There Ain't No Devil, It's Just God When He's Drunk

FW: your uk visa

Dear Ms Shady,

Apologies for the error on your visa.

If you return your passport to my attention, I will affix the visa immediately.

Regards

The most awesomest person EVER!

I still don't want to officially celebrate until that sucker is clenched in my sweaty little hands, but Hallelujah, looks like I'm going HOME!

Okay, so yesterday, when I received all my documents back, including passport with no visa, I freaked out. I panicked, started crying, and immediately called Scottie to say that I was doomed. He calmly assured me that if they kept my bank statements, then maybe it was okay still and that maybe they had all the information they needed...they were just waiting on more bank information. At the time it sounded reasonable. Sure, they sent me back the stuff they didn't need, kept the stuff they did, and I'll hear from the soon. Sure. Okay.

Then today I was talking to Kiki. She reaffirmed my initial fears that if they had sent me back my passport, then obviously I didn't get the visa. Visa's aren't loose documents that just get stapled or something, they are laminated into your passport precisely so it doesn't get lost. She sent me off on a barrage of phone calls. FYI: Contacting these people is easier than contacting Guantanamo Bay. I phoned the 900 number, and my phone disconnected, saying "call restricted". Pants. Then I tried the LA number that was sent to me when they first contacted me requiring my physical address. It was a recorded message saying that I should go on line, or phone the 900 number. It also stated that the 900 number was for general visa enquiries only, and that they would be UNABLE to provide me with any information about visa statuses after I had received the e-mail from the Consulate stating that my visa had arrived at the Consulate offices. Crap....

So I sent off more e-mails to Ingrig, who I feel I know rather well now, after sending her 8 e-mails in the past two weeks, and at 14:52 she sent me this back:

Please look in your passport for the entry clearance (visa). I have sent your original bank statements back to you today.

So does this mean I got approved? I assume it does. But god obviously is drunk and has a mean sense of humour because THERE IS NO VISA IN MY PASSPORT!



Seriously! I have gone through EACH AND EVERY PAGE, looked at everything 3 times over, went through all the loose documents that came with my passport, looked at all my stamps, did the whole thing 4 more times. THERE IS NO VISA! So, even if I am approved (which hopefully Ingrid's e-mail suggests), then I STILL have to send my passport back to LA to get it taken care of.

What is worse, I JUST sent off an e-mail describing this to Ingrid. I JUST got an e-mail back.

I AM CURRENTLY OUT OF THE OFFICE UNTIL 5/1/09

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

NOW SHE IS GONE! On farking holiday until MAY! So now I have to contact another person and get her to realise that Ingrid FORGOT to give me my visa!!!!

God, I am totally joining you tonight in deep inebriation. Fuck.

Well...I am pretty confident that I got my visa application denied. Several factors seem to indicate this.

Yesterday, I received a UPS letter full of my supporting documents. Passport, diploma, un-accepted bank statements. That was it. No letter of refusal, no more information, that was it. So I sent off some e-mails and tried to leave some messages, but nothing so far. I went online to see what it said I could do:

If we refuse an application for entry clearance and you think that an error has been made, you can ask us to check our decision. This is known as an Administrative Review.
You MUST NOT send any additional documents such as passport or supporting documents with the Administrative Review Request Notice. If the refusal is subsequently overturned, you will be asked to send in your passport. You may request only ONE Administrative Review per refusal decision. Any further review requests for the same refusal decision will not be accepted and will be returned to you. However, where the Administrative Reviewer upholds the refusal but with different grounds, you may request a Review limited to these new refusal grounds.

Must not send any supporting documents? But what about all the freaking bank letters and such I have been asking for and which have been trickling in...and which I have been sending off to the lady in LA...?

So the fact that IF the refusal is overturned then I will have to send my passport back. Seeing that I Have my passport now, it means that I have been denied. EVEN THOUGH I HAVE CLOSE TO $20,000 ready...they don't believe my e-statements are real!!!!! And when I go down to the bank to speak with the managers, they say they can't provide anything more legally real and official than what I already sent them. When I go online to the direct customer support centre, they say they'll give me letters...but apparently banks FAIL at reading the directions I provide them, and their letters are deemed insufficient by the British Consulate.

I know that I haven't received an official rejection letter, but I feel that is coming since I have my passport and documents already.

Shit.

"This is regarding your visa application. My manager will not accept these bank statements. Please see the Immigration Rules regarding maintenance"

DUUUUUUUUUUUUDE! By now, I have sent this chick 3 different forms of bank statements, all SAYING THE SAME THING, some PRINTED OUT BY THE BANK!

Oh, and btw, I DID SEE ALL THE IMMIGRATION RULES REGARDING MAINTENANCE! I FOLLOWED THEM!

Tomorrow, I am going back to the bank. I am having them stamp EVERY PAGE of my statements. Then, when my official verifying letter comes, I am sending that too. THEN, when my hard copy statements eventually arrive, I will send that too.

Nice that I put Jan.20th as the day I expected to depart. Thank jebus I don't have to deal with things like plane tickets and schedules....but what it means is more time spent at home. And grandma needs new eyewear now...

For those of you out there who don't know, I happen to live in one of the most remote, backwards, white-trash, hillbilly areas of California. That is, when I am not living in Scotland. Normally, when I tell people in the UK that I am from California, I get the typical not-from-California responses: The weather must be so nice! Everyone must be so tan! What's is like having Arnold Schwarzenegger for a Governor? And almost all their comments (apart from the last one) is location specific, as in anything SOUTH of San Luis Obispo. For those of us North of that pseudo-equator, its a different story. We have trees that have been around since the ice age, live half the year in fog, the other half in rain, and every once in a while get to enjoy weather in the mid 70s/80s Fahrenheit in the summer. Then there is the sliver of California that even Northern Californians blink twice upon hearing about its existance. It's dry as a desert, rattlesnake infested, and contains neither trees, beach, fog, rain, or any form of civilisation. It is so un-Californian that I think most people just call it Nevada, and in fact, Nevada county is just 40 minutes away, even though it's like 2 hours from Nevada state. I believe that this is because California secretly wants to let this part of CA cede from the state.

And that is where my family has ended up. Here's a list I've drawn up of what I've noticed so far.

-More women have mullets than men...and that is only because there is a larger female to male ratio
-Children under the age of 4 have Mohawks...when they turn 5 they get to graduate to mullets
-They list the day's hunting hours on the front page of the local paper
-You see people walking their llama up the driveway
-Your driveway is over a mile long
-The freshest milk available is at the gas station next to the highway, a 10 minute drive away
-You're the obvious outcast if you don't have at least one gun
-Your household only has 2 legal drivers, but your yard has at least 4 cars, 3 of which have dogs, goats, chickens, or cats living both on and inside of them
-You still use livestock as a form of currency (my mom had 10 guinea hens butchered and paid the butcher 5 hens for the task of killing and cleaning them)
-The roads don't have lines painted down their centres
-Everyone has a truck that has 4 wheel drive, covered in dirt, mud, and won't get washed until it rains
-The illiteracy rate is 20%
-Your mom waters the garden with a hose in one had and a rifle in the other...just in case there are rattlesnakes
-Dressy attire at a restaurant is dusting the dirt off your jeans and scraping the equine/bovine manure off your steel toed boots
-There are two sit-down restaurants, complete with menus and waiters/waitresses for ever 14 fast food ones. 1:8 = classy dining.
-The town consists of (1) post-office, (1) "mercantile" shop which sells jerky and chewing tobacco, (1) elementary school, and (1) bar.
-The bar opens at 9- this most likely leads to
-Headline in paper: Farther shoots son in car chase, injures friend.
-Also could lead to : Four assault rifles, about 40 pounds of frozen meat and piles of 20-year-old deer antlers all point to a case of poaching against a father and son
-Might also be the reason the deputies drive into canals
-It's not uncommon to eat rabbit, deer, and any animal you happen to find in your back yard
-You're not hard pressed to find a varriety of people selling produce out of their homes, trailers, cars or trucks every mile or so, most of which looks like it was previously purchased at the Grocery Outlet store beforehand.

I'm sure this list will grow, but I've only been visiting home for about a month now.

Holy hell, I miss Edinburgh SO much!

So I get this today:

From: Ingrid
Date: 2009/1/15
Subject: visa
To: Shady

This is regarding your visa application. I need your original bank statement, please send to my attention as soon as possible.

Thank you

Ingrid

The problem? I DONT HAVE ORIGINAL BANK STATEMENTS BECAUSE I GET ELECTRONIC ONES! The ones I sent her WERE the official electronic ones. So I race down to to the bank (40 minutes away, might I add!) to get THEM to print out my statement. Turns out they can't, they can only print out a copy of my transaction history. Fine. So I get that, post it to this chick, and go home. Then I look online to see what it says about electronic statements. I know, I probs should have done this first, but in my haste to make it to the bank and post office on time, it just didn't occure to me. I search, I search, and finally (since the helpful website does not come with a 'search' feature), I 'ctrl f' it to look for the words "funds." 20 minutes later I find it.

It says that printouts are fine as long as they are accompanied with an official letter from the bank on company paper stating that the information on my electronic statement is true. Ummm...shit. So I go BACK to the bank (I SPENT ALMOST 3 HOURS in travel today!!) and show them what the visa requirements say. The problem? Banks in the US DONT DO LETTERS. I asked a Teller and was referred to her manager. The manager said that they don't have letterhead because anything they print out is verified legal. So there is NO way I can get a letter from them because they don't have any letterhead, and I would have to contact their corporate customer services for help....All she could do was print out my transaction history (again) and stamp it with the Washington Mutual branch stamp. She also signed it...for what it was worth. So I posted that too. Then I came home and went back on line to see what the Washington Mutual webpage had to offer. For $5 each, I could get a paper copy sent to me. So I spent $20 on that...which takes 5-15 working days!!! So IF this lady won't accept my Bank print out of my transaction history, then in a week or two I should have my paper copy....but by that time, who knows if this lady will have given up on me , DENIED my application, and sent it back.....I am going off to sob hysterically into my pillow now.

E-mail today:

PLEASE CALL 310-481-**** AND PROVIDE A PHYSICAL MAILING ADDRESS IN THE US. WE DO NOT MAIL TO PO BOX. PLEASE LEAVE YOUR NAME, COMPLETE ADDRESS AND YOUR REFERENCE NUMBER 30****

REGARDS,

LOS ANGELES VISA SECTION.

So....my fate has been decided, now it's just a matter of waiting....and hoping I spoke clear enough for them to send my visa to the appropriate address...eek eek eek!

I am officially documented! Yesterday Scottie and I went down to the good ol' passport support office in West Sacramento and they took all my fingerprints. I ahve to say, I was quite impressed with my bad ass skills at driving sans map and with Scottie as my co-pilot.

Not that I am dissing his navigational skillz, but the poor kid just can't really give directions. Thank Jebus I gave myself an hour to find the place! We started out early because Scottie wanted to find a Borders, thanks to having read all of his reading material at the ranch for lack of anything else to do here. The mystical shopping place was located somewhere just before Sacramento city, and I managed to get there, even with the signs being written in minescule lettering. After a brief lunch of Subway (where I told the dude Southwest Sauce and he gave me Sweet Onion...wha?) we were on our way.

"Okay, now do a U-Turn."
'No need, the U-turn was to get us onto Turxel, but they had a light there, so I did a left turn...don't worry, we're on Turxel now"
'Are you sure? No! You passed it, Truxel is down that way!"
"No, the signs correlate to direction...so if you see a road sign running parallel to the road you are on, then you are on that road...the signs that cross the road are for the streets that run perpendicular to the road you are on.'
"That makes no sense, American has crazy streets"
"No, dear, it works the same in the UK"
"No it doens't."

And it got worse from there.

"Okay, now turn onto Reed Ave."
"Already did that"
"What? When?"
"At that stop light. I turned left, quick, what are the next directions"
"Um, oh, you should have turned back there."
"What?!?! you're sure? Okay, let me find a place to U-Turn."

After pulling into where I was directed, we searched in vain for the passport building. 795, 800, 820, 830, 840- but no 825.
By now I was kinda freaking out because I really don't like being late for legal things, especially ones concerning my passport and visa. But we had a half hour. After searching in and searching, I finally asked to see the directions.

'Honey, the directions say to say on Reed, and that Reed veers to the left and becomes Riverside"
"Yeah, and you said you turned left. "
"Yes, but that was step 3. Step 4 is Reed veers to the left and becomes Riverside. We're not on Riverside. We need to go back onto Reed and stay on it until it turned into Riverside."
'Oh."

Internal head smacking and deep breathing ensued.

But in the end, it all worked out and I was literally in and out in 3 minutes- and that includes the bathroom break!

The next step was to find Old Town Sacramento. I had been there once when I was 10 on a school fieldtrip to the capitol, and I figured it would be a fun mini-trip to take Scottie to now that we were in the area. Trouble was, the directions were fracked. Google maps failed me, and after instrucing me to take Jefferson Blvd, it said to go straight. But Jefferson ended in a stoplight for left or right. I picked the left since there were loads of holiday flags on that side, and just wandered about. I figured that Sacramento couldn't be bigger than Santa Rosa, if even that size, and lo and behold, I ended up taking a ramp that led me right to Old Town parking. We wandered the wee shops along Old Town and had some Frozen youghurt before loading up on Jelly Bellys and Salt Water Taffy and heading back home. With no idea how to get home, we had to rely on my kick ass directions skills, and after only one wee mis-turn that had us heading towards Reno on 80, we managed to get back to the 5 and homewards. Whoot!!!

Moral of story: women drive and do better when they give themselves directions.

I'm not sure if this happens to anyone else while either traveling or living abroad, but I find that I can't help being constantly reminded that I'm foreign. This normally isn't a problem when I'm traveling abroad because I'm obviously traveling- but when you've been living in a foreign city for more than a year (or two, or three), you can't help but want to fully acclimate yourself and sharpen the distinction between you and that obnoxious group of baseball cap, bin liner bag poncho wearing yanks over there who say embarrassingly loud things about the country and the people in the middle of the street. However, doing so has led me into sometimes uncomfortable spots that are completely my fault.

The accent: Now, I don't want to brag, but I can put on a pretty convincing accent, both English and Scottish, but English is by far easier. And it's something I tend to do only when speaking to other locals because let's face it, I sometimes get embarassed about my nationality. A lot. This seems to be fine when I'm dealing with the guy at the cafe or the woman in the shop- people I will never have to see again but for reasons unknown want to apprear local towards. Then there are those who I get thrust in a conversation with even though I know I will never see again. This is a bit more tricky, because if I use the accent, things go fine until the awkward moment where they ask where I'm from, and I have to either fess up or lie. When I fess up and say 'California', I get met with a surprised looked, almost always followed by 'Really? I couldn't place your accent, but I'd never guess American,' or ' Wow, you don't have a very strong accent, have you lived here long?' This again leads me to lie and say 'aye, about 4 years,' or come across as a weirdo who has only really be in the country for about two years and shouldn't have picked up the accent at all. Although honestly, there have been times, like when visiting the wee museum on Mull when I just lied and said I was from 'Edinburgh,' no questions asked.

I know, it's stupid, but I have to either continue the accent lie or get called out on it to wallow in embarrassment. But another factor is that I panic. Sometimes it's easier to lie when panicking than to just be honest. Take today for example.

I have an hour off to lunch and went up the road for a Quiznos sandwich. I've not had Quiznos since highschool and thought giving it a try in Scotland would interesting. I go up to the counter, order, pay, and sit down. Just as I'm finishing my ridiciously pricey meal ($10!!! For a sandwich?!?!), the man who made it came over to clean the surrounding tables and have a chat.
'Do you like your sandwich?'
'Yes, thank you.'
'Have you been to Quiznos before?'
Quick, what do you say? 'Yes, in the capitalistic country that invented chain stores and mass consumer culture', 'No, never.' Crap, pick one.
'Err, yes.'
'Oh, where?'
'London.' What? London? You've never had Quiznos in London! You're lying!
'Oh, are you from London?'
Crap, now you've done it. Don't mess it up, be truthful.
'No, California.'
'Oh, California. They have a lot of Quiznos over there.'
'Yeah.'
AHHHHHHHHH. I know that there is no shame in going into a place like Quiznos or Subway or Starbucks in the UK, but for some reason, I hate myself for doing it. It's as though these places exist to cater to the horde of American tourists who want a sense of the familiar in a far away local. I don't want to be discovered for what I really am in one of those corporate chain cancers, especially after trying to hard to distance myself from the image of the visitor.

It doesn't make it any easier when you leave the shop, only to be met with 'Oh look, Frank, they have Subway over here,' or 'Thank God, a Starbucks! I am totally craving a Frap!' from the bumbag/camera wearing tourist who has abruptly stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, obscuring foot traffic, and causing many hateful scowls from those trying to get by. Myself included.