A Chilean Adventure

After nearly 10 hours in a car, I have my visa and I’m back at home for a little while. The visa was really the last big hurdle before leaving and I’m relieved that I have it now. Actually, the only dream that I’ve had about Chile was that Danielle and I were at the airport and we didn’t have our visas yet. No need to worry about that anymore.

We had to travel to downtown Chicago to obtain them from the Consulado General de Chile, which was inside the John Hancock building. The first appointment was at 9:00, so we left home at 4:00 a.m. It was a looooong day! We had to sign a couple of sheets and they put our thumbprint on them. It seemed kind of excessive, but we are lucky that Madison isn’t too far from Chicago. They only have consulate offices in regions of the country, so people from all over the midwest have to go to Chicago to get their visa. We were lucky that the drive was only about 3 hours.

The office was kind of exciting. There were some pictures of Chile up, a picture of the (female!) president of Chile, and some Chillean-American magazines that were in Spanish.

Once I got back from Chicago I packed up everything from my uncle’s apartment (it only took 1/2 hour!) and headed back to Gresham to spend a few days at home.

A week from today we’ll be back in Chicago to head to Chile!