exit visa | USA trip, 2011

On 1 September we’ll be making our next trip back to the states to see friends and family. We’ve been looking forward to it for quite a while. Breaking with tradition, I’ve had everything planned out pretty well ahead of time: airline tickets, en–route meetups, busses…

That is the mindset I was in this weekend, as I took a leisurely walk through the campus with a couple friends. No worries. Carefree.

Until I realized that I had forgotten to file for the renewal of Andi and my exit (and re–entry) visas.

“No problem,” I thought: “We have two weeks, and it’s never taken more than one to get them.”

Then I remembered that the second of these two weeks was Eid: non–essential government services would be shut down during the break, including visa paperwork.

I couldn’t sleep on Friday night: what if we didn’t manage to get our visas on time?

On Saturday morning (the beginning of my workweek) I was in the office by six–thirty, filling out the visa request forms. They require my manager’s signature; and though he wasn’t in the office this week, he had signed copies turned around to me via email in under an hour. The government affairs department assured me that I’d have our visas before Eid–likely Monday–which did some to allay my fears; but I wouldn’t be able to stop worrying about the potential impact of my carelessness until I had those strange pieces of paper stapled in the back of our passports.

Today, I feel so much better.