Visa Debacle

Pre Rally Headaches:

From about a week building up to the kick off at Goodwood things stepped up a notch as we realised how much we had left to do and how little time we had to do it.

The biggest issue was we had screwed up on our Visa application's and not left ourselves enought time to get our Russian Visas. Our plan all along had been to kick off the process and then on the way to Goodwood for the start have our fingerprints taken and collect our Visas the same day, which as it turns out is akin to asking a snake to do an Irish jig. No dice Moovers, you've fudged it up good and proper.

What followed was an expensive and hectic 24 hour blur. We finished working on the car at 7pm Thursday evening and headed to Preston station (big shout out to respective parents for the lifts) where Matt watched his car and wallet dissappear into the sunset with his phoneless father at the wheel. Fiddlesticks. After a brief discussion, it was agreed (bedgrudingly) that Tom would bankroll the whole trip and pay for Matts Visa. It's a good job he's just sold a Porsche and is now absolutely minted (drinks on him folks).

Unfortunately this brief discussion was not brief enough to avoid missing the last direct train and resulted in the much slower train via Wolves. Strike three Moovers.

The penance for this third strike was a stay at the rather optimistically titled Hotel Lily in London. Our first foray into the hotel lobby first looked promising, lots of poilshed marble and glass. Things rather ironically went downhill in the lift which appeared to be designed based around the proportions of an average 3 year old and smelt like well weathered Yak testicles.

Exiting the tiny lift delivered a strong whaft of a certain plant which was most definitely not lilies. Bob Marley would have likely felt at home. Arriving at the room we discovered that the pictures on the website were definitely not of this room in particular (they showed luxuries like mould free walls and clean windows) and hit the hay.

The following morning after a brief breakfast (brief because it was small, though the rubbery egg displayed inspiring resistance to being chewed) we headed over to the Uzbek embassy to collect our passports and arrived in plenty of time.

This appeared to be the first sign of a change in our luck as very quickly a large queue formed behind us before the doors to the embassy even opened. When they did eventually open we were summoned in to the office where Tom collected his passport as promised. Matt then tried to do the same but was told (despite being promised on the Wednesday previous it would be ready) it had still not been processed. A foot stomp short of a tantrum and a refusal to move later resulted in an invitation into the office for a brief interview which lead to the issuing of the Visa within 10 minutes. Lesson learned kids - act like a pouty toddler and don't move and you'll get somewhere.

That done, we headed over to the Real Russia office in Islington and kicked things off there with only one more minor hiccup - no registration document for the car which is apparently required for an auto tourism Visa. Some sweating, swearing and a phone call later yielded a scan of said document from Matts dad - cheers Mark!

With our business in London concluded, we headed back up north for another couple of hours of prep work before the last night's sleep in our own beds for a while.