Una Dia en Mi Vida (in espanglish)

Hoy! Today, what a day. Tons of unexpected problems, and plenty of amazing people to help me out with them. Vaguely, the agenda of my trip to the Windy City: acquire passport photos for my visa; finish the visa application, perfect and copy; get some sleep; get to N. Michigan avenue and turn everything in at ten thirty en la manjana; get on a bus back home at noon or five. No problem right?

I arrived in Chicago last night by megabus - the purpose of the trip, a visit to the Spanish Consulate to apply for my student visa - after the ride, I spent a little too long wandering around in the cold looking for an open Walgreens for my liking, but I lived. Earlier I'd tried at my local Walgreens but their photo-making-machine was broken and I was forced to delay my passport photos accordingly, I figured, hell, it's downtown Chicago, there's a Wallgreens on every corner, this shouldn't be a problem. Much to my surprise, at seven forty en la noche, when I arrived most were closed and the closest open one was closing at eight. So I walked, in the wrong direction for a bit, then got in touch with one in Greek Town, and turned around accordingly. Forty minutes of walking and bam, photos in my hands in less than five minutes, things are looking up (or so I thought!).

After wandering past some pretty fancy hotels, I found a Holiday Inn and warmed up with a nicely made Chicago pizza. I cozied up in my room while the Pats whooped the Jets, texting back and forth with friends about football and politics. After, I finished my Visa application. I got some pretty dark complimentary copies of my important documents from the Holiday Inn, and then headed off to dreamland after an extra-long and exceptionally warm shower (this is by my standards, so it was probably still not as hot or lengthy as the one you're imagining - but it's the archetype, the experience that counts - not the exact details).

I woke up at 1:30, 3:47, 4:45, 6:34 and 7:35 (two minutes before my second alarm - I apparently slept through the first at 7:00). Each wake-up was preceded by a dream where I was irreparably late for my appointment at the consulate. So, I just got up, packed up, and then called my Mom for some advice in booking my flight. At this point in the morning, my biggest concern was whether or not I had to have the flight booked to apply for the visa. After the call, I checked my email on a whim, something had gone wrong, the first of what would be many troubles raised its ugly head. My loan didn't come through as planned and my tuition check bounced. A few phone-calls to the bank and some extra legwork (thanks again to my Ma and Jessica at my bank) and it was worked out, but I wouldn't find out until after the solution to problem three presented itself.

I had planned to take a train and walk to the consulate, but there was a cab outside the hotel as I was leaving, thinking perhaps this is providential, I took it. The cab driver tried to tell me that the consulate wasn't on Michigan, but on Ashland, that it had recently moved. I said, Sir, I respectfully request that you take me to Michigan - and if it's not there, then you can take me to Ashland. I let my smart phone do some finding, and sure enough, the Mexican consulate had recently moved from Michigan to Ashland, I explained that we were both right, and we had a nice chuckle about the mixup - Spain, Mexico, I mean, what's the difference (plenty more than just the distance from Michigan Ave to Ashland). Dodged a bullet there.

I arrived at the Spanish consulate about an hour early for my appointment, but was glad that I saw the sign inside that said I needed copies of ALL my documents (not just the Visa application itself). OMG, this is my fear, am I dodging another bullet? I hope so, I'm doing everything I can to be prepared. With a little help from the doorman (my first excellent person of the day), I was off to Kinko's, where I also acquired an envelope that was a little too small, but with a little help from my second excellent person of the day, I also got a free, slightly damaged envelope that was much larger (but not too oversized as to be useless). I stopped for a Mocha across the street from the consulate and tried to kill about half an hour.

About ten minutes earlier than my appointment I headed to the consulate and I was immediately seen, an outright contradiction to the consulate's website. The website makes it sound like a cold, hard, unfeeling bureaucracy, but I met excellent people three and four here. I also came into my second problem of the morning. See, my dog chewed up my passport when I moved at the end of this past summer, not much, just a little, but it was enough to qualify my passport for "mutilated" status and by law this brings "null-and-void" status (it says so right in the passport, though of course I'd never read that before it was pointed it out to me). My passport is rendered useless, except to get another passport and the people at the consulate are optimistic, I might even be able to get it today, they say. In my little country world, a passport takes weeks (even when expedited) - fortunately this is not so in the Windy City where the State department keeps an office. Excellent persons three and four let me know I should go and do this now, and I might even be able to get back by two (when they close).

So, I book it down to the State Department offices. My "Last Supper" belt buckle gets a few good laughs out of the security guards, "I would definitely wear this," one of them says, to which I reply, Does this mean I'm going away? We all had a nice laugh - I wish airports had this kind of sense of humor, but it might be better that they don't. I get upstairs, I wait in line for the better part of an hour - the whole time, hoping and praying that I get a kind hearted person on a good day, like a mantra, kind hearted person on a good day, kind hearted person on a good day... I have no appointment, I have no travel itinerary - this is a problem, this is problem three. After a little cajoling and a lot of puppy dog eyes, excellent person number five decides that my letter of acceptance IS enough to qualify for the intention to travel, and that I can get an emergency passport replacement. But I don't have passport photos, or the proper paperwork filled out and I still might not be able to get it today. Minor problems, we'll combine them as problem four. She gives me the proper paperwork, and sends me on my way, "Just come right up to my window when you're done."

I get two sets of slightly overpriced but very quick passport photos from a specialty business across the street, fly through the application, including frantic phone calls to both of my parents (I needed both of their locations of birth for the passport application), and I'm back at the State department. At this point, I have no idea if I'll be able to get my emergency passport today, tomorrow or next week in the mail. Excellent person number five shuffles me down to excellent person number six, who checks me out and tells me to come back and pick it up at three - after we make some jokes about Dogs/cuteness, the cost of chewing up passports, and that even though I didn't list it on my list of countries I intend to visit, that I should check out Morocco. I nervously agreed, hoping it wasn't a trick question, So I've heard, I said. After raising my right hand and signing a hurtfully large receipt, I was back on my way to the consulate - which of course, closes at two. It was one.

I opt for a cab, because it is cold and I'm sick of walking and sweating, there is no middle ground for me in the winter, I am too hot or I am cold, period. We get back to Michigan avenue and my card is declining. SRSLY? I'm calling the bank to find out what's going on while the cabbie is telling me that I'm declined again, and again, I try to explain, I tell him to keep the meter running - I know I've got money, maybe it's because I'm in Chicago (out of my town) and I've spent a few hundred dollars in the past twenty four hours. He "lets" me out after about five minutes, says forget about it. He's been speaking in Afrikaans or Arabic on a bluetooth since I got in, so I give him some nice blessings in Arabic, maybe it assuaged the burn I accidentally gave him. Turns out, when I finally get ahold of someone at the bank, it must have been his machine because there was no record of the transactions on their end. I decide I've got to get some cash, silly me - when I changed pants before I left the night before I didn't transfer my twenty two dollars in small bills.

Upon my return to the consulate, excellent persons three and four remain amenable, helpful and nice. They help me get my papers in order, and tell me to just bring the passport and slip it in the mail slot after I pick it up from the State department at three pm. I make a quick trip to the post office to get a return envelope for the passport that I don't even have, and voila, all that's left is to make it back to the state department and then back to the consulate. Turns out, that smaller envelope that I bought at Kinko's is going to be needed after all. And all the while, I've got Gogol Bordello running through my head. I stop at an ATM and pay a crazy stupid fee to pull out some cash for later emergencies. At this point, I'm beginning to suspect that this is in fact, "just one of those days."

I hate eating corporate in a place like Chicago, I mean, there's so many options. Still, I opt for a chain because I need some normalcy and I'm craving a mozzarella and basil sandwich. I killed about an hour for lunch with a wi-fi connection, doing some correspondence, writing a little, helping a friend with his sociology woes and finally booking my return bus for 4:55 pm. My smart phone tells me that It'll take me seventeen minutes to walk to the State department building. At 2:17 I start the walk, after a couple of short detours, it's twenty to three and I'm checking through security for the third time. I get up stairs, I show them that my phone is off (NO phones allowed in the State department) again, they send me to the room to wait.

In the room, I see many of the same people I saw earlier, just grumpier, more excitable and looking pretty worn out. I wait my turn at the window. My passport isn't finished, it is in process, just wait, thirty/forty minutes - max, he says. My heart sinks, I see my bus-ride slipping away and I start to feel stupid for not buying the refundable ticket. I cheer myself up, plenty of time I think to myself, I'll still be at the terminal by four thirty, NBD. Besides, without access to my phone I probably couldn't cancel the ticket anyway.

At four, the gentleman calls my name, my heart leaps for joy but when I get to the window he's not holding one of the blue passport envelopes that he's been handing out. They misspelled your name, he tells me, they're remaking it, just a few minutes longer. He then, disappears for an indeterminate amount of time and people start packing up behind the windows. There is no clock in the passport room, and you're not allowed to turn your phone on - too bad my phone is my watch. After what feels like an eternity, the huffy woman at the next window over calls my name. She seems pretty flummoxed by this turn of overtime events for her - I'm not even the last one in the room. I sign for the passport, I grab my mighty selection of winter wear that I've been alternating between wearing and carrying all day, and head for the door.

By the time I get my phone turned on it says four thirty four. I have twenty minutes to make it ten blocks, take a fifteen story elevator ride up and then back down, and then make it twenty five blocks to the bus-station. Cripes. Whatever hope I have is looking like fumes on a gas gage. Taxi time! 180 N. Michigan please. Elevator ride up. Brand-new passport into the undersized envelope from earlier, slipped into the mail slot so that it falls with my name and purpose face up - success. Call the elevator, it takes forever (or about ten seconds), it stops on the way down and floods with ladies, positive, jubilant ladies. We make a couple of quick jokes - I told them they might not want to get on the elevator with me, they told me they'd been stuck in THIS exact elevator just hours earlier. I'm thrilled when we touch down. I yog past them through the revolving door, apologizing, but they seemed to understand that I was hurried. It is 4:47, my bus is twenty five blocks away and leaves in eight minutes.

The first cab passes me by, the second cab passes me by - one full, one empty. The third cab brings me excellent person number seven and is the nicest cab I've been in all day, a Mercury Sable? who knew. I've got twenty dollars if you can get me to the greyhound station by 4:50, or just before 4:55. It's 4:48 and in as thick an Eastern-European accent as I've ever heard from an immigrant, he says, "Woy - maybe in eight minute. You got your ticket?" Nope, it's will-call, gotta pick it up. He "Woys" again. We get cut off by the same car three times, we get stuck behind two out of service busses, we hit the first four possible red lights, but then traffic broke and lights were green for a mile. We laughed the entire time, I told him my story - or at least an abridged version - and by no small miracle, in Chicago rush-hour traffic, he got me to the terminal at 4:54. He got the twenty.

I ran in. I mixed up the young woman at the counter's prompt for "Your credit card or confirmation number," and I started reading her my credit card... What number are you giving me? My credit card - No, I need your card OR your confirmation number. Woy. I give her the card, flash my ID, sign my ticket and I'm off again. Sir, Sir, she calls after me, I look back, It's that side. I was running to the wrong exit. I shift direction like a young Fred Taylor, and somehow maintain my momentum, only to have my exuberance noted by a guard - Woah there he says to me. 4:55 to Madison? I say. I can see the bus. Oh, he says. Ok, you almost missed it. He signs me off, walks me out (I swear I'm still yogging at this point, like I never stopped) and says to the driver, "We got a runner." And we're all laughing again. This is how my entire day has gone, I clue them both in. I can't believe how hard I had to work to make this happen, but it's even harder to believe that it all actually worked out.

Going into this, all I could think about was how perfect my paperwork needed to be and how scared I was about being turned away for not having everything correct. It turns out, perfect as it was, my paperwork was barely glanced at and most of what I've had to do involved legwork, sweat and the kindness of others. I never imagined that my day would end with a race to the bus depot, a brand-new passport with my information sitting in an envelope on the floor of the Spanish consulate waiting to be discovered en la manjana, and me blogging about my day in Chicago on the Wi-Fi connection of a Greyhound bus - but it is out of my hands now and it's over. Dio mediante, إن شاءالله , there's nothing more for me to do but book my flight... (And the adventure begins again? Woy, I hope not.)