Tweeds and Wellies
UPDATE: Flight to Sweden postponed til Tuesday. Hopefully everything will be done by then! Think I might head to the National Gallery today, and then probe the embassy some more in the arvo.
Further update: Just heard from one of my contacts at Umea uni. She's going to call the immigration board there and see if they can hurry things up a bit. Apparently they had a big weekend planned for me, which I'm going to miss! :-(
Even Further update: You have to laugh, really. The secretary of my department in Sweden just called the migration board. The woman who is handling my application is on holiday at the moment. The guy who has taken on her work while she's away is also away today, for some reason.
As an aussie, I can enter Sweden for up to 3 months as a tourist, but then when my work/residence permits are approved, I will have to come back to London to collect them!
To keep a happy face on things, here's some tasteful humour from The Onion:
America's Obese: A Food Source For America's Even More Obese?
Actually, on the upside, I found out that I'm already being payed, just to hang around in London. That is, once my work permits are approved, I'll be back-payed to 1st of October. Which means I was actually being payed to be at Dickman's wedding!
Dinner and pub with Katie T, Jo H, and her boyo James last night. Chinese, twas v. nice, and not too pricey if you forget to convert from pounds to dollars.
Also, general street-walking looking for Englishy things.
Kt makes a very English phone call:
(note the friendly welcoming eyebrows)
I do some very English mailing:
(In case you can't read the sign, it says "FIRST CLASS AND ABROAD". How did they know I'd be standing there when they put in the post box???)
Jo and Katie gesture wildly at me and a very Swedish sign, expertly framed by James.
After seeing KT to her bus stop, J,J and I (JJ) walked back to our tube station via some english night sites, e.g. Buckingham Palace, Flag's up so Liz is home:
We were going to invite ourselves in for dessert, and query Liz as to why I, who still look up to her as a head of state, am forced into the "other" line in customs, whereas anyone from the EU gets special treatment. We ultimately chose not to drop in, although the logic why escapes me at the moment.
Shortly after that photo was taken, we saw something hilarious. Still has me chuckling. I fear, however, that it may be the kind of thing that is comic gold if you were there, but not so funny if you just read about it. So, dear readers, you'll have to concentrate your imagination and picture it as though you were there. Those of you without any imagination just trust me, it was gold - truly champagne comedy.
As I said, just around the corner from Liz's house, walking up past Charles' house and where Liz's mum used to live, we saw two small-but-expertly-groomed dogs tearing around the corner like greyhounds, yapping and yapping, dragging unhanded leads behind them, and zooming up the street. Jo and I thought they were corgies, james thought terriers. 2 out of 3 wins. Moments after this, a posh old man in full-body tweeds and knee-high wellies came around the corner doing that walk people do when they want to get somewhere quickly, but don't want to look like they're hurrying, sorta like the walking at the olympics but with less obvious elbow thrusting. I said to him "They went thataway!" indicating roughly the corgies' trajectories, and he said "Oh, I know, I know" in the poshest voice I've heard since I last watched To The Manor Born, and that's longer than you may think. Tweed-man was clearly humiliated beyond belief, and to have such cheek from an antipodean must have made his blood boil.
Oh how we laughed!
Further update: Just heard from one of my contacts at Umea uni. She's going to call the immigration board there and see if they can hurry things up a bit. Apparently they had a big weekend planned for me, which I'm going to miss! :-(
Even Further update: You have to laugh, really. The secretary of my department in Sweden just called the migration board. The woman who is handling my application is on holiday at the moment. The guy who has taken on her work while she's away is also away today, for some reason.
As an aussie, I can enter Sweden for up to 3 months as a tourist, but then when my work/residence permits are approved, I will have to come back to London to collect them!
To keep a happy face on things, here's some tasteful humour from The Onion:
America's Obese: A Food Source For America's Even More Obese?
Actually, on the upside, I found out that I'm already being payed, just to hang around in London. That is, once my work permits are approved, I'll be back-payed to 1st of October. Which means I was actually being payed to be at Dickman's wedding!
Dinner and pub with Katie T, Jo H, and her boyo James last night. Chinese, twas v. nice, and not too pricey if you forget to convert from pounds to dollars.
Also, general street-walking looking for Englishy things.
Kt makes a very English phone call:
(note the friendly welcoming eyebrows)
I do some very English mailing:
(In case you can't read the sign, it says "FIRST CLASS AND ABROAD". How did they know I'd be standing there when they put in the post box???)
Jo and Katie gesture wildly at me and a very Swedish sign, expertly framed by James.
After seeing KT to her bus stop, J,J and I (JJ) walked back to our tube station via some english night sites, e.g. Buckingham Palace, Flag's up so Liz is home:
We were going to invite ourselves in for dessert, and query Liz as to why I, who still look up to her as a head of state, am forced into the "other" line in customs, whereas anyone from the EU gets special treatment. We ultimately chose not to drop in, although the logic why escapes me at the moment.
Shortly after that photo was taken, we saw something hilarious. Still has me chuckling. I fear, however, that it may be the kind of thing that is comic gold if you were there, but not so funny if you just read about it. So, dear readers, you'll have to concentrate your imagination and picture it as though you were there. Those of you without any imagination just trust me, it was gold - truly champagne comedy.
As I said, just around the corner from Liz's house, walking up past Charles' house and where Liz's mum used to live, we saw two small-but-expertly-groomed dogs tearing around the corner like greyhounds, yapping and yapping, dragging unhanded leads behind them, and zooming up the street. Jo and I thought they were corgies, james thought terriers. 2 out of 3 wins. Moments after this, a posh old man in full-body tweeds and knee-high wellies came around the corner doing that walk people do when they want to get somewhere quickly, but don't want to look like they're hurrying, sorta like the walking at the olympics but with less obvious elbow thrusting. I said to him "They went thataway!" indicating roughly the corgies' trajectories, and he said "Oh, I know, I know" in the poshest voice I've heard since I last watched To The Manor Born, and that's longer than you may think. Tweed-man was clearly humiliated beyond belief, and to have such cheek from an antipodean must have made his blood boil.
Oh how we laughed!
posted by I-Rock at 8:25 AM
3 Comments:
he he - was a fun time, your friends are loverly.
good to see you, hope your dramas are sorted STAT.
Kxx.
presently I'm listening over the phone to boogytastic funk puncuated by "thank you for holding, your call is important to us, and will be answered as soon as a consultant becomes available" every 10 seconds, on the upbeat. Could be worse!
If anyone wants to have a bit of a dance at work, I highly recommend the UK Qantas hold music.
I've got preliminary plans to storm the ramparts with an army of trained squirrels. A bit more human (or even super-human) muscle would be very much appreciated.
So load up with guns and come on over!
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