Finally! I have the UK visa clutched in my grubby paws! After submitting my application, I visited the online application tracking website every day and watched my passport progressing through the various stages. Eventually (5 and a bit working day later) I received an sms telling me to come and fetch it. To prevent parking issues, I got dropped off in town with the intention of walking home. I then stood in a queue for 20 minutes to receive my big grey envelope. It contained all of the documents I submitted for the application barring (unfortunately) the bank cheque. On the way out of the VFS offices, I took out my passport and flipped through it to see what a UK visa looked like. No visa. My heart stopped. I snatched all of the pages out of the envelope. No letter. Nothing. Nothing to explain why they hadn’t granted me a visa. WHAT AM I GOING TO DO??????? I do not have time for this! I can’t change my flights! Oh shit!
After minor heart failure and some frenzied hunting, I discovered the visa right at the back of the passport. What on earth possessed them to put it two pages from the end of a virtually empty passport? But anyway, it is now mine. We are still on course. To celebrate, I got myself a coke and Kentucky. (Lapsed. Shocking.) I walked up Long Street gobbling down my take aways like a bergie and watching potential bag snatchers with a jaundiced eye. No one was getting near my passport.
Next on the list is the Croatian visa. As yes, the Croatian embassy is also full of rubbish. You can’t apply for a Croatian visa more than 3 months before you enter the country. Sorry for you if you’re going somewhere else first. AND, they inform you sweetly on the phone, it usually takes between 20 and 30 working days to process the visa. So you have to cut things pretty fine if you’re planning on going to a few countries in a row. It’s a delicate juggling trick. Only not as much fun as juggling. Or sticking needles in your eyes. But wait! Should you be in the situation where you need a visa in a hurry, they will whizz one through for you in 3 working days. Of course the price increases by about four or five hundred rands. So that’s what we will be doing. Beggars can’t be choosers.
Apart from waiting for my UK Visitor In Transit Visa, I have been wrapping up at work and moving out of my flat. Neither of these are particularly pleasant and they are both quite time consuming. Hence my lack of recent blogging. I feel like the intermittent blogging is becoming the norm rather than the exception. I can’t wait until this mad whirl of preparations is over and I am happily on my journey, relaxing on beaches, gazing up at majestic mountains and composing endless blog posts. Hopefully the year to come will prove to be relaxing and the time will not come where I look back on my previous sentence and laugh bitterly at my naivety….
go go bron!
ReplyDeletewhen are you actually departing?
and take pics, lots and lots of pics, and remember to post it!
Flying from jhb on 18 may. right now i am driving from ct to jhb. Stopped on the side of the road to rescue a tortoise who nearly got squashed. Fortunately there is 3g reception so i thought i'd take the opportunity to book my return flight to ct on kulula. Need to fetch the other car too.
ReplyDeletei will take lots of photos and I will definitely post them!
good grief, this sounds like you are finished with cape town?!
ReplyDeletegood grief again, that 'type this word from picture' thingy conjured up the following word for me to type:
ReplyDelete'weader'
i kid you not!
No no no. I am not finished with CT. But I have nowhere to leave 2 cars in CT for a year. So I have to drive the both of them allllll the way to Jhb, where they will stand at my parents' house. Then, when I come back to SA I must figure out what I want to do. Do I come back to CT? Probably will.
ReplyDeleteWant a garden gnome for a year? Shaped like a green Yaris. Life size....
But you are the weader! How did google know!!!???
ReplyDeletei won't mind using the yaris going to the station and back
ReplyDelete