Welp. I guess that's progress

Great news! We DO finally have a visa. Well...one of us finally has HIS visa.

Our wonderful friend Matt was finally able to pick up the Mister's visa after 3 attempts. The Mister now has 90 days to enter the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And get ready for a big shocker: I still don't have my sponsor letters from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Those letters are the last piece I need to send everything to the embassy. I got word from someone at the school that he is working on the letters, and they'll be ready on-wait for it- WEDNESDAY.

The day after we leave Washington D.C. to return home to Nashville.

God's testing me. I can just feel it.

We haven't even started our contract yet and already I'm getting major tests of my patience. If I thought working for the US government was annoyingly bureaucratic, I apparently ain't seen nothin' yet! The message that I keep getting is very clearly, "Calm down, little girl. We'll get to it when we get to it."

What's so frustrating about this whole process is that it's like they've set it up on purpose to that we have to jump through their hoops. Anyone who's ever worked with me knows how much of LOOVE to jump through irrational hoops.

There's the online visa application that we have to submit before the embassy will even look at our paperwork. It seemed simple enough, but we couldn't get our picture down to FOUR KILOBYTES in order to successfully submit the darn thing. I found a forum that said other people having the same problem just had to bite the bullet and pay a visa courier. I called one company to see how much that would cost us: $175 per person!! FOR ONE STEP! Almost $400 for a company to press submit.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is one hoop this show dog would NOT jump through.

Thankfully, I don't have to because we have a wonderful friend with an undergraduate degree in computer programming. And even Matt was stumped at first, but he was able to get the picture to the right size and we could proceed.

We came to DC for the sole purpose of submitting our paperwork in person. Mailing my passport and many other important documents makes me very nervous and I would really prefer to do this transaction face-to-face. We even scheduled this little foray up and down the East coast later in the summer because surely everything would be worked out over there by now!

Once again, "Calm down, little girl. We'll get to it when we get to it."

In happier, less frustrating news, we have a lot of photos from our trip to share with you! I can't wait to get home so we can load them all up!

We spent a few great days in Boston with my sister and brother-in-law. It was so nice to see them, and saying goodbye was very hard. When we arrived in DC, I was hungry and tired, and the Mister asked if I was a little frowny because I was sad to have not had more time with my sis.

"I am sad, but there's never enough time, you know?" I answered. "Even if we'd spent 2 weeks with them, I would be just as sad to say goodbye."

Anyway, we're in DC...pretty much killing time while our friends are working. We leave tomorrow night to go home.

meh, maybe we'll go see a monument or something. You know.

Vicariously yours,

Late breaking news...

We still have no visas.

Shocking, I know.

As the Mister has already mentioned, we weren't able to drop off his visa paperwork till the Friday before we left DC. That translated to our wonderful friend Matt volunteering to go by the Saudi embassy on Monday to pick it up. Sounded easy enough but we should have remembered we're dealing with Arabs here, and expedience is not their middle name.

So Matt went to the embassy, and their computer system was down, so he was told to come back later.

So Matt went on Tuesday. He was told the visa wasn't ready yet and to come back later.

The Mister and I owe Matt copious amounts of love and adoration because he's going back again today to hopefully pick up the stinkin' visa! Here's hoping they can stick to the 24 hour waiting period promised on the embassy website when we return to DC to get my visa next week.

Oh, and here's hoping the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs can get me the only piece of paperwork I'm missing before we return to DC to get my visa next week.

Meanwhile, the school has already asked us for our travel information so they can go ahead and book our flights (!!!). OhmygoshIcouldn'tbemoreexcited!! We requested to leave the States on/around September 9 and arrive in the Big Sandy on September 12th. We're going to spend those few days in between in Amsterdam soaking up the last bit of female independence I can get.

Until then, we'll just be forced to go to DisneyWorld with the Mister's family (it's a hard knock life for us) and hang out with the fam in Nashville. le sigh

Not to be xenophobic...

I'm usually very much against the whole English-first way of thinking. But as I'm trying to fill out visa applications and figure out what exactly we need to bring to the Saudi embassy so we can get our visas, I'm starting to see where total fluency in the English language might come in handy.

Example A: "Follow the visa authorization number from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs when choosing between single or multiple entries." Normally I can follow directions well, but the number from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is written in Arabic, so I've got to trust an online translator to tell me what that number is. Insh'allah, the translator will get it right.

Example 2: "In the religion section, enter either Muslim or Non-Muslim (Other)." Again, normally I would have no issues with that, but "Non-Muslim" ISN'T AN OPTION! But Christian is...so should I just put that?

Example 3: "Medical reports should be used within three (6) months from the date of issuance." Uh, you're a little vague there. Is it three, or six months?

Another personal favorite: where I put my name on the online application. There's a place for "last name", "second name", "other name" (other name!??), and "last name." Let's just say that the last name box isn't even big enough for the cursor, much less letters...

sigh.

Vicariously yours,

One. Step. Closer!

We were notified today that our validated college degrees are on their way back to Nashville!! While it took us a looong time to decipher what exactly they wanted from us, I must say I'm impressed with how quickly the Cultural Mission processed this paperwork.

But now, we still have to wait. We also were notified by our new school that we have to put the brakes on submitting our paperwork to the embassy because they need to change my authorization letter. Apparently they wrote that I've accepted a job at the boys' school, which is illegal in KSA. So now they've got to write a new one, submit that to the appropriate authorities in Saudi, and then mail it to us.

But really, it doesn't matter, because we're on step closer to getting our visas, and that means the giddy butterflies have begun!!!

Sooo excited!

Vicariously yours,