We mulled that over for a few days since it was a lot of money already to pay to have an infant get a visa and we would have to pay it again if we canceled the app but decided that it would be more of a loss to not have our passports and not be able to get on our booked flight. So I called again to withdraw the application and have them send our passports back. This time I was told that they couldn't locate our application in the system. I was assured not to worry since it can take up to 6 weeks (yes 6 weeks) to have someone enter the information into a computer so that the application could be "on the system" and it had only been 5 weeks and 5 days. Right. I called every day for the next week and half to check if the application was "on the system" and was continually told it was not. They must have been getting sick of me calling and telling them their "system" was archaic because I was passed to a magical person who suddenly could possibly locate my application even though it wasn't on the system. Actually passed to the voicemail of this magical person who, I was assured, would call me back to discuss my case. This was the Thursday before we flew on Wednesday. I waited for my call back all day Friday and it never came.
Monday I resumed my daily calls to the home office and was again told the application wasn't on the system and again asked for supervisors until I reached the magical person level where I was informed that they located my application on Friday and the request to withdraw it had gone through. I'm not sure when they were going to inform me of this, but there it is. I told them I needed to fly on Wednesday so I would do anything at all to get my passport in time--I offered to drive to the office where the application was, pay for next day delivery, send a courier, etc. The response, in true government fashion, was that the office holding the application was not accessible to the public so I couldn't come get it, they don't send things next day, and a courier couldn't access the office either. AND I couldn't call the office holding the application, I could only fax it. AND it would take up to 10 working days to receive my returned application though they would of course do everything in their power to get it to me in time for my travel. Again, right. I called several times Monday and at regular intervals on Tuesday to try to get someone to call the secret office for me and was finally told to stop calling because they had done everything they could do.
Our passports didn't arrive on Tuesday so early early Wednesday morning we started our travel day by heading down to London with our luggage in tow to visit the US embassy. For the bargain price of $185 we got emergency passports issued same day for me and Arie and went straight from there to Heathrow to catch our flight. We got to the gate as the last group of people was boarding our flight and happily headed home for Christmas.
The only trouble was that if I entered the UK on my emergency passport I would receive a visitor visa since I wouldn't be in possession of my work visa. And if I got a new visa (the visitor visa) it would cancel any previously held visas (like my work visa). So the bottom line was that I couldn't go back to the UK until we had our original passports back. On the Tuesday before we flew Ryan gave a house key to one of his co-workers who agreed to come to our house and check our mail and FedEx our passports to us in the US when they arrived. So we waited and waited and kept getting told that nothing had come. The Saturday before we were supposed to fly back on Monday we finally got word (at 4am MI time) that the passports had come to our house and started looking for a way to get them to the US by Monday evening. We couldn't. Being a holiday weekend in the UK nobody was doing package pickup on Saturday for any amount of money. After hours and hours of trying we finally had to give up (which does not come easy to me) and I called to change the tickets for me and Arie to Wednesday. Wednesday wasn't available so our tickets were changed to Thursday. There were still a couple glitches (our next-day delivery for our passports was held up by snow so they didn't come until Wed., our flight Thursday was delayed 14 hours) but we all finally ended up back in the UK.
Was it all worth it for Christmas with family? No question, hands-down yes.
Me and our niece Hope at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago
College friends reunion
Grandma entertaining Arie with a toys, a Banner, and easy cheese
