London bound....eventually....I hope!

Welcome to the Tea w/ Dr. Marr blog. My goal is to post at least once a week about all the various excitement happening during my 5 months in London. Teaching stories, my tea of the day, running stories, travel stories. You'll get it all. Feel free to leave comments so I know I'm not just talking to myself.

This was to be the eve of my flight to London. However, due to some poor planning on my part, it is highly unlikely I will actually get on a plane tomorrow. Here's the story:

About three weeks ago, I drove to Houston to give CKGS my passport so that I could secure an Indian conference visa for this conference I'm attending in December. I wanted to secure the visa before I left so I wouldn't have to sacrifice my passport in London. I was traveling the first 3 weeks of June, so this was really the first opportunity I had to start the process. I spent hours on the CKGS site making sure I had all the correct forms and letters and photos. Dropped off all my documents on June 23 and assumed all would go well and I'd have my passport back in plenty of time (website says 3-5 business days for a visa). Well, on Friday of that week I received an email from the company telling me I was missing one letter and that I had applied too early. Conference visas are only valid 3 months from date of issue. Fabulous. I emailed back, sent the letter they needed, and explained my situation. Nothing. Crickets. For a whole week. So, on Monday, July 7 I called their offices. This was pointless as they have no contact with the Houston office. They pretty much can see the same status updates as I can online. I decided to submit a passport withdrawal form just to get my freaking passport back so I could leave. The guy on the phone said the best way to do this was to submit it in person. In Houston. And then it takes about 3 business days to process. I was in Kentucky. So, the wonderful Jeff Nash took time off work to take the form down for me. They apparently were confused and didn't really want to take the form from him. But, eventually they did. I emailed a copy just as a back up.  I did receive confirmation they received the emailed form. But heard nothing else.

It's now Sunday. Still no passport. Still no news. SO, tomorrow at 8AM I will travel to Houston to attempt to retrieve my passport. If it's in my hands by 1PM, I'm on my way to London. If not, I'll pay $325 in fees to change my flight to a week later. The only issue here is that I'm not even sure I'll get my passport in a week. And every time I change I'll be charged the same fee. Sigh.

I've just decided to take a very relaxed approach to all of this because in all truth, this is only part of the chaos that has been happening in the last week. I won't go through all the details of things, but pretty much anything that could go wrong this week has. Or every little thing I've attempted to do has turned into a much bigger thing. It's been quite ridiculous. Normally, I'd likely be crazy and all stressed by now, but as stuff started happening I just realized none of it is under my control and it is what it is.

So, next time you read this blog it might be from my lovely flat in London while drinking a lovely cup of tea. Or it might be from my couch in Georgetown sitting next to Reese enjoying a large glass of iced tea. I'll keep you updated.