That's it, I'm done. All packed up, goodbyes said, beard in its apex (pics later), and a valid visa in my passport. To be honest it feels really weird to just wait. No schoolwork, deadlines, no shifts left at the restaurant, nothing. I still can't believe I got everything done in time, because it seemed close to impossible a couple of weeks ago. Oh well, must be my all-around general awesomeness, which is incidentally my second greatest virtue after my utmost modesty. Although, I will indubitably write here a couple of weeks later to tell you about all the things I actually forgot.
But I'll deal with that then and concentrate now on the slight panic and the incredulousness that I'm actually leaving in about 12 hours. In case you've just joined us, or I haven't told you in the previous posts, I'm flying via London, where I have a crispy 12-hour layover, from whence I then continue to Nairobi on an over-night flight. Then Zanzibar, then safari in Masai Mara, then Kilimanjaro, then something else. But I'll tell you all about the aforementioned in due time, in shorter intervals than 2 weeks, if I only have access to the wonder of the interweb.
In the meantime, look for my people-watching report from Heathrow, possibly even tomorrow. Of course most people might claim that they might have better things to do on Christmas Eve, but they would obviously be lying. So, see you guys there then.. I'd ask you to wish me luck, but as I am more a skill-oriented person, I won't.
Peace, love and understanding to you all.
(maybe I still have some time to grab a few pints with the lads...)
((outstanding idea..))
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Do You Take Visa?
Yo!
Haven't heard that in a while, have you? I mean the "yo", not the title. Unless you're a part-time waiter like myself. Or a part-time lover, to use a rather strong euphemism that is also an oxymoron. No point here, just though about that for some reason.
ALTHOUGH, it is one of those words that can make your day. Words that you haven't heard in ages and have almost forgotten entirely. They may have once been used commonly or even been "cool", but have since then slowly slid to oblivion. Then, when you least expect it, someone called Joey says "hence", or utters "moist" in an especially saucy way and you crack up uncontrollably and simultaneously start thinking furiously when you heard that particular word last. You may even find yourself smiling on several occasions later that week when that word pops up in your frontal cortex for no apparent reason. I know the examples above may not spark the same response in all of you, but you still know what I mean, right? I find it amazing or even "rad" that a something so simple as a single word can make a day. Additionally, even rare use keeps a word alive, enriching the language and keeping it from turning it into a boring mode of communication, a clinical, crude creole, that carries a message but lacks flavor, or "sound" as one particularly laid back artist, that sports a mullet and pulls it off, would say. So call me pompous and pretentious, but I plan to plant the seeds of language wherever I go. After all, being a little lackadaisical and phantasmagoric about language occasionally is almost a requirement, when one trots the globe boasting to be a cunning linguist.
Granted, a bit too deep for a Thursday night, but try and stop me. I couldn't.
Meanwhile, the preparations for conquering my fourth continent are going as planned. Actually even better, because I forgot to plan a bunch of things and still managed to get them done before I got thoroughly screwed. One of these things was getting a visa for Kenya. Being a European who is used to jumping between countries with little or no documentation at all, getting a visa slipped my mind for several weeks, until I stumbled upon a document that had the instructions for applying a Kenyan visa. This turned out to be quite a process. First I had to e-mail the closest Kenyan embassy that happened to be in Sweden of all places, so that they'd send me an application. So I waited for that a couple of days. Then I had to take several black and white passport photos to be enclosed with the application, fill the application that was honestly photocopied in the 90's (it had a date) and put my passport in that same envelope. After having taken my time with the things above I mailed the package to Sweden and thought about a couple of things: 1) Not a whole hell of a lot of people want to travel to Kenya because they haven't had to update the system in over 20 years. 2) I had just practically sent my identity to Sweden, in regular, good old-fashioned mail. 3) It might not make it back in time with the visa
Number one was more a general wonder-ing-ment, but the two later issues troubled me just a wee bit. What kind of jackass sends his passport, all his personal information in the form of a filled, well..form, together with several current photographs and a bank receipt with the bank's name, the account number etc.? It would take a retarded monkey no more than 12 seconds to steal my identity with that little starter-kit, and the next thing I'd know I'd allegedly stay in several expensive hotels, have bought most of the stuff that is sold online and would be test-driving a Ferrari F430 without actually doing anything than banging my head into a wall for being the single dumbest dude to ever be allowed in a University.
What's more, the application instructions specifically said that they should be allowed 4-6 weeks to mail my passport and visa back to me, and I mailed it to them with about 3 weeks before the trip. So if I wouldn't get them back in time, I would have to report my passport as a missing identity document to the police that would follow the protocol and put it to the international list of "wanted" documents. I would have to pay an arm and a leg for an express passport AND I would have to try to get an entry visa from the Kenyatta airport in Nairobi. WOW!! That went really bad really fast. Well, as luck would have it, the ever so efficient Swedes processed the (probably only) application in record time and I now have an official permission to enter the bliss that is Kenya and in some drawer in Stockholm there is a picture of me, looking like Tom Hanks in "Castaway", only with shorter hair and bald spot.
Alas!, this was came out to be a "Much Ado About Nothing"- type of post, but why not. At least I got a Shakespeare reference in at the last minute.
Rock on.
Haven't heard that in a while, have you? I mean the "yo", not the title. Unless you're a part-time waiter like myself. Or a part-time lover, to use a rather strong euphemism that is also an oxymoron. No point here, just though about that for some reason.
ALTHOUGH, it is one of those words that can make your day. Words that you haven't heard in ages and have almost forgotten entirely. They may have once been used commonly or even been "cool", but have since then slowly slid to oblivion. Then, when you least expect it, someone called Joey says "hence", or utters "moist" in an especially saucy way and you crack up uncontrollably and simultaneously start thinking furiously when you heard that particular word last. You may even find yourself smiling on several occasions later that week when that word pops up in your frontal cortex for no apparent reason. I know the examples above may not spark the same response in all of you, but you still know what I mean, right? I find it amazing or even "rad" that a something so simple as a single word can make a day. Additionally, even rare use keeps a word alive, enriching the language and keeping it from turning it into a boring mode of communication, a clinical, crude creole, that carries a message but lacks flavor, or "sound" as one particularly laid back artist, that sports a mullet and pulls it off, would say. So call me pompous and pretentious, but I plan to plant the seeds of language wherever I go. After all, being a little lackadaisical and phantasmagoric about language occasionally is almost a requirement, when one trots the globe boasting to be a cunning linguist.
Granted, a bit too deep for a Thursday night, but try and stop me. I couldn't.
Meanwhile, the preparations for conquering my fourth continent are going as planned. Actually even better, because I forgot to plan a bunch of things and still managed to get them done before I got thoroughly screwed. One of these things was getting a visa for Kenya. Being a European who is used to jumping between countries with little or no documentation at all, getting a visa slipped my mind for several weeks, until I stumbled upon a document that had the instructions for applying a Kenyan visa. This turned out to be quite a process. First I had to e-mail the closest Kenyan embassy that happened to be in Sweden of all places, so that they'd send me an application. So I waited for that a couple of days. Then I had to take several black and white passport photos to be enclosed with the application, fill the application that was honestly photocopied in the 90's (it had a date) and put my passport in that same envelope. After having taken my time with the things above I mailed the package to Sweden and thought about a couple of things: 1) Not a whole hell of a lot of people want to travel to Kenya because they haven't had to update the system in over 20 years. 2) I had just practically sent my identity to Sweden, in regular, good old-fashioned mail. 3) It might not make it back in time with the visa
Number one was more a general wonder-ing-ment, but the two later issues troubled me just a wee bit. What kind of jackass sends his passport, all his personal information in the form of a filled, well..form, together with several current photographs and a bank receipt with the bank's name, the account number etc.? It would take a retarded monkey no more than 12 seconds to steal my identity with that little starter-kit, and the next thing I'd know I'd allegedly stay in several expensive hotels, have bought most of the stuff that is sold online and would be test-driving a Ferrari F430 without actually doing anything than banging my head into a wall for being the single dumbest dude to ever be allowed in a University.
What's more, the application instructions specifically said that they should be allowed 4-6 weeks to mail my passport and visa back to me, and I mailed it to them with about 3 weeks before the trip. So if I wouldn't get them back in time, I would have to report my passport as a missing identity document to the police that would follow the protocol and put it to the international list of "wanted" documents. I would have to pay an arm and a leg for an express passport AND I would have to try to get an entry visa from the Kenyatta airport in Nairobi. WOW!! That went really bad really fast. Well, as luck would have it, the ever so efficient Swedes processed the (probably only) application in record time and I now have an official permission to enter the bliss that is Kenya and in some drawer in Stockholm there is a picture of me, looking like Tom Hanks in "Castaway", only with shorter hair and bald spot.
Alas!, this was came out to be a "Much Ado About Nothing"- type of post, but why not. At least I got a Shakespeare reference in at the last minute.
Rock on.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
