Well, I had my day trip to London today. Up at 4.20 (after the dogs messing with me all night), taxi at 5.00, checked in at airport for both outbound and return flights. The flight was late in departing Aberdeen but arrived on time. At London airport I caught the Heathrow express to Paddington station. There I got a 1 day travel card for the underground. A couple of short trips and changes of lines took me to Bond St. from where it was a short walk to Grosvenor Sq. I walked around the US embassy to check out the length of the queue as I had almost 3 hours to kill before my scheduled appointment. I wandered around Oxford St. for a while, then checked the queue again. There was no-one there, so I told the security guy that I had a visa appointment and though I was early for it I had to see the IRS too. He signed me in then and told me to go to the IRS department first. I had to get a tax identification number to make things easier for Dazzles tax returns. I went to the tax place, showed them my passport and gave them the W7 form. He checked the form and said that the number would be mailed out to me. The whole process took all of 30 seconds! So there I was, inside the embassy, an hour and 15minutes before my visa appointment. I went up to the visa department, explained why I was early to be told “no problem”! They started processing my forms and even though I only had 2 copies of one that I should have had in triplicate, I was only kept waiting about 45 minutes before being told that my visa was approved and would be sent out to me in 5-7 days. I was out of the embassy by noon, 30 minutes BEFORE my appointment was supposed to be! Some of the other guys had to wait 2-3 hours, so I guess my luck was good today. Then the journey home was the reverse of the one out, except that Dazzle picked me up at the airport. Bed time now… hope that the doggies let me sleep a little better tonight ❗
