Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Visa Versa and Pwetty Shoes!

Quote of the moment:
"Customer number 410 to your collection point window 22 please." - The Argos style number calling system in the U.S. Embassy.

Oh, the excitment: a trip to London, including a very slow tour of Grosvenor Square. It was a whopping £21.50 for a return ticket to Bond Street tube station (zone 1) from Chelmsford. A bad start! I joined the queue as instructed/recommended: not until 30 minutes before my appointment/ASAP. Since my appointment was at 10.30am, I queued outside the Embassy from 10am. I got in the door at 12.30pm, a short wait! Anyone trying it in the future should only turn up about an hour after their appointment time, when the security guard will walk along the queue and seperate out anyone with an appointment at that time and tell them to skip the queue.

Once inside it took another half hour before I was called to hand in my forms (taking 30 seconds), then another 1 hour and 45 minutes before I was called for 'interview'. The 'interview' was mostly just a woman asking - through a glass window with microphone - questions such as where I was going, why, what univeristy would I be going to, what was my parents view on it, etc. Other than that there was just a fingerprint scan on both index fingers, and I was gone in about 5 minutes.

During my second and longer indoor wait I was sitting next to a girl wearing some rather fine red Converse All Star 'sneakers' with archetypal rebel black and red striped socks. In a moment of utter boredom I started drawing them on the back of a spare photocopy of a form I'd already handed in, and lo and behold she sat there giving me odd looks but not moving her feet until I'd finished. We didn't exchange a single word the whole time! How rare! Anyway, the masterpiece(the front foot was done first, then the back filled in as an afterthought, hence the bad perspective and mid-way swelling to the right, poorly concealed by the laces):



Yes indeed, my genius knows absolutely nothing at all, let alone bounds. Still, at least I bought a cool T-shirt walking back along Oxford Street: BEAR FACED LIAR surrounding (obviously) a picture of a bear. More novel still is that it's yellow and the writing and bear are fluffy applique! Bizarre, I know, but at £4 it doesn't really matter.

When I got home I had to go to the doctor's surgery for my second Hepatitis B jab. Unfortunately they didn't have an adult dose, so I had to have two (pre-packaged filled syringe) child doses instead. On the plus side, the tiny needle point means it's barely noticeable, but on the negative (or possibly unrelated) both of them bled profusely such that I had red spots all over my sleeve by the time I got home. D'oh!

3 comments:

prillopie said...

Oooh oooh ooooooohh!!! I have those shooooeeesss!!! But, in black. I need a new pair though, since mine are kinda... worn out. Need to decide on a colour. Black again? Red? Blue? Hmmmm.. Or the John Lennon special edition??

Will said...

LOL.

Pink, definately :p

Will said...

"I was thinking today about how I wish I had some artistic ability, its one of those things that crosses my mind every so often. I wish I could write well or draw well, or maybe be able just to read and understand well. I envy anyone who can do that." - Rob.

I feel envied. ish.