A long story, but basically Scott couldn't apply for a visa until he received his official acceptance from TEDS, and they gave him official numbers and documents that were necessary. As soon as they arrived, Scott went onto the internet to set up a visa interview appoinment. Our tickets were booked to leave on the 10th December, and this was about 23 rd November, late at night. The earliest interview time was on 14th December - after we were due to leave. We decided to go to bed, and Scott could call the next morning. 7 hours later, he logged on again and the earliest interview was now on November 18th, so we decided to take it.
The next problem was that they couldn't tell us how long it would take to arrive in the mail after the interview. Calling the info line resulted in a variety of answers, from 2 days to 40 days. When to change our flights to? Being Christmas also meant we would miss lots of postal days. Do the people in the embassy work between Christmas and New Year? We decided to book our flights to Chicago on the 7th January, which provided about 8 postal days. We also booked flights to Tassie to spend Christmas and New Year with Scott's parents.
Well, we moved out of our house, spent some time at Lysbeth's and the farm, and then moved into a serviced apartment in Doncaster so Dante could continue to go to school. We went for our interview on the 18th, which was a very interesting exercise - another story. The interview seemed to go smoothly, but had we filled in all the forms properly? Time to wait. Suprise! The visas arrived in the mail on Friday 21st December. If only we had known! But, gald to have the visas, and we trust in God's good timing in all things.
