In 2010 we were living in Edinburgh. It was glorious: we loved the city, got our work done, made friends, and developed an expensive scotch habit. Much of the time we were a little cold and a little damp, but John started baking and Laurel started knitting; this kept us both warm enough. We’d been planning to go to India for ages and this seemed like the right time, over the winter holidays. There was even an Indian consulate handy!
At the Indian Consulate
When we looked into visas online it seemed easy; go to the consulate in person, apply for a visa, take pictures, and leave the passport overnight. We did this about six weeks before we planned to go. John’s passport did not have enough empty pages in it, they said. There were four but apparently an unwritten rule known only to Indian bureaucrats says they need six. We tried to negotiate: time running short; we already have the plane tickets; we are so excited to visit your beautiful land. Nope, they said. But you can go to the U.S. consulate in Edinburgh and they will sew you in some new pages, while you wait. Come back tomorrow.
At the U.S. Consulate
We went to the consulate. It was as if they knew we were coming and were inside, hidden and laughing. A sign said they were closed for the holiday (what holiday we still do not know) and that they did not provide passport pages. We should mail the passport to London where the embassy would do it. The London embassy website said this would take five working days. John spent a silly amount of money to get the passport there and back. A week passed and we heard nothing, not even whether the passport had been received. Two weeks passed. We made reckless jokes about what ‘five working days’ means in English. We harboured uncharitable thoughts. And we even stopped leaving the apartment during the day until the mail came in case the passport would need to be signed for. But we wanted to go to India so badly!
At the Indian Consulate, Again
The passport finally arrived, on a Wednesday. Six weeks before, we’d booked a flight for that Saturday. Full of hope, we trotted back to the Indian consulate. We are happy to see you, they said. (Actually, they’d forgotten about us, which was hurtful.) They’d put our names on the list they send to the US. The US government has 48 hours to reply to say ‘no visa for these two’. If they don’t – and they usually don’t – we’d be good to go and could come pick up the visas on Monday. But Monday, we said, is too late! Our flight leaves on Saturday and we have nowhere to stay as of Saturday morning. Nothing to be done, they said. John gave Laurel a meaningful look, which she understood: she must burst into tears, in a helpless, feminine way, whereupon the bureaucrats would melt and do her bidding.
Laurel thinks of herself as very resourceful and she is all about having people do her bidding, but alas, she cannot cry on demand. She did everything she could: she thought about famine and cancer and unused airline tickets and all of the world’s tragedies large and small and she sniffled very convincingly. But no dice. John asked if there was really nothing to be done and they said there was really nothing to be done.
On the Telephone
An epic fail for Laurel, but she did redeem herself, swinging into action immediately. You see, John and Laurel were both high-status fliers with Delta Airlines and they’d bought the tickets using miles. They were exchangeable to any other flights in the same category. The webpage contained a wildly unhelpful chart which had things like ‘peak’ ‘zone’ and other words, and even phrases like ‘Europe to Asia’ but no amount of cleverness helped Laurel to know which category her current flights were in. So she would call Delta and speak to a representative and explain the situation and then engage in some flight bingo. Which goes like this (imagine long pauses and computer keys clicking between each sentence):
Laurel: So umm how about Vietnam? Could these tickets be exchanged for two tickets to Vietnam?
Person at other end: Oooohh no sorry that’s a round the world ticket.
Laurel: Wait, why? We’re going from Edinburgh to Vietnam and then back to the US.
Person: Yes but we fly from Asia to the west coast of the US.
L: Could you route us another way?
P: No; that’s impossible.
L: Ok; so that means I cannot exchange these tickets for anywhere else in Asia. Yes?
P: Well not exactly; it depends upon how far east you intend to go.
L: Ah. [looking at scribbled bits of paper] So how about Jordan?
P: Well, that’s a much shorter flight.
L: Okay… [beginning to feel hopeful]
L/P, simultaneously: Which means it’s in a different category.
L: But I’ve already paid for the more expensive flight; can you just keep the difference?
P: No; that’s impossible.
This happened about a dozen times. But Laurel is nothing if not persistent when it comes to travel. John had already ruled out Africa entirely but then we thought of South Africa and spoke to someone in Scotland who said it was fabulous. So Laurel had a list of about six places that might work; John had to attend a departmental lecture and Laurel worked the phones. She changed the flights, leaving at around the same time on Saturday and returning to Washington DC instead of Atlanta (surprise visit to the family; yay!). And then she ran to the bookstore to get a travel guide, meeting John after the lecture with it tucked under her arm. That is how he learned that they were going to South Africa the following day.
And, Finally…
Every good story has a moral. Here are a few from this one:
- Be persistent, even if you can’t cry at will; it took Laurel three separate calls to Delta to find someone who considered Johannesburg to be in the same ‘category’ as Mumbai.
- Be flexible: we were heartbroken at missing out on India but this was one of our best trips ever. We hadn’t planned any part of it and [therefore?] it was excellent.
- Be patient: we went to India six years later and it was wonderful (buses aside).
Lesson learned: Crying on demand is a good skill to have:)
Aah if only…