This is the first day of a three-week trip for Travel Man. He is on a work assignment that requires travel to Brazil, and will return long after the Fourth of July. The preparation that went on before this trip was so stressful. He was not originally slated to be dispatched for this job. What this meant was that we had to scramble to get a visa for him to travel yesterday. In the normal course of things this would not normally be an issue, but Travel Man had to get this visa on a “rush” order. He had to take all of his paperwork to the passport/visa service office last Tuesday in order to get the visa by Wednesday of this week at the very latest. He was flying out on Thursday.
On Monday afternoon he calls the visa service office, and is told his passport and visa are scheduled in that afternoon, and he will have to drive to their office to pick it up on Tuesday. We call again on Tuesday morning and are told that the Brazilian consulate has gone on strike this morning. They proceeded to find out if Tom’s passport and visa had cleared through the system before they went on strike. After 3 most stressful hours and numerous phone calls by Travel Man we find out that his passport and visa had been released, and he will have it on Wednesday morning. Remember he is leaving on Thursday morning. The major panic subsides for both of us, and Tom tracks the package via FedEx.
Thankfully his passport and visa arrived early Wednesday morning, so we could breathe a sigh of relief. If it had not cleared on Tuesday before the consulate went on strike there’s no telling when he would have gotten his passport back. This was the most stressful pre-trip preparation that Travel Man has had in a long, long time.
For myself, I have not been this stressed out since Travel Man went to Russia last year. My stress level stays right up there until I hear from him that he has made is to his destination, and has cleared customs without incident. My Travel Man has been all over the world, and had some crazy experiences going from country to country. Maybe one day he’ll find time to blog about it or write a book. For the time being this Domestic Goddess is thankful that her hubby is safe and sound and on the ground.