D’oh!

In case you haven’t heard, I’m coming to the US this summer. All kinds of things are going on, from intensive writing camp to hanging with That Girl. It’s going to be a good summer. But meanwhile, back here in the old world, I have some paperwork to take care of, to affirm my legal presence here. I’m not so good at paperwork and I intend never to be, so I have paid someone to guide me through the legal jungle. With a bit of nagging on my part he has done far better than I would ever manage at assembling all the bits of paper that demonstrate that I can contribute here. So I have a big wad of documents prepared by various czech authorities, and now I can submit an application to be allowed to stay for a while.

The catch is, that one must submit this application from outside the area one wants to stay. This makes London a good place to apply, because the English consider themselves outside of everything. There is a large part of Europe that is now a big passport-free zone, and it is best for me to apply outside of that zone. Happily, the best plane fares to the US are also out of London, and flights from Prague to London are practically free.

So, I talked to my guy, picked an appointment date at the embassy out of a list, and bought plane tickets. Time was running out; if you wait too long fares go way up. I was already worried that I had waited too long, so I picked a date, told Visa Guy, and bought my tickets.

Only, I didn’t get that date. One massive financial commitment later, I now find that I’m spending a day in London without any political benefit. The Czech embassy will not see me that day. Plan B: visit on the way back. In the meantime, it will be nice to be in the British National Museum on my own, free to study the minor bits of the Egyptian collection that strike my fancy, to muse over stone pillows and odd bronze sculptures at my own pace. So, it’s not a total disaster.

9 thoughts on “D’oh!

  1. How long are you going to be in the US? Are you going to do another big road trip? Would you like to visit Alaska?

  2. Speaking of insurance … it seems that the jackrabbits in Sierra County have joined forces with the SSDC. They have made two attempts on the Miata so far this weekend, one of them almost successful. It seems that when a jackrabbit and a Miata collide at about 30 mph, the jackrabbit comes off with the better end of the deal. He’s still hopping, but the air dam got cracked. (Don’t worry, we’ll get it fixed … we know this great body shop.)

  3. Now, it has been a while for me, and we went to the Pre-Schengen Munich, but I didn’t make an appointment. We just stopped by and dropped the application off, as I recall. I would suggest still going to the embassy, even apointmentless. But you will probably have to get there early, like before 10am!

  4. Yeah, I’ll drop by the embassy in case. I’m told that the appointment can prevent an all-day wait, and apparently London’s completely overloaded right now. But… it never hurts to ask.

    Carol Anne — don’t do anything drastic for repairs, like replacing the thing. It sounds like the place you know can simply repair the fiberglass, which hopefully is all that’s required.

  5. Actually, since the incident in which I punched a hole in my boat two years ago, I know how to repair fiberglass. But the guys at this shop are geniuses at matching paint colors.

    They’re also good at making repairs cheaply — that’s why they’re our insurance company’s favorite shop.

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