Visa Adventure

Alicia here. Yesterday I had Dan drop me on his way to work down on Bank street in Dubai near where all the embassies and consulates are located so that I could visit the Indian consulate and procure entry visas for the two of us for our pending trip. Needing to be at work by 11am, I figured that starting at 8am would give me a nice healthy cushion to get back in time. Wrong, and wrong. 

I was lost for nearly an hour, wandering the same neighborhood back and forth, convinced that I had to have been tripping right over the top of the consulate the whole time. When I finally found it, escaping from the 100 degree heat in exhaustion, I was pleased to find that the consulate provided a ladies' queue, where I was told I would have to wait in a different queue behind 45 men to get my paperwork approved. The point of the ladies' queue? Not sure.

After securing a ticket number at 9am, I discovered that the ATM at the Indian Consulate was in disrepair, which meant I wouldn't be able to pay for our visas. So, it was back out onto the blacktop to truck down to the Sudanese consulate in search of a functional ATM. Although gorgeous, non-crowded, and guarded by a handsome and helpful Sudanese military man, I was disappointed that the Sudanese consulate had no ATM at all. Lucky me, I was able to flag down a taxi outside and convince him to drive me to three different banks until I found one where my ATM card worked, and then take me back to the consulate.... where I saw that the consular ATM had been repaired. No point crying over spilt milk, though, right? I responded calmly and rationally by walking directly to the vending machine and purchasing a Snickers bar and an oversized bottle of water.

At 11am, my number was finally called and I was able to get my paperwork stamped and approved in room 105. Then I was directed to get my paperwork stamped and approved in room 102. Then I was directed to submit and pay for my paperwork in room 101. At 12 noon, after finally having been able to submit my applications for entry permits, it was time to hit the pavement once again to get a taxi back to work.  Being an hour late already, I was not too happy to discover that calling for a taxi wouldn't work (dispatch center: "No taxis are accepting your job...") Accepting? No taxis are accepting? Can't you just assign someone? What if you tell the drivers I'll pay triple? No luck. Wander wander wander. Up to bank street - all the taxis are full. Down to reef street - dead as a horse's toenails. Back around the British Embassy, up Sheikh Zayed road, and through the same neighborhood I had been wandering before 9am. At 1:30, I arrived back at the Indian consulate, delusional and suffering from heat-induced hallucinations. Convinced that I would be doomed to stay at the Indian consulate forever, to live there, to sleep in room 101 with the cranky huddled masses for the rest of my days, I became desperate. And just as I was about to press the gleaming ball point of a fresh metallic blue pen into my jugular, an empty taxi pulled up to the curb in front of me.