The American Embassy

First off, I know I'm a horrible person for not updating blog for a week. There are no excuses. My bad.

Anyways, on Friday I took a venture to the American embassy. The day before Thanksgiving I had received a call from someone at the embassy telling me that my passport had been completed in October, they had tried sending it to my house and the Royal Mail apparently couldn't figure out where I lived so they had sent it back to the embassy. They then gave me the option of picking it up or sending them another envelope to try and mail it again. Giving my proven inability to go to the post office when needed and the inability of the Royal Mail to find where I live, I said I would go pick it up.

Like all of these places, they have obscure opening hours. My choices were 8:30 am - 11:00 am Monday through Friday, or 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Anything to keep you from being able to go on your lunch hour, really. I decided I would try and get there at 8:30 so I could arrive at work with minimal delay. Last Friday I got up early and left early to head to the embassy, but still didn't get there until about 8:40. Oh, it's in Mayfair, just to the east of Hyde Park, while my work is to the west of Hyde Park. It's 4 stops on the Central Line, and I was able to take the Piccadilly Line to get there and then walk about 15 minutes.

So first of all they were doing some construction work outside the embassy. Requiring 3/4 of the building to be surrounded by construction fencing, so I had to walk quite a ways once I found the building to even find the entrance. Then I went through the first check where I put my cell phone and USB port in a clear plastic bag and declared my intentions. If I had been a Brit there to get a visa I would have had to show them my paperwork about my appointment. I then proceeded through to wait in the American Citizen Services line to get through the metal detector. There were separate lines for the visa folk. There was initially a large delay as I can assume some required strip searching, but then things started to speed up a little. The American services line got called up slightly more frequently than the visa line (there was only one metal detector).

After leaving previously mentioned cell phone and USB port in the security office, I had to walk all around the outside of the building again to get to the American services entrance, where I had to go wait in the passport line. This took a bit longer than it should (but still not as long as the metal detector line!), dragged out slightly by the mid-western woman behind me who decided she wanted to chat the entire time. Finally I was able to pick up my passport, regaining my status as a legitimate human being. It was a very exciting time!

By this time it was around 9:40. Having skipped breakfast, I was pleased to discover a Starbucks on the way back to the tube. I figured heck, I was late anyways, what's 2 more minutes? My muffin was delicious. I got to work at 10. Alas. Perhaps there's no such thing as a 'quick' trip to the US embassy. Oh, I forgot to mention the building! It's on Grosvenor Square, which is a cute little open area in like the nicest area of central London, surrounded by cute Georgian, brick townhouses. Except the embassy. Which looked like it was built in the 1960s, was off-white stucco with yellow gold trimmings, and the world's largest gold eagle with spread wings on the top. And of course a giant American flag, but that's standard embassy issue. It's perhaps hard to describe, but the construction around it didn't help the blending in process.

Anyways, I now have a fully legitimate 10-year passport. It even has a microchip!