Sunday 25 June 2006
A date at the Embassy
I landed at Heathrow this morning at just before 11am. A couple hours of kip, couple of films, Glory Road (quite good), Pink Panther (quite pants), some awful airplane food and now I'm settled in my hotel room with fumfy dressing gown on ready for the England game to start in an hour or two.
Tomorrow I am off to the American Embassy at Grosvenor Square to have my visa extension interview. My 3-year visa runs out on July 5th, which was 3 years from the date it was originally applied for, not 3-years from when I actually started work in the States. The immigration authorities have agreed to the extension, but I still have to go back to the Embassy to prove I am who I say I am and not Osama bin Laden. My interview time slot is at 11.15am, but that means diddly and I quite expect to spend all afternoon there waiting with the great and the no-so good.
I don't know if you have ever seen the American Embassy on Grosvenor Square, but what was once a grand building, now resembles a no go area. Security and minutia are the key words there and the slightest slip up on my paperwork will not be good. After my interrogation, they keep my passport to 'process' and then send it back to my parents with, hopefully, a new visa. The challenge there is for me to get that back before I fly home on Monday. No passport, no flight back to Chicago. Simple as.
In all honesty this week being home (I noticed I've called both Chicago and London home in the space of 3 lines!) works quite nicely for me. I was getting pissed off listening to the American World Cup commentaries and just being here and the timing of the games will allow me to see more of it and be engulfed by it, although tonight's result could put a dramatic halt to that of course.
Tomorrow night I will catch up with my brother and some mates in town here, Tuesday is a work day, with some meetings and beers in the evening. Then Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I will see my son, which I can't wait for, and will drive down to my parents down in Eastbourne.
All this before a stag weekend in Newmarket. Racing, beer, and, well more beer! ¶ 16:05
Tomorrow I am off to the American Embassy at Grosvenor Square to have my visa extension interview. My 3-year visa runs out on July 5th, which was 3 years from the date it was originally applied for, not 3-years from when I actually started work in the States. The immigration authorities have agreed to the extension, but I still have to go back to the Embassy to prove I am who I say I am and not Osama bin Laden. My interview time slot is at 11.15am, but that means diddly and I quite expect to spend all afternoon there waiting with the great and the no-so good.
I don't know if you have ever seen the American Embassy on Grosvenor Square, but what was once a grand building, now resembles a no go area. Security and minutia are the key words there and the slightest slip up on my paperwork will not be good. After my interrogation, they keep my passport to 'process' and then send it back to my parents with, hopefully, a new visa. The challenge there is for me to get that back before I fly home on Monday. No passport, no flight back to Chicago. Simple as.
In all honesty this week being home (I noticed I've called both Chicago and London home in the space of 3 lines!) works quite nicely for me. I was getting pissed off listening to the American World Cup commentaries and just being here and the timing of the games will allow me to see more of it and be engulfed by it, although tonight's result could put a dramatic halt to that of course.
Tomorrow night I will catch up with my brother and some mates in town here, Tuesday is a work day, with some meetings and beers in the evening. Then Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I will see my son, which I can't wait for, and will drive down to my parents down in Eastbourne.
All this before a stag weekend in Newmarket. Racing, beer, and, well more beer! ¶ 16:05
