Thursday, September 13, 2007

I'm Legal!





So the whole point of me being in the United States is my visit to the British Consulate to get my visa incorporated into my passport, which meant a trip to Chicago. Since A is back in school, the trip was going to be a solo trip until my friend K agreed to join me. I was doubly excited about this because I couldn’t bare being alone and it also gave us an opportunity to catch up. K and I have traveled to Chicago a number of times, but always with a very specific goal and a very specific timeline. Go to a concert and drive home. She has never had the opportunity to see the downtown area. To my great surprise, the British Consulate is in what is known as the Wrigley Building right on Michigan Avenue (the building with the clock on it). My appointment was at 10:30am on Wednesday which lasted about an hour and then I was told that I had to leave my passport there and come back after 2:30 to pick it up, with the new visa attached. The whole appointment process was very stressful because there were lots of rules that needed to be followed just to get up to the Consulate’s floor. We all understand though why precautions need to be made, but it made me question why I was going through all of this!

Well, here K and I were with three solid hours on our hands, so we did what we both had really been wanting to do, the architectural boat tour, which just so happened to start right outside of the Wrigley Building. As you can see from the pictures, it doesn’t get much better than this in Chicago. It was a real pleasure to be able to talk with K about a city I love. Standing on the bridge on Michigan Avenue, I was struck by how big and far apart the streets looked. I had a new perspective on this American city after spending so much time in England.

My friend Mel let us sleep at her place on Tuesday night, and it was a real treat to visit with her. We laughed a lot. We tried our best to get her to play hooky and go into the city, but she is just too darn responsible for that.

1 comment:

Beth said...

I know what you mean about Chicago. It is my absolute favorite city. Too bad its so far north! Ha ha. I've always wanted to go inside the Wrigley building. I remember laughing at my brother on our first Chicago trip when he expected it to be made out of gum.