Well, the application is out of my hands now. It's been ready to submit - with the exception of my official acceptance letter from the university - for over a month and a half, so it was supremely satisfying to finally be able to drop off the the application and its accompanying stack of documents and paperwork. Everything went smoothly at the embassy on Friday, so now it's just a matter of waiting to find out if my application is accepted. Which, apparently, can take up to three weeks. Three weeks! And that's for "expedited processing," which is - of course - available for an extra cost . "Normal" processing times can take up to six weeks.
Ouch.
On the bright side, at half the time for over twice the price, I should be thankful that it does take three weeks. Any swifter than that and it'd be out of my price range.
I should still be back in Riga for the start of classes, if all goes well from here on out. And in the grand scheme of things, spending an extra couple of weeks here in England is hardly the worst thing in the world. Very few things are, in fact, the worst thing in the world, and this is not even close to being included in that conversation. I'm incredibly blessed to have such a gracious and loving network of friends here, willing to include me in their lives - not to mention housing me! - in the midst of all the uncertainty and indefinite timelines which have defined this past month. And in one sense, it's nice to finally have a timeline to work with, even if it's not one that I'd have drawn up. At least things are now moving, and in the right direction as well. Now I feel like I can take a deep breath, relax, and focus on using the rest fo my time in the UK as best as I can.
I've never been in an embassy before. They're an odd sort of place, really. I'm not an embassy expert, so I won't make any statements here on whether an embassy is technically foreign soil or not¹. But whether the Latvian embassy in London² is on "Latvian soil" or on "English soil" or, perhaps, on some other form of soil as yet undefined, it definitely felt Latvian to me. On one side of the door to the embassy, you are in England. There is little doubt as to that fact. You hear people speaking English, the architecture of all the buildings on the street is quintessentially British, the shop around the corner was selling fish and chips, and a slight detour from Paddington train station en route to the embassy will take you past the Sherlock Holmes museum on 221b Baker Street. There is a black cab across the street, either dropping off or picking up a fare. Everything is about as patently English as it can get.
But as soon as you cross the threshold, it's as if you've skipped the cheap and crowded Ryanair flights from Stansted to Riga and stepped through some time and space portal directly into the heart of Latvia. There's magazines on the table, all in Latvian. All of the signs, notices, and postings in the waiting room are in Latvian. You hear Latvian being spoken in the background. There's not an orderly British queue, but instead random groupings of people waiting about, presumably for the next receptionist to become available. You wait for a bit, trying to sort out who's "in line" and who's just waiting, see an opening at a window, and grab a seat before anyone jumps in front of you. The receptionist is slightly bemused that you, an American, are (a) in the Latvian embassy in London, (b) unable to return to Latvia not because of legal trouble or unsavory activities, but because you've spent too much time there this year³, and (c) are trying to return to Latvia as soon as is feasibly possible. When you depart, you say "Liels paldies, visu labu!" and are excited to get a chance to use one of the handful of Latvian phrases you actually know.
And then you step back out into England.
Kind of surreal.
There's probably some deeper lesson in there somewhere, but I can't quite sound it out at this point. But it was nice to spend a little bit of time in wee Latvia, even if it was just long enough to submit my application and make sure that everything was filled out correctly. Looking forward to being back to big Latvia soon.
Today is a bank holiday in England. Bank holidays are hard to describe; there's no reason for them, other than to enjoy a day off (for most people). There's no holiday or event being celebrated most of the time, and people are usually mildly pessimistic about them since it "always rains on a bank holiday." Since it probably rains on a high percentage of days in England to begin with, that's not as depressing a view of the weather forecast as it might seem, but it is very British as well to complain about the bad weather on bank holidays even before said holiday has arrived.
As for me, I'm just enjoying the sunshine.
¹Views seem to be divided, depending on how you define the question and the words within it, as is the case with almost any question ever asked.
²Technically referred to as the "EMBASSY OF THE REPUBLIC OF LATVIA TO THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND," which begins to look vaguely like the name of an Icelandic volcano if you try and acronymize it: EOTROLTTUKOGBANI
³A particularly novel concept when you realize that the Latvian population has declined by 13% in the last decade. In numbers that translate, this would be akin to the U.S. population declining by 40+ million over the next ten years, with about two-thirds of that due to emigration, and possibly the same amount over again having also emigrated but not having been officially counted as doing so. Since Latvia is a small country, the numbers are measured in thousands, not millions, but the effect - both economic and emotional - has been staggering.
Ouch.
On the bright side, at half the time for over twice the price, I should be thankful that it does take three weeks. Any swifter than that and it'd be out of my price range.
I should still be back in Riga for the start of classes, if all goes well from here on out. And in the grand scheme of things, spending an extra couple of weeks here in England is hardly the worst thing in the world. Very few things are, in fact, the worst thing in the world, and this is not even close to being included in that conversation. I'm incredibly blessed to have such a gracious and loving network of friends here, willing to include me in their lives - not to mention housing me! - in the midst of all the uncertainty and indefinite timelines which have defined this past month. And in one sense, it's nice to finally have a timeline to work with, even if it's not one that I'd have drawn up. At least things are now moving, and in the right direction as well. Now I feel like I can take a deep breath, relax, and focus on using the rest fo my time in the UK as best as I can.
I've never been in an embassy before. They're an odd sort of place, really. I'm not an embassy expert, so I won't make any statements here on whether an embassy is technically foreign soil or not¹. But whether the Latvian embassy in London² is on "Latvian soil" or on "English soil" or, perhaps, on some other form of soil as yet undefined, it definitely felt Latvian to me. On one side of the door to the embassy, you are in England. There is little doubt as to that fact. You hear people speaking English, the architecture of all the buildings on the street is quintessentially British, the shop around the corner was selling fish and chips, and a slight detour from Paddington train station en route to the embassy will take you past the Sherlock Holmes museum on 221b Baker Street. There is a black cab across the street, either dropping off or picking up a fare. Everything is about as patently English as it can get.
But as soon as you cross the threshold, it's as if you've skipped the cheap and crowded Ryanair flights from Stansted to Riga and stepped through some time and space portal directly into the heart of Latvia. There's magazines on the table, all in Latvian. All of the signs, notices, and postings in the waiting room are in Latvian. You hear Latvian being spoken in the background. There's not an orderly British queue, but instead random groupings of people waiting about, presumably for the next receptionist to become available. You wait for a bit, trying to sort out who's "in line" and who's just waiting, see an opening at a window, and grab a seat before anyone jumps in front of you. The receptionist is slightly bemused that you, an American, are (a) in the Latvian embassy in London, (b) unable to return to Latvia not because of legal trouble or unsavory activities, but because you've spent too much time there this year³, and (c) are trying to return to Latvia as soon as is feasibly possible. When you depart, you say "Liels paldies, visu labu!" and are excited to get a chance to use one of the handful of Latvian phrases you actually know.
And then you step back out into England.
Kind of surreal.
There's probably some deeper lesson in there somewhere, but I can't quite sound it out at this point. But it was nice to spend a little bit of time in wee Latvia, even if it was just long enough to submit my application and make sure that everything was filled out correctly. Looking forward to being back to big Latvia soon.
Today is a bank holiday in England. Bank holidays are hard to describe; there's no reason for them, other than to enjoy a day off (for most people). There's no holiday or event being celebrated most of the time, and people are usually mildly pessimistic about them since it "always rains on a bank holiday." Since it probably rains on a high percentage of days in England to begin with, that's not as depressing a view of the weather forecast as it might seem, but it is very British as well to complain about the bad weather on bank holidays even before said holiday has arrived.
As for me, I'm just enjoying the sunshine.
¹Views seem to be divided, depending on how you define the question and the words within it, as is the case with almost any question ever asked.
²Technically referred to as the "EMBASSY OF THE REPUBLIC OF LATVIA TO THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND," which begins to look vaguely like the name of an Icelandic volcano if you try and acronymize it: EOTROLTTUKOGBANI
³A particularly novel concept when you realize that the Latvian population has declined by 13% in the last decade. In numbers that translate, this would be akin to the U.S. population declining by 40+ million over the next ten years, with about two-thirds of that due to emigration, and possibly the same amount over again having also emigrated but not having been officially counted as doing so. Since Latvia is a small country, the numbers are measured in thousands, not millions, but the effect - both economic and emotional - has been staggering.