bills here etc.
Got to the embassy, got my number and the big wait started. An hour and 92 pages in my book, I was called to the first window. Handed over a stack of filled out forms, and was sent back. 2 hours and 55 minutes, by which time I had finished my book, later I was called for my interview. After being gobstruck by the cuteness of the consul (he was REALLY cute, which makes it hard to answer any question intelligibly ;-), and answering two questions, he sent me on my way. So that made 4 hours wait, and 5 minutes visa stuff. They keep your passport to tack the visa onto, and send it to you via courier after notifying you.
Fast forward to a few days later. I walked out the door, ran down (ah, not quite true, I wished I did, but truth is that it was more a slow trod), and jumped on the tube. As the doors were closing, I suddenly remembered the big portfolio bag with the notes from our customer research the night before, the stuff that we were going to discuss that day! So got off at the first stop, took the tube back, and walked to my apartment building. As I walked in, our porter was talking to a courier, and pointed to me and said 'That's the one you want'. Turns out to be the courier with my passport. Somehow their notification hadn't gotten through to me, so I didn't know they were coming that day. If I hadn't forgotten my bag, I would've missed him! Talk about lucky coincedence :-)
PS guy at the top left on the picture has nothing to do with the US embassy, but everything with the trip I made last weekend. He's William of Orange, fellow Dutchie, who landed in Brixham long time ago. Couldn't resist taking a pic of the one other Dutch person who was there!
LOL, Lucky coincidence!! :D
Posted by: Simba | Saturday, 19 August 2006 at 12:34 AM