Today in This Past Weekend

Jan 18, 2010 12:21

Okay, first off: Kafkaesque MEANS something to me now. It isn't a hypothetical concept of being ground in bureaucratic gears, like the likeable plastic surgeon in 2012 (Spoiler!).

Let me sum up. No, that'll take too long. Let me explain. No, fuck it. Let me sum up.

This weekend, Cynra & I (GOD WILLING) will be leaving the maple syrup drenched shores of our home and native land to journey overseas to India for Uday's wedding. He's getting hitched to a girl from there.

Now, organizationally, the trip's been a nightmare. Since it's in January, my work was not cooperative in allowing me to book the time off for it, so we haven't been able to get anything arranged until that was agreed to. Cynra got her time booked off, but one of the disadvantages of being a teacher is you don't get vacation time; you get the school breaks, but if you want to do anything at any other time, go fuck yourself.

Anyway, so we finally have gotten every row hoed, and just had to get our visas.

That, folks, is when it gets... tricky.

Now, the Indian consulate has several locations. Qusay had taken his and the parents applications to one near him. He agreed to take ours up there, so we held onto the applications and gave them to him to take with him after he went home for Christmas vacation.

Fast forward.

While at ACB after the wake, Pater gives me an envelope containing some tracking numbers. It turns out that Qusay had forgotten to take the paperwork with him to Ottawa, and Pater had overnighted it to the consular office instead.

If he HAD taken the documents with him, he would have discovered first hand that the Ottawa office does not process visa applications for people who live in the Toronto area. This is logical, as the Toronto office must handle a very large local population who'll want to make trips there.

So. We get our applications back in the mail. There is a frenzied running around to get them mailed off to the consulate in Toronto. Sprinting, positively. We then learn (SURPRISE!) that the consulate in Toronto does NOT handle visa applications. Of course not! So, with time running out like the granular representations of same in an hourglass, we had to sit in a state of near panic, while waiting for our applications to be returned to us so we can re-represent them to the proper office, located in Brampton.

Flash to Saturday morning. Cynra and I get up way too fucking early to march out to the office in advance of her going for a massage & a perm, and for both of us to go for a mani/pedi (WHERE DID MY NAILS GO?!). We sit in the office, waiting for our number to be called. Actually, first we had to wait for their computers to come back online. Then we got called up to a cubicle.

Where we learned that, despite the information required on the forms being completely identical in every way, down to an atomic level, we had used the wrong form (that for the Ottawa office) and had to redo it.

Finally (FINALLY!) the documents were ready, and presented. We got a receipt, and were told that they'd be ready in 4-5 business days. Which, knowing my luck, will be just as we're heading to the airport.

Feh. Stop the world, I want a fucking drink.

health, travel, married life, family

Previous post Next post
Up