ETHIOPIAN VISA

I am a list maker from way back.  From weekly budgets, shopping lists, packing lists, things to do today lists and while I was on my trip I was making notes for my blog and of course lists of things I had to do when we go to internet access, you know people to email, bookings to be made, money to transfer etc….  I am a list girl from way back.  So I made a list of things I needed to get done while I was home and getting my Ethiopian visa was one of the important ones and at the top of the list.

While I was in Chile, I emailed the Ethiopian Consulate in Australia, which is located in Melbourne and the gentleman I was dealing with down there was very helpful.  We went back and forth with a few emails and he always got back to me promptly during the week we conversed.  Basically I can enter Ethiopia on a 3 month tourist visa which I can obtain from the consulate before I leave.  The downside to this is that the visa is valid from the date of issue, which means I would have to leave Ethiopia earlier than I need to if I got it processed in Australia.  So I will now have to get it done in London and as late as I can so that I can stay in Ethiopia till the middle of November to come home for Christmas.  I may even be able to get a 6 month visa in London that you can only get in Australia if you are Ethiopian descent.  In regards to long term living in Ethiopia once I find a job with an approved government registered company I can stay indefinitely or of course if I marry.  If all else fails and I need to stay longer before coming home, I can skip out of the country and then re-enter again to restart a month visa that they issue upon arrival into Addis for 20USD.  So either way, it isn’t too time consuming for me to be able to live/stay and after Christmas I will start in earnest for a job of some sort.

Speaking of visa’s the good news is that David told me that the Australian Consulate has now opened a branch in Addis Ababa.  Currently they had a visa agency looking after the applications of the Ethiopians and then sending then to the Consulate in Kenya.  So this is great news and hopefully will help when we apply for Zeme’s tourist visa for November.  Now that I will also be there, I’ll get some good old fashioned Western time frames going and hopefully get this visa debacle all sorted so that we can come together at Christmas for Zeme to meet all my friends. 

The bane of our existence is visas and I think it is something I am going to have to get used to with Zeme raveling on an Ethiopian passport.  That’s okay, it just means extra planning is involved and we all know how much I like to plan things!!!!

So it another thing that I can cross off that ‘list’ and see what is next to do.

ONE CONSULATE, TWO CONSULATE, THREE CONSULATE - DONE

WEATHER: Hot and 33C

HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Getting my Brazil visa in with no problems

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Can’t think of one – today was a good day

WORD OF THE DAY:  Consulates

Today is consulate day.  We have 3 that we want to visit and hope that they are open.  Brazil, Paraguay and the Australian Consulates.  Besides the Brazil Consulate we haven’t checked their operating hours, which was a little silly as Consulates walk to the beat of their own drums and they have some weird hours for visa processing.

I had an appointment for the Brazil Consulate at 10.15am, but when I booked it in online, I didn’t get a ticket number, so to be on the safe side I made another appointment for the next available time slot 30 minutes later and got a ticket number for that one as my backup.  I triple checked all the documentation that I would need as I know how anal they are and I was ready to get my blasted Brazil visa.  Kate had looked at her Google maps and it was only a 25 minute walk from the hotel, so after breakfast we started out at 9.15am to give us plenty of time to get there and just soak in the city of Buenos Aires.  Once we arrived at the consulate located on the 5^th floor, our bags were checked and we had to walk through a security scanner to get to the reception area where I was instructed to wait at window number 5 for the tourist visas.  It seems at this point useless having a ticket number and an appointment.  There were 4 people in front of me, but due to them not having all the require paperwork they were sent away to get it done, so I moved pretty quickly up the line, and I was nervous!  It’s crazy I’m nervous about getting a damn visa, but it is pretty important and 5 weeks of my trip hinges on getting let into Brazil.  So my turn came and as she barked what she needed, I pulled it all out and the last thing she needed was an address and phone number in BA.  I was lucky I had the map that was given to us at the hostel that had all that information on it and I was able to give that to her for her to input into the computer!  I was given a piece of paper that had an address of a bank that I had to directly deposit the 162 pesos (38 AUD) into and my passport would be ready for collection from 12 noon TOMORROW!!!!  Are you kidding me?  My whole trip I have been worried about getting this sucker.  I tried in Sydney before leaving, and they take 20 working days and costs 120AUD, I tried in Ireland, Paris and Nairobi but they only issue visas for their own nationals and London I ran out of time as they take 5 working days.  Buenos Aires takes 24 HOURS!!!  I can’t believe my luck!!!  The bank was easier enough to find and only a short walk from the consulate, so I had lodged and paid for my Brazil visa in the span of 25 minutes!  AWESOME.

Next was the Paraguay Consulate.  This has also been a problem with Quito, Santiago and La Paz not wanting to play ball.  Their consulate was only a 30 minute walk from the Brazil Consulate, so we powered over to them and when we got into the consulate on the ground floor there were 2 counters, one had a only 3 people waiting and the other I rekon there must have been over 150 people all standing in a line.  I said to Kate we would be crazy to wait for hours to lodge her passport and then have to come back tomorrow to do the same thing again for mine after I had collected it from Brazil.  She agreed but on the way out, I stopped at the smaller line that now only had one person, so we waited and asked the gentleman behind the bars if that, indicating the massive line, was the line for tourists visa’s and he said no he does them in perfect English with a hint of an American accent.  I have to say he was the friendliest consulate person I have ever dealt with EVER.  He gave us the forms, told us everything we needed and that if we had them in by 3pm (when the close) we would have them back at 10am the next morning!  AWESOME!!  We also got extra forms for Deb, Sharon and Mick for when they get here on Monday to streamline their process for them.  I nearly skipped out of the Paraguay Consulate, I just cannot believe how dang helpful he was.  Really it was mind blowing!  So we will go back tomorrow when I have my passport back and then get that puppy all done and dusted.  Tick.  What next?

The next stop was the Australian Consulate.  This was the last place beside Rio where I could get my Divorce application signed by some-one who was authorized.  In hindsight I probably should have made an appointment.  The Australian Consul was too far away to walk, so we caught a taxi 15 minutes away and as we pulled up at the side of the consulate it had a massive padlock on the gates, not thinking that today was the 25^th January here (26^th back home-meaning Australia Day ) and maybe they were closed for the public holiday.  So we held the cab and I found another entry and they were very much open, phew, so we let the taxi go and entered into the reception area.  I explained I needed a document witnessed and he told us to wait and he made some calls.  10 minutes later, we had to leave our bags in a locker, go through a security scanner and head outside and walk up to this majestic art deco building where the actual consulate was located.  Here there was another reception and I showed her the documents and as it is an affidavit she had to get some-one else to witness them and we were buzzed through to a large waiting room that just screamed Australia.  There were books lining all 4 walls all on Oz, a coffee table with Oz magazines and pictures of Oz on the walls.  It was a classy room though, so we took a seat and waited another 10 minutes till a woman came out, introduced herself and apologized for keeping us waiting!  How nice….  As it is an affidavit I had to make an affirmation, we couldn’t do an oath as there wasn’t a Bible, which I had to repeat after her, we signed the document, repeated what I had actually signed, and the official stamp was put in the document and I finally had that blasted thing now signed and ready to post to Drew for him to submit to the courts.  Another step closer to making it all official.    

So we had an awesome morning at the three consulates getting everything done that we wanted to achieve and all before lunch time!  Thanks to Kate for coming along for the ride.  As we were in this part of town, we were to pass the La Recoleta Cemetery on the way back, so we decided to catch the taxi there and get some sightseeing done in the afternoon.

  

The La Recoleta Cemetery is an amazing place.  I am not sure if it is macabre to say that graveyards are interesting to walk around, but you haven’t seen a cemetery until you have seen the La Recoleta.  It is located as the name suggests in the Recoleta neighborhood.  It contains the graves of notable people, including Eva Perón, Raúl Alfonsín, and several presidents of Argentina.  The monks of the Order of the Recoletos arrived in this area, then the outskirts of Buenos Aires, in the early eighteenth century. The cemetery is built around their convent and a church, Our Lady of Pilar, built in 1732. The order was disbanded in 1822, and the garden of the convent was converted into the first public cemetery in Buenos Aires. Inaugurated on 17 November of the same year under the name ofCementerio del Norte (Northern Cemetery), those responsible for its creation were the then-Governor Martin Rodríguez, who would be eventually buried in the cemetery, and government minister Bernardino Rivadavia. The 1822 layout was done by architect and civil engineer Próspero Catelin, who also designed the current facade of the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral. The cemetery was last remodeled in 1881, while Torcuato de Alvear was mayor of the city, by the Italian architect Juan Antonio Buschiazzo.

Set in 5.5 hectares (14 acres), the property contains 4691 vaults, all above ground, of which 94 have been declared National Historical Monuments by the Argentine government and are protected by the state.  The entrance to the cemetery is through neo-classical gates with tall Doric columns.  The cemetery contains many elaborate marble mausoleums, decorated with statues, in a wide variety of architectural styles such as Art Deco, Art Nouveau, Baroque, and Neo-Gothic, and most materials used between 1880 and 1930 in the construction of tombs were imported from Paris and Milan.  The entire cemetery is laid out in sections like city blocks, with wide tree-lined main walkways branching into sidewalks filled with mausoleums.  While many of the mausoleums are in fine shape and well-maintained, others have fallen into disrepair.  Several can be found with broken glass and littered with rubbish.

It is free to enter the cemetery and we purchased a map for 8 pesos, which goes towards the upkeep of the graves.  The main draw card for everyone that enters is Eva Peron’s grave, but we decided to see the rest of the cemetery first and it was an architectural wonder.  To think how much money was spent on the memorials, burials, and mausoleums would be mind boggling.  Certainly only the wealthy, rick and famous were the only ones that could afford to be buried here that is for sure.  Some of them were the size of small bedrooms and very elaborate.  75% of the mausoleums were upkept, but there were a few that hadn’t had anything done to them and they really were in bad repair.  I wonder if all the family has died out and there is no-one who cares now about it.  It could be a cost thing, I am sure it would cost a pretty penny these days to keep them all shiney and new.  We walked around for just over an hour and we got some great photos.  I think the most surprising thing was looking into the crypts and seeing the coffins there.  Some of them had children, which isn’t too shocking but there was a few that had multiple baby coffins, like 3-6 of them.  Unfortunately dying is something that happens to everyone, it is just a matter of how much time in this world do we actually get.  You just never know what is around the corner.  What an amazing place.

We were famished by this point, so it was a taxi back to Florida Street, which is where our hostel is also located and we walked the longest pedestrian shopping street of all of Buenos Aires, 14 blocks, to find somewhere to eat.  We found this great restaurant/café that had an English menu with a lot of options, was super busy and reasonably priced.  I got a Cesar salad which can sometimes be a little hit and miss, but this one was amazing even though I had to pick out all the olives and it hit the spot after such a busy but productive day.  You just feel good when you have done and accomplished things, whether on holidays or back home and we were feeling great.

We did a spot of shopping on the way back to the hostel.  I ended up buying a new day bag and not a moment too soon as I discovered a hole in the bottom of the current one I bought for 8 bucks in Cuzco and my other purchase was a new watch.  I have decided to buy a good watch and one that can be worn in the shower, as this is what gets me each time I buy cheap ones, so I stuck with what I know and got a Swatch.  It is a cool looking one that fits right in with all my bangles.  A great purchase.  Kate and I separated after this, she wanted to do some more shoe shopping and I wanted to place a call to Zeme.  So I found a cabina on Florida Street, but some Spanish lady was telling me something, so after 3 attempts I gave up and tried another one 5 blocks away.  It was a different phone company but I still couldn’t get through and this is when I noticed I was a bag short, I had left my watch in the last cabina.  So I high tailed it back 15 minutes back and there was a lady in my booth, but when I looked in my 120AUD watch was still sitting on the floor in its bag!  Phew……………………….  That was a close call. 

So I went back to the hostel for a well-deserved rest.  I got blogging and internetting and Kate had a bit of a nana nap before coming down to the common room and jumping online.  We can’t explain after a late lunch why we were hungry at 7.30pm, and as were a little haggard after today we just did the lazy thing and headed back to the same restaurant we had lunch at and ate dinner there as well.  It was funny one of the staff recognized us and said welcome back and she had told us the food was good and she was right.

So my Brazil visa is in, my divorce papers are signed and we are ready for the Paraguay Consulate tomorrow.

We are enjoying Buenos Aires and are looking forward to the next 8 days here.

VISA VS PLAYBOOK

WEATHER: Cooler and 19C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: It’s a toss-up between the Rwanda visa and my getting my Playbook running

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Rush rush rush

BUYS OF THE DAY: My micro SD cards

WORD OF THE DAY: Headless chook

On the road again at 9am this morning.  No more sleep ins for me.  It’s getting down to the business end of getting my stuff ready for Africa.  I know it sounds like I am leaving the planet, but after my time in Morocco I am not expecting a lot of Western luxuries, like Wi-Fi and maybe even internet access, lack of shops for basic necessities that you just take for granted.  I’m preparing – nothing wrong with being pre-pared right?

So back to the Mozambique Consulate this morning.  They opened at 9.30am, and I got there at 9.45am, and low and behold there was no-one else there and my visa was ready!!!  Woo hoo if only they were all like that!  My next stop was to head to the Rwanda Consulate.  I tried to call them yesterday as their office hours are not on their web site, and I was unable to get through, so I am just taking a punt and going to rock up and hope I fall within their office hours. 

I’m on the hunt for more micro SD cards.  I bought 12 of them with me, and in the 3 months I have been gone so far I have used 7 of them.  They are 4GB, so I get around 1600 pictures per card.  So, once again preparation is the key, and I am not sure if 5 will get me through the 3 months with all the animals etc. I plan on seeing.  So I have been looking around in my shopping travels and the prices have been SO expensive.  Like 15GBP, which is like $22AUD a card.  I got them off EBay for $11AUD a pop.  BUT I found PC World today and they had them for 7.50GBP, so I snapped them up quick smart and bought another 10.  You can never have too many SD cards right?  Another thing I can check off my list!!!  I am on a ROLL people.

In the meantime, I was on the hunt for a ‘hotspot’ where I could jump on to some internet to complete the installation process of my Playbook.  Stupid system that you need internet to set it up before you can even use it.  I guess normally back home this wouldn’t have been an issue.  I checked online yesterday and I know the Burger King on Euston Road has a ‘Hotspot’ so I was making my way there when I decided to pull out my IPod and see if I passed other Wi-Fi’s that I could get on that weren’t secure.  I felt like I was undercover or something walking down the streets and checking for unsecure Wi-Fi’s.  Anyway I found one only after walking for a couple of minutes.  A large corporate building called Welcomnet.  So I sat on the planter wall and got as far as passing through the setup stage no problems, but then there was a software update that had to be done and remaining time was 2 hours and 24 minutes!  Shite, I wasn’t going to sit outside of this building looking like a toss for 2 hours!  The time remaining kept changing from 2 hours down to 40 minutes then back to 2 hours, so I thought I would wait a little while and pulled out my book to read.  Well after 50 minutes of stalking the company’s Wi-Fi, it had only completed 26% of the install and I still had to get to the Rwanda Consulate, so I had to abandon the installation and head to where I had to be.  While I was sitting there I did get asked for some more directions, so out came my trusty map and I was able to point her in the right direction.  I must have a big invisible I for information stamped on my forehead!!!! 

Thanks to my trusty London map (again – told you I was getting my 2GBP worth), I found the street and consulate no problems and I was inside office hours.  They are open 10am-1pm for visa applications.  So I totally fluked it, as I got there at 12 noon. Well I was buzzed through and I was the only one in there, yay, maybe Tuesdays are the day to get visa’s, BUT the guy I was trying to talk to was also the phone guy, so the phone rang 3 times while I was trying to tell him my story, so by the time he got back to me it was 12.15pm.  So I finally explained it all to him.  Basically you need a visa for Rwanda.  There are 2 ways you can do it.  One you do it online, they send you an entry facility letter within 3 days and then you show that upon entry into Rwanda, pay the fee and you’re in.  The other is to apply at a Rwanda Consulate direct.  I chose option 1 and I did the online process back in DECEMBER.  You received a tracking number and you can see the progress of your application which came back approved.  As I didn’t receive the required entry facility letter, I left it for 2 weeks and emailed them, and again in February and again in March, twice. I finally got a response after the 4^th email that said and I quote ‘this was emailed to you’.  That’s it, absolutely nothing else in the email but that.  So I politely went back and said thanks, but I didn’t receive it, could they resend it and all has been quite on the Rwanda front since.  So as I am entering the country in 11 days this is why I had Rwanda on my list, to ask if they will just accept my print out from their web site and would it be a problem not having the facility entry letter.  Well apparently this is NOT acceptable; I definitely need the damn facility letter.  I told the guy that I had received this email saying it had been sent, so he said you’re here now, so you may as well get it from here instead.  Sounds good to me, till he said he needed a copy of the email sent, a form filled in, payment to be deposited into HSBC (they don’t take cash of course) and I had to do this all in 45 minutes, as they closed at 1pm.  So David (we are on a first name basis now), pointed me in the right direction of an internet café (was around an eight minute walk), to get the printout of the email sent from the Consulate, and while I was there I googled the closest HSBC, which happened to be 100m up the road, and there was no line up at the bank (I know I couldn’t believe my luck), and deposited the 35GBP into their account.  As I walked out of the bank I realized I didn’t bring my passport photos with me – CRAP……  I had a wild look around and what would you know I could see a Snappy Snap sign 100m across the road from the bank!!!  Is this my lucky day or what?  So while I was waiting for the photos to print, I started filling in my form.  I got the photos in my hand at 12.45pm, so I had 15 minutes to get my butt back to the Consulate!  I half ran, half walked like a lunatic and got back there at 12.54pm!!!  Talk about cutting it fine!  There was no-one else in the Consulate again, so luck was on my side.  So David took all my forms and I asked when it could all be ready and he said Friday.  Ummmm I leave on Friday, he asked what time and I said 10am.  Uh Oh….. So then he said where are you staying in Rwanda – crap, I left all that information at the hotel then he asked what dates do you enter and depart Rwanda – crap that was all at the hotel as well…..  I looked so unorganized and I hated it.  So we made a deal, he is going to have my visa done by tomorrow at 12 noon, and I had to come straight back to the hotel and find out where I was staying on the Gorilla Trek.  All that was mentioned in the Intrepid notes was that it is a local church mission.  I needed a hotel name, address and phone number!!!  It took me nearly an hour of googling back and forth and reading a few blogs to get the name of the hotel, to then Google the hotel to get the address and then re-Google to get a phone number.  It was a real mission, but I got the details and I had to email them to David ASAP, so they were sent through at 2.30pm.  What a NIGHTMARE!!!!!  But it is best doing it all this way now, than getting declined on the boarder and missing the Gorilla’s all together.  So back to the Rwanda Consulate tomorrow to collect my passport from the last consulate.  What a morning!

So at this point I hadn’t had any breakfast or lunch, so I decided to take my trusty IPod with my new gadget, and go for a walk to find me a Wi-Fi area to set up this damn Playbook.  I only had to walk 10 minutes up the road to the Park Plaza Country Inn and they had open and fast Wi-Fi!!!  They had a bar / restaurant on the ground floor, so I was able to have a late lunch and steal their Wi-Fi legitimately as I was a patron there eating lunch!  So I got the whole thing set up and downloaded some books over lunch and now I am up and running!!!

On my way back I stopped down ‘my local’ street that has all the shops you could want.  My supermarket Iceland, where I got a salad for tonight’s dinner and the check-out chick remembered me from the other day.  I checked in with the Laundromat, and she can wash and fold my clothes for 10GBP, so I’m going to drop that off in the morning.  The post office is also down this street, so I will send my next package home at the same time AND there is also a Toni & Guy Hairdresser, so I will see if they can fit me in tomorrow morning as well.  I love where this hotel is located and with ‘my’ chicken shop across the road, next door to ‘my’ 7/11 equivalent shop and the tube a 20m walk from the hotel door, this place is awesome.

Speaking of hotel, my reception chicky was on the desk this morning, and her manager has agreed to store my stuff here for 3 months for .50p a day – now that is AWESOME news!!  It saves me trekking across town with all my stuff and it will be here that I stay when I come back in October, so everything is just falling into place.  I should go and buy a lottery ticket with the luck I have been having (touchwood).        

I get to see some friendly faces tomorrow in the form of Aimes and George.  They arrived from Spain today.  So we have a date at the theatre tomorrow night to see Priscilla.  So it will be nice to put on a dress and some makeup and feel like a lady for a night!  Can’t wait to see you guys xx

WHO INVENTED THE VISA PROCESS??????

WEATHER: Warm 23C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: 2 out of 3 ain’t bad

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Not being able to set up my Playbook

BUYS OF THE DAY: My new gadget, my Playbook and some Harrods purchases

WORD OF THE DAY: Visa, Visa, Visa

I wonder whose bright idea it was to get visa’s for certain countries.  Especially these days when everything is obtainable on the internet, if you are going to make people get visas, let them get them at the airport on arrival for goodness sakes.  I am sure it is just a money spinner 75% of the time.  I had to see 3 consulates today and I couldn’t get started till 1pm, which is also frustrating, but that is what it is like dealing with consulates and you can’t be rude to them, as they wield all the power and if you don’t get a visa, guess what, you don’t get to go on your holiday.

So I needed to fill in my morning before I ran around all over London for my visas.  So I decided to spend my time in the Knightsbridge area, namely Hyde Park, climbing Wellington’s Arch and getting to Harrods.  I was on the road at 9.15am this morning; I wanted to see as much as I could before heading back to Bond Street and 2 of the 3 consulates.  Hyde Park reminds me a lot of Central Park in New York.  It is a little piece of serenity in a busy, bustling city.  The day was perfect, the sun high in the sky and not a cloud to be seen.  It really was an awesome day to be out.  I have always been super lucky with weather when I have been in London on previous trips and that run (touchwood) has continued. 

I entered via The Grand Entrance to the park, which is at Hyde Park Corner next to Apsley House, which was erected in 1824–25.  It is a pretty amazing way to enter.  I walked along the Serpentine, saw all the swans cleaning themselves, seriously there must have been 30 of them all out of the water, fluffy and picking their feathers and all standing on one leg, this must be the time of day they fluff and wash.  It then seemed that after that they stop doing that they have a bit of a mid-morning nap.  I know they are only swans, but to see so many all doing the same thing was pretty cool.  I then moved on to the Princess Diana Fountain, as they call it, but really is an oval stone fountain about 50 by 80 m that is surrounded by, a lush grassy field. The granite streambed is from 3 to 6 m wide and quite shallow and is laid out on a gently sloping portion of the park, so that water pumped to the top of the oval flows down either side. It cost 3.6 million pounds to build and was opened on the 6^th July 2004.  People are encouraged to put their feet in the water for quiet wading and contemplation.  I did sit down for about half an hour and took my shoes off and popped my feet in the water, it took a while, even thought it was a warm day, the water was freezing!!! 

Working my way over Serpentine Bridge and past the boathouse, there are people on bikes, loads of people running, mothers with children, roller blader’s and walkers, everyone making the most of the gorgeous day.  You can hire deck chairs for 1.50GBP for an hour, and I can see these would be popular on a day like this.  It is comforting to know, that even on the other side of the world, you get crap overcast days with a hint of sun on week-ends and then the sun shines high in the sky on a Monday morning.  Always the way hey!   I saw a mother swan with her 4 baby swans following her single file, swimming past me and then I hit over a hundred ducks all doing the same thing the swans were doing on the other side of the lake.  This must be wash day for the water birds.  I kid you not; there must have been 100-200 of them all there fluffing and preening, then sleeping!  Once again they are only ducks, but the numbers were pretty impressive.  I saw a few more monuments, but the last one that was pretty impressive was The Wellington Monument which is a monument to the first duke of Wellington.  It was funded by £10,000 donated by British women and inaugurated on 18 June 1822. Its total height, including the sculpture, the base and the mound on which it stands, is 36 feet.  The most impressive thing is the statue of Achilles, which is made from melted-down captured enemy cannons. The inscription on the statue’s granite base reads:

To Arthur Duke of Wellington

and his brave companions in arms

this statue of Achilles

cast from cannon taken in the victories

of Salamanca, Vittoria, Toulouse, and Waterloo

is inscribed

by their country women

Placed on this spot

on the XVIII day of June MDCCCXXII

by command of

His Majesty George IIII.

My next plan for the day was to go to the top of Wellingtons Arch, but would you believe the thing was closed.  How rude!  So I was going to walk to Marble Arch and Speakers Corner, but I was against the clock and time was ticking, so I just made my way straight to Harrods instead.  I tell you the best thing I have bought to date is my map of London.  It has come in handy for all the Consulates and finding the Australia Shop etc… but on my way to Harrods I got asked twice by two different people for directions, so I whipped out my trusty map and was able to point them in the right direction!!

Harrods was amazing.  I found Harrods Arcade straight up, this is how they try and contain all the small fish and I could probably guess they would want the ‘tourists’ to buy there overpriced souvenirs and get the hell out, so it leaves all the ‘real’ shoppers to get on with their spending.  Well it was easy to blow $111.00AUD, in the tourist trap, and I wasn’t and didn’t really buy much.  I had a quick walk around the ground floor and found the food court, so I decided to buy some lunch here, eat it at the park and then head on to my business part of the day.  So I ate the best quiche I have had since Shelly cooking my last one the night I left and a bottle of water under a huge tree not far from Harrods and then I hit the tube to get me to Bond Street.

The Brazil Consulate opened for visa applications at 1pm.  I decided to get there right on 1pm, which would give me an hour there, before I had to go and collect my passport from the Tanzania Consulate at 2pm.  As you walk through the doors at the Brazilian Consulate, there is a machine there, that you tap on what you are there for and it spits out a number and tells you what floor you need to go to.  What a great system!  As I took my ticket from the machine, it flashed up on the screen that there were 19, yes NINETEEN people in front of me.  It was only 1.02pm for goodness sakes, how the hell did they all get there before me?  My magic number was 919.  I made my way to the second floor (you can only use the stairs) and I found a seat in what was like a doctors waiting room and just about all the seats were full.  They were also doing Brazil applications from this room as well.  They had an automated voice and a TV telling you when your number was called and the TV showed what numbers they were up to.  Well after 40 minutes they had called 13 people ( I was the 19^th) so I decided I would wait till 2 as the Tanzania Consulate was only 2 streets away from Brazil.  So I waited till 2pm, making it an hour that I had waited, I was going to give my number to some-one else, but thought hey, I rekon I could go to Tanzania, pick up my passport and make it back before my number was called.  If I didn’t then I hadn’t lost anything but the hour I waited, so I kept my number, walked the 7 minutes to Tanzania, and there were 16 people in front of me there, but as this was for collections only, I ended up waiting for about 15 minutes, got my passport (with visa) and then bolted back to Brazil to check out what number they were up to.  As mentioned my number was 919 and when I got back to the room they were up to 918!!!  I am so glad I didn’t give my number to some-one now.  I decided I could stay till 3pm, and then I would have to go and get my passport to the Mozambique Consulate.  I got called at 2.30pm and I got a really friendly lady, that pretty much told me Australia could have issued my visa and doesn’t know why they didn’t as there isn’t an expiry on them, which I knew, that’s how I read the conditions, but who am I to argue with the consulate in Sydney?  Anyway I basically just wanted some advice, as I couldn’t get my visa issued this time round anyway, as I just ran out of days, but I did leave Brazil with a game plan which is to visit the Brazil Consulate in Paris in October, as I have 10 days there.  I did email them and they said they don’t do foreign visa’s, but my lady said that sounds weird, so rock up there, otherwise my backup plan is to go back to Brazil in London and hope I get some-one nice and that they will issue my visa in 4 working days rather than 5.  I don’t have a backup backup plan, and I am hoping that I won’t need it.  I’m hoping Paris will come to the party, if not then I will have to cut my time down there and head straight to London to get the job done.  Bloody visas.

So back on the Tube and off to the Mozambique Consulate.  It was a lot more quite here  and there was only one couple in the consulate when I got there.  Now this is more like it.  I was at the counter and I provided my forms, my passport photos and…….. Where is my passport?  I had to go to some chairs on the side, and I emptied my whole bag and no passport.  F#@k......  I only just had it at Tanzania, so I went through my whole bag and its contents again, and at this point I have all my shit spread out over 3 chairs and I am feeling a little rattled,  to finally find the bloody thing inside my marvelous map that I was only raving about this morning.  BLOODY HELL talk about a near heart attack!!  I was frazzled and not an impression I wanted to give to the Consulate, but thank goodness I found it!  So I am able to pick my passport up tomorrow morning at 9.30am and then I am going to head to the Rwanda Consulate and try and find out what the hell is happening with my visa application with them.  I have a feeling they are going to palm me off, as I have applied online and it is processed in Rwanda, but they may be able to pull me up in their system.  I have some tracking numbers, so let’s see what they can do.

I decided to buy the Playbook, so back on the tube to Oxford Circus, where I had spoken to these friendly guys at Carphone House a few days ago.  I couldn’t see them in there today, so this chicky helped me.  She was really nice and even did me a favor and got me 2 adapters from their ‘spare’ box out the back, so I now have the Europe, the USA and of course the British plug and I only need to buy the African plug at the airport on Friday and I can sort out the Aussie plug when I get home.  So that was nice of her, she saved me over $50AUD by not having to purchase the plugs in a pack!  One of the guys did see me while I was paying and he said hi and welcome back – so he remembered me, which was a nice customer service touch!  So I am now the proud owner of the Playbook.  I just can’t use it yet, as you need to have the internet to do the initial setup, which I do have here at the hotel, but I am having a problem with the connection, so I can’t play on it till tomorrow.  I have googled the closest free Hotspots and there is one right near the Mozambique Consulate tomorrow, it’s a Burger King, so I will try it there and see how I go.  How frustrating that I can’t play with my new toy!!!

So quite a productive day all round.  My feet are killing me though and it was time to head home. 

I need to start getting my stuff together and separated before Friday.  I have a bag of stuff that needs to be sent home, so I have done that tonight and got that ready for the post.  I enquired downstairs the other day if they have storage here at my hotel in the hope that I won’t have to tramps all the way across town to leave it at the Royal National.  Well they do have a storage facility here but it is 2GBP per DAY!!!  The Royal National is only .50p a day.  BIG difference and certainly worth the trek across town.  But I did speak to the front desk again on Saturday, I explained my situation and she said she would check with her manager on Monday and see if there was something they could do.  At least I asked, and if it’s no then that’s fine.  I haven’t been able to catch up with her again yet, but either way, I need to pull out my stuff I’m not taking to Africa and get that stored on Thursday.  I still also need to get a haircut, so I will endeavor to get that done tomorrow with 2 Consulates and get some sightseeing in the afternoon, maybe get to Wembly Stadium and then out Eton College on Wednesday.  I also need to get my washing all done before I go, so I think I will drop that in on Wednesday AND  I also need some more USD for my local payments in Africa; I haven’t quite worked out how I will do that yet.  I may just have to double exchange my money to do it, but I’ll work that out on Wednesday.   Wednesday seems to be shaping up to be busy!!!  So no rest for the wicked but I think I am under control. 

I can’t believe this time next week I will be in Kenya J

Visa Visa Visa

My new passport arrived last week.  I got the larger one with 80 pages in preparation of having enough room / pages for the stamps and visa's that I expect to get on my journey.  It was sad to see the last one go - besides the fact that it still had 6 years validity - my passport photo didn't look like I had just served 10 years hard time in a prison somewhere!!!  Needless to say this photo isn't as good - but I would like to know why you aren't suppossed to smile in a passport photo?  I guess if you have just come off a 15 hour flight you are more likely going to look like your picture with no smile than some-one who has holiday glow getting their picture taken forgetting just how long that hell flight actually is before they reach their paradise!

My main concern is the visa's I need to get while I am on my trip.  Normally they are not such a big deal.  Most consulates are represented in Australia, you send your passport off with forms and photos in tow and in approx 2 weeks your passport is back.  The tricky thing with an extended trip is whether the visa once in your passport is valid from the time it is put in there or does it start from when you land in that particular country.  I have done the home work and I need to get 14 visa's in total.  4 of those I can get before I go, 4 of them I can get on arrival, I need to get 2 in London, 1 in Cape Town, 1 in Paris and one has to be pre-applied for off their web site and approved for before landing in the country.

I just need to have faith in my organisational skills and be a little patient.  When I want things done it generally means yesterday and not all things can be hurried - especially when involving foreign consulates. I have their local addresses and I have google mapped where they are in relation to where I am staying - the best I can do for my piece of mind................