Bon Voyage, Donna

Had Donna's official going-away party this past Tuesday night.

Had a houseful of guests, a mountain of chow... Call it the Feeding Frenzy Special for 20. I rotissed a filet on the grill, oh man that's the way to go. Get it spinning for just a little while, darken the outside, cut the steaks while it's still mooing... then finish on the grill to each person's specific liking.

Aug 25 is the BIG DAY... so think of Donna at 5:50 p.m. eastern as her plane pulls away from the gate at Newark, bound for Frankfurt, a turn to Gay Pareee, then a ride to Tours. We know she's excited about that, as she has departure pegged to the minute on her Google countdown calendar. I think as the days-to-go count dipped below 30, it really started to sink in for all of us... she'll be outta here for 11 months. We'll hit single digits here real soon, and that's when the pulse will really rise...

Donna will be keeping a journal, and Rotary Youth Exchange requires posting to their own page once every month, I think... so we'll be able to keep track of what's going on, even though we're usually the last to know, well, everything. In the OLDEN DAYS, Rotary would tell the kid to give a call once they arrived in-country, then NOTHING for a month, so they could get settled in. Nowadays, of course, there's int'l texting, IM, webcams, Facebook, and of course stodgy old email. So v. little chance of her losing touch. I think this way's better...

A first in history!

So we left for the French Embassy (yes, you apply IN PERSON for a French visa) at 3:15 a.m., and arrived in front of the building at 7:30... plenty way ahead of time for our appointment at 9:00. Great parking spot, right outside the gate. I took a little nap in the seat. Donna, having slept the ENTIRE way there, read a novel.

At about 8:35 we walked over to the gate itself, arriving about 2 minutes later... call it 8:37.

"We're here for our appointment at 9 o'clock," we say.

"No. No one is permitted past until eight forty five," says the woman at the gate.

There's nowhere to sit, and we're clearly not welcome to loiter at the gate. A car with diplomat plates drives through. We've got a few minutes to kill. We return to the truck.

I mention to Donna on the way that we've just made history!

Huh?

Yes, this is the FIRST TIME in history that France has ever successfully repelled an invading force! Woo Hoo!

Of course, 7 minutes later we waltz right in.

Now THAT's more like it!

As it turns out, her 15 minute appointment, from 9 to 9:15, was done right on the button. They have 15 min. time slots for the visa appointments. You show up, they call your name, you walk up to the window, hand in some basic papers. They then call you again a few minutes later, you hand them the rest of the papers (including the form saying that they require a vaccination that is not available in the U.S.), and you're out the door in 15 minutes.

Heaven help you if you don't have ALL of the required paperwork, notarized signatures, photos.
Heaven help you if you miss your time slot by even one minute.
Heaven help you if you don't have the funds (charged whether visa is approved or not) with you.

Go back home, reschedule the appointment on the web (it'll be in a few weeks) and try again.

Fortunately, I think everything was in order, and we're expecting her visa in another week or so. No one has called yet to complain about anything, so we're hoping/expecting success. Sadly, up until June 1, 2009 they did issue visas on the spot... now it takes a week. Whatever...

Of course, I also mentioned to Donna that the French Embassy has two stamps for the visa approval department. One is heavy, about 8 inches in diameter, has a giant red ink pad that is kept full, and says the word NON!!. They love using the big red stamp.

The other stamp, about 1 inch in diameter, uses a little green ink pad that always dries out, and says the word Oui.

So we're not out of the woods yet...

. . .

So now it's 9:15 and we've got a few hours to kill. My bro would've been proud. Wanted to do the Washington Monument, but they meter out the tour tickets, and we were too late, even at 9:45 when we got there, for any tour earlier than 8 p.m. Bummer. But we did the National Aquarium, the Smithsonian Natural History museum, and Air & Space. Natural history was AWESOME... I called home while standing under T-Rex, we checked out the Hope Diamond, and we saw another exhibit "Written in Bone... Forensic Files of the 17th Century Chesapeake" that was absolutely FASCINATING! We wandered into the exhibit and there's a guy with a crowd around him... very interesting guy and clearly knows his stuff. Turns out he's the curator of the exhibit, and the group around him is a bunch of social studies teachers from San Antonio, there on a teacher learning trip. They didn't mind if we hung out & listened, and listen we did. Except for the invasion of France, this http://anthropology.si.edu/writteninbone/ was the highlight of the trip.

. . .

We had to leave around 1 p.m. since I had to be back for a concert.

Yes, my bro would've been proud of that trip. One day, one embassy, three museums, ~9 hrs. of driving, and a concert. THAT's good efficiency!

ESK

Getting ready for France

It's... almost... time. Our daughter Donna is getting ready to hit the trail for France, as part of the Rotary Youth Exchange. She's spending her senior hear of high school there, and we've spent a lot of time the last few days getting everything together. There are papers from France, papers in French, papers that she needs to fill out in both French & English. A trip to Triple-A for more passport photos for the visa, notarized this and notarized that. Purchase a plane ticket. Fund her debit card. Many copies of everything, and it all must be perfect.

Tomorrow we drive to Washington, DC to apply for the student visa. Yes, this is done in person, and yes, if you live where we do, you drive to DC and show up at the French Embassy. The good news is that they say that if everything is in order, they'll issue a visa on the spot. That would be way cool indeed...