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Tag: visas

Faraway Friends

We picked up our passports with shiny new Indian visas in them today. Well, they’re not actually shiny but in my head? Covered in bright, Times Square like lights. So pretty.

Also, remember how I was concerned about the number of pages left in my passport? The Indian consulate was nice enough to use those “extra” pages in the back that aren’t squared off for stamps instead of taking up two whole pages. Two pages that I didn’t really have mind you. I counted, I have 15 spaces left. Not pages, spaces. Should be plenty for this trip since they used the pages I thought were useless. Such nice people.

While in the car I got a phone call from a friend of mine who lives in Arizona. They are not only in town but were wondering if we had plans as they unexpectedly had two extra tickets to a White Sox game and would love it if we could join them. Um, yeah! Not only were we free but we were like ten minutes away. Perfection.

Jenny is one of my oldest and dearest friends and it was amazing to get to see her unexpectedly.

Seriously love this girl.

We didn’t stay for the whole game since tomorrow is going to be an early morning. We didn’t even actually stay for half the game. In fact, as we were walking to our car a parking attendant was all “You’re going the wrong way, game’s that way.” Thanks dude, the giant stadium with bright lights and screaming fans was not enough of a hint.

But can you actually blame him? Who leaves a game before the 4th inning?

Us, apparently.

Brain spillage

Today was a good day. Overall anyway.

Actually, for a good portion Joel and I fought. A lot.

We’re alike in many ways but sometimes the ways that we are different irritate the crap out of both of us. I guess that’s called marriage, huh?

The thing is, I am not always ready on time. I’m very rarely late to things but that’s because I have getting-ready-at-the-last-second-because-how-did-it-get-to-be-that-time-already-ohmygaaah-I’m-going-to-be-late down to an art form. And then I’m not late. But I cut it very close.

Joel, on the other hand, would just as soon be somewhere an hour early. For no reason whatsoever. I mean, why would you get somewhere an hour early when you could have spent that hour sleeping? Why?!

As you can imagine this causes quite a few fights. Because he’s all huffy and tense that I’m not ready on time an hour and a half early. Then I get annoyed at the sighs and the “casual” mentions of the time and the standing at the door with coat and shoes on while I’m still in the bathroom drying my hair.

::sigh::

It’s the way we were raised. His family was always painfully early to things. Mine was always embarrassingly late. Neither is the ideal obviously. But we’re both pretty stuck in our ways. Me because I enjoy sleep way more than is probably healthy and Joel because he likes to eliminate even the possibility of the possibility of stress.

So, I was ready about 45 minutes after we agreed on. We weren’t in any danger of missing our appointment but it caused some tense words. For a decent amount of time.

Then? We both took deep breaths, apologized for being ridiculous (because we both so were) told each other how much we loved each other and moved on.

I believe the best quality we both posses is the ability to forgive quickly and easily. I’m positive we wouldn’t be together still otherwise. We’re both too dramatic for it to work out any other way.

Thankfully, by the time we parked downtown we had kissed and made up and were back to being ridiculously in love again. We grabbed some Intelligentsia (which, not even going to lie, those baristas make waaaay better coffee than me. I have a lot of practicing to do) and were still 30 minutes early for our appointment.

(Not going to say I told you so. Not. going. to. say. it.)

Oh right, the appointment. We turned in our applications for our Indian visas. Which makes this whole trip start to seem very real. I’m not going to get truly excited until we actually have the visas issued though. And plane tickets purchased. Although a very exciting offer was made that if it works out would mean we won’t have to mess with flying standby. Which would be AHmazing. We’ll see. I’ll definitely keep you all updated.

At the application office there was a lady who tried to apply but wasn’t able to because she didn’t have a birth certificate. Her and another women we were waiting in line with us and were talking about how excited they were about the trip. The look on her face when the lady told her her naturalization papers weren’t acceptable was heartbreaking. She was born out of the country. She had no way to get any kind of other paperwork. What she had the Indian consulate would not accept. It’s unclear if there’s any way around the issue. Her friend applied for her own visa while she just sat in a chair wide eyed and sad. I wanted to hug her. I hope she finds a way to fix the problem. I hope this doesn’t mean she can never travel to India. I guess I’ll never know.

So, my nervous excitement was dampened just a little by that poor woman’s problem. Just a little though.

Because oh my goodness I just applied for an Indian visa.

Since we were already downtown we decided to use our Living Social deal that we got to see Avatar at Navy Pier’s IMAX theater. The movie was fine (we’d both already seen it) but the best part was just being downtown. It was so unbelievably gorgeous today. Just perfect weather and bright blue skies and…. ah I love Chicago. As soon as we get a decent camera I plan on spending a day downtown trying to capture my city’s essence. It won’t be possible of course but I’m going to try as hard as I can.

Chicago is just amazing.

I wish we could have spent the whole day downtown wandering around and enjoying the perfect day but since I have to wake up at 4am we headed back home after the movie. Why don’t I live downtown again? Oh right. Stupid money. Bah.

Aaaand, that was my day. I’d say the title was pretty accurate. This post was just my thoughts pouring out of my head filterless. And now that my brain has emptied itself onto this page I’m feeling very sleepy.

Which is perfect because now that I work so early in the mornings I have the bed time of a three year old.

Stamps in my passport

I have quite a few of those. Before you think I’m bragging remember when I was stuck in The Netherlands? And then I ended up getting home via Brussels? Yeah, that added a whole lot of stamps. The rest are mostly from Germany because they’re very picky about knowing exactly when you entered and left the country.

One time, as a working crew member, they apparently didn’t stamp my passport. I found this out as I was trying to leave because the customs officer starting yelling at me about the fact that I didn’t have one. I wasn’t aware I was responsible for supervising German immigration. ::eye roll:: Thankfully he let me leave since I was standing there with a crew badge in uniform. And I said I’d only been there for 24 hours. Likely a liar would say slightly longer. I assume. I’ve never lied to immigration. Really.

Since, in my first six months of working, I was assigned trips to Frankfurt no less than 9 times you can imagine how boring it is to look through my passport. A whole lot of AMS and FRA, a French and Chinese visa and a few US stamps just for good measure. This has left me with very few pages left. Thankfully I have just enough room for my Indian visa which I will be applying for next Wednesday.

Yep, you read that right. I’m 90% sure this trip is actually going to happen. I’m in shock and shaking from excitement at the same time. Despite the fact that I’ve been hoping and praying to go on this trip since I was 12 years old I still feel completely unprepared. That probably has a lot to do with the fact that we didn’t raise enough money to buy tickets from the US to India. We’re going to have to fly standby to Europe and fly out of there.

Considering my last standby experience to Europe that kind of scares the crap out of me.

The cheapest tickets we found were out of Frankfurt which as I mentioned earlier is a city I’m quite familiar with. The only concern I have is I realized it’s right smack in the middle of Oktoberfest. Now, Oktoberfest happens in Munich but it still worries me that we might not be able to make it.

Our next option is Amsterdam which should be a breeze to get in and out of. The only problem is it’s going to cost like $700 more. ::sigh::

We have to decide soon but we need to get visas before we buy non-refundable plane tickets because the last thing we want is to be denied visas and just throw money away.

And now you can see where I’m stressed.

Not to mention I have barely any room in my US passport.

There’s plenty of room in my Swiss passport but something about the fact that I live in the States means I can’t use it. Lame.

We thought we could get extra pages put in but it turns out it costs almost as much to do that as to get a new passport. Super lame!

But we’re going.

I think.

I want this so bad it makes my heart ache. I wish we had raised enough to buy our plane tickets all the way from ORD but I guess that makes it even more about faith.

All I know is I’ve already heard about the children we’re going down there to help. And it makes me want to cry thinking about them. I can’t wait to play with them and read them stories and make their home a better place.

We’ve already sent money down to the home ahead of us. Today I found out what they’re using it for.

Toilets.

They’re putting in toilets so that they’ll have them when we arrive.

I told Joel I don’t need a toilet! I’ve used a squatty-potty before and we’re going to be in the middle of the jungle, I honestly didn’t expect anything other than a hole. Joel said it was already part of the improvement plans so I don’t feel guilty.

Imagine being exited about getting a toilet.

I can’t tell you how badly I hope to make it there. They are anticipating our arrival already and I know they will be very disappointed if we can’t make it for some reason. This is one of my biggest life dreams and it just seems unreal that it may actually happen.

Please send good vibes as we apply for visas and finally purchase plane tickets.

I’m so nervous but I’m starting to think we’re actually going to make it.

As always you can find out more about our trip at our HelpSend.Us site.

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