Thursday 17 October 2013

Big waits....

Well after the excitement of the first post, there has been a distinct amount of nothing going on at Kollhof/Oates Towers.  I mean minus the amazing trip of a lifetime of course*.  But the other stuff is kind of.. meh.

Regarding said trip of a lifetime, we have just returned from the USofA after two weeks of amazing train and road trippin' (New Orleans to California via four national parks).  Thanks to this piece of amazing crap we had to improvise somewhat on our plans, but nevertheless we had an awesome holiday, the highlight of which was surely sitting like outcasts in the corridor of a Las Vegas hotel (no wifi in the rooms) trying to desperately fill in our visa application and upload a gazillion documents, all to be PDF and less than 3MB.  Joy!  After an interesting sequence of events involving Jan getting held by security for attempting to enter our room with a malfunctioning door key, me having to down two large margaritas before rushing to rescue him and then us realising we had failed to purchase the health insurance we needed for the visa, we gave up our attempt.  Suffice to say it was much more stressful than getting the car stuck in a creek and flooded, then having to pay $160 to have it towed out again, which we did later in the holiday, just for kicks.


We finally managed to get the application lodged though, which has led to the necessity of me getting a health exam, by dint of the fact I take a fairly common daily medication.  So off to the (government approved†) doctors I go to be poked and prodded and deemed not an immediate health risk to the Australian population.  T'other half is being smug about his perfectly non-medicated life as he seems to have escaped having to provide any more information.


So that's where we are at the moment, stuck in red tape land still, with at least another 3-8 weeks of waiting.  Our landlord has been kind and is letting us stay in the house for another month, and work for both of us is also being accommodating.  We initially thought we would be on a plane by now, waving the autumn weather goodbye, but it looks like Blighty is stuck with us for a bit longer yet!


* pictures to follow

† stupidly expensive