1 drink spilled, hundreds of dollars spent, 1 speeding warning and 12 hours of driving later, Jana has her visa! Here's the story:
We woke up at 3:30 Wednesday morning to leave by 4. The plan was for me to sleep on the way there while Jana drove, so she could sleep on the way back while I drove. The first five hours went very smoothly. No stops, no bickering, but of course (knowing us) bickering was inevitible by hour 5 1/2, but it never got too bad. Jana almost hit a van (she would tell you otherwise), but everything worked out well.
We got to Chicago, there was lots of traffic, and we were looping around Michigan Ave trying to find a place to park when we found a lot right next to the pizza joint where we wanted to eat. Perfect, right? Unfortunately we got all turned around coming out of the lot, which I will refer to from here on out as THE LABYRINTH OF CRETE, and we spent a half an hour bickering some more until we found a Mexican cafe called XOCO stamped with the name of Rick Bayless, where all our morning's troubles subsided with some outstanding Mexican cocoa.
Then it started to rain. And we still couldn't find Michigan Ave, which I knew was only a couple blocks away in one of the four directions (now that I think about it, it was probably in the unnamed fifth direction... but we won't talk about that one.) I zipped Jana's visa paperwork into my jacket, looking like I had swallowed the dictionary, and we ran through an annoyingly average rainfall that succeeded to make Jana look like a hobo, but not a drowned rat. I had a hood, so. I just looked like me. Having swallowed a dictionary.
We found the street at long last and arrived at the Wrigley Building, where everything is kept under tight security-- but they still let me in without checking my ID-- go figure. I guess they thought it was good enough that they had to make Jana scan her eyeballs and pass Gandalf in order to get by the security counter. Then, up to the 13th floor, where the British Consulate is housed-- and I will tell you something straight up-- they do not accept any phone calls (the bane of my latest Tuesday), and I swear to god you would never see or hear one phone within that office. Granted, the waiting room gave little away, but the consulate was right behind a glass window, and we knew. We could tell. We could only imagine winning a game of "What is missing here?" while nobody (besides Jana and I) knew that the answer was something as ordinary as telephones. TELEPHONES! We knew.
Well, after all that hullaballoo, Jana was told her passport photo was too small, which is ridiculous because it was the same size as mine, down to the millimeter, and they accepted mine. Go figure. Well, you already know the story turns out well, so do not worry about this unfortunate news! 13 floors, 1 lost Jana, 1 detangler (she looked like a hobo), and 5 minutes processing time later, and Jana had a new passport photo from a conveniently placed Walgreens photo center. All's well that ends well. Or maybe, all's well for Jana always.
Right. So Jana turned in her completed application, and we had 3 hours to kill while they made the visa. We went to Pizzeria Due, got our delicious pizzas, then went to the mall where everything was too expensive except for a fancy-looking Forever 21 where I bought a couple of shirts. Jana found this elephant thing at a Sanrio store and insisted I send a picture of it to Stefani... who then called us about fifty times and threatened Jana to either buy the animal or not bother coming home. We convinced her that it could probably be purchased cheaper on Amazon.
OK, skip ahead some more wait time and Jana has her visa in hand, and we're on our way home. Of course parking at THE LABYRINTH OF CRETE was not as expensive as we had initially imagined it would be (because all's well for Jana always), so that was a major bonus. Jana drove out of the city (more bickering), then I took the wheel for a few hours so she could sleep. She woke up very suddenly at about hour 4 and I said, "Great, you can drive again" (I hate driving), and I slept all the rest of the way home (I didn't really sleep on the way to Chicago).
Oh, and then this morning, I was able to register with the university! I am trying to figure out how to get back into my old e-mail account from when I studied abroad last time (to get my registration confirmation), but other than that, everything is all right. At this point, nothing can really phase me... I can just blow everything off until I get there and figure it out in person, which is a heck of a lot easier than playing e-mail tag. Or in my case, one-way e-mail chase, where the person I am chasing is 4,000 miles away and can ignore me really, really effectively.
T-minus 5 days!
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