London Day Tour

During the international students' freshers fair during orientation week at school, I signed up for a discounted London day tour for my first Saturday in the UK. Only 20 pounds got me a round trip train ticket to London and a guided tour that lasted like nine hours and included a river tour on the Thames. There was also the option of going to Madame Tussaud's wax museum, but I've been to the one in Hollywood, and meh. Not worth the 30 extra pounds (can you believe it? Even I'm questioning my memory on that figure) they wanted for it.

We saw a helluva lot of shit. Like this:

I think that's Westminster Abbey, but I don't know why blogger put it all the way at the top like this. You're just going to have to go with me on this. I'm not going to have time anymore to fix the kinks, although now I'm at the end and I've cut and pasted my other picture of the Abbey above, too. I just spent two days straight of reading about componential analysis, and I still have 30 long pages to read by tomorrow.

This is actually the first thing we saw, the Queen's Gallery. Apparently it was opened to the public to help pay for damages in a fire???? and then was kept open because the government is always willing to continue to take money from the people. We didn't have time to go in, so now I have no idea what kind of art the queen likes. DAMMit'AH.

Next was Buckingham Palace. Neither was the queen at home nor did the guards see fit to change that day, so I was deeply insulted.

The palace looks kind of more like a mansion by today's standards, except for all the gold (which of course is not solid), but I'm sure it's cool to live in.

The lion and the unicorn are seen around a lot as royal symbols. The guide gave specific traits associated with each, but except for the generally accepted traits of the lion, I can't recall specifics. A cursory glance at the internets only tells me that the lion is England and the unicorn is Scotland.

In front is the Victoria Memorial. Look at the pretty angel:

We couldn't go on the other side of the statue, because in the street behind it they were filming "Johnny English 2." Great, thanks.

Here are some shots as we are walking into Green Park, so named because there are no flowers (according to the guide, this was the fault of the jealous wife of King Charles II, who found he'd given flowers from the park to another woman and had them all uprooted).

These flowers are part of the palace grounds, not of Green Park, so I guess they're okay.

Here we start to get around to the other side of the memorial.

Next we saw down the street some of the houses of the royal family, and guards.

Then we went to another park, where the animals were very friendly. I fed some banana to one of the geese, and someone videotaped it, but I think it went onto the tape, not the memory card, so you can't see. Suckaaas.

Some people were in what they call "fancy dress" here, as guards and a queen. I don't know why.

We had a bit of free time in this park. I saw this building. I took its picture. That's all I know.

So the Duke of York thought he was hot shit, and commissioned a statue of himself, which the people did not think was cool, so they vandalized it a lot. Hence, really high pedestal.

Trafalgar Square?

This statue is high for a different reason, which has to do with status and reverence.

Here we are on a street with a lot of important documents. The guide said, it's okay, take a picture with the horses; they're nice. This horse took a chomp right on my arm.

Me and a guard:

Houses of Parliament

Big Ben is not the clock, but the bell inside the clock. BOO-ya. 

We had like three hours of free time before we went on the river cruise. I was reading The Little White Bird by James Barrie a while ago, so I decided to visit Kensington Gardens to see Peter Pan.

I saw this little house when I first got inside. It's cute.

Here are the fountains at the main entrance:

I ate second lunch that was leftover from first lunch while I hung around the Peter Pan statue and watched other people take pictures with him and also watched all the birds bird around in the little Serpentine River next to me.

You can't see the snail, but he's in there.

Also in the Gardens was the Serpentine Art Gallery, but it was closed. Outside was this big installation with a cafe inside it. It was too expensive for me to buy a mocha. 

I considered hanging around and playing some stranger at ping pong, but I really didn't have time. 

Next I found a Prince Albert Memorial.

Around it are people and animals from the "four corners" of the world: Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. I thought it was cool because I've now lived in all those places (considering the Americas as one, as in the sculpture).

Look how distinguished Europe looks:

Sorry, I should have gotten closer for Asia.

I thought it was funny that they had to include a cowboy for us, and that he was in the back of the Native Americans.

Here we are at sunset, on the River Thames.

I'm not sure if I was going for the bridge or the building here...

The London Eye. It's a ferris wheel.

This was voted Ugliest Building in London. I forget what it's for. I was given a lot of information that day, three weeks ago, people.

Oooooh...

The rest of these pictures, I pretty much don't know what they are. I think the Globe Theater is in there somewhere.

Suite:

The Anchor! They have a pirate ship!

This is Tower Bridge. It's what people think London Bridge is. London Bridge is boring in actuality and not special. Tower Bridge is cool.

I think this one miiiiiiight be the real London Bridge question mark?

Okay, that's it. It was a long day. I was very tired at the end. London has a good subway system, but I can't say if it's well priced since an all day tube pass was also included in the price of the tour. I haven't been back to London yet, but probably in November I'll go.

Visa AKA Worst Punishment Ever

This post is mostly for those Americans who are planning on applying to a UK PBS Tier 4 General Student Visa. Others might find it boring, even more boring than my usual entries.

This thing pretty much was the hardest thing I've ever done, and I'm still sort of dealing with issues with the visa weeks after I've received it (more on that later). The process seems specifically designed to weed people out, in that basically if you have a comma out of place or your passport photo is a millimeter off in size, REJECTED. They have an appeals process, but from what I gathered from the text is that it's more like an appeasement process to allow applicants to blow off steam, and no decision ever actually gets reversed. I could be totally wrong, but that's what the tenor of the information suggested.

The websites involved in this thing were several:

The UK Border Agency website, which provides information on the process:
http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/studyingintheuk/

A subset of the above website, usually suggested before/above the main page:
http://www.ukvisas.gov.uk/en/howtoapply/infs/inf29pbsstudent

The WorldBridge site, which is the American company that handles our visa applications:
https://visainfoservices.com/Pages/Welcome.aspx

And also my school's website, with its own set of guidelines, plus the standard massive Tier 4 Student Visa Guidelines PDF.

All these websites look different now than when I was applying over the summer and in September, so maybe some improvements have been made in terms of disseminating information. Major problems I had with the above websites and the process in general include:

1) Starting with one link from my school's website, then being sent to link after link after link, and ending up with like ten tabs open, and not getting any answers.

2) Getting stuck in fruitless loops, where I would be trying to find a specific answer, but be sent to various areas of one site, or to the other sites, which would then send me somewhere else, which would send me back to the original page I was on, which didn't have the answer.

3) Differing information among the sites. For example, the UKBA site, the Worldbridge site, and the printed Appendix 8 form (to be included with the printout of the online personal details form) all give slightly different specifications regarding the passport photo.

4) Outdated, confusing, or insufficient information to make the application successful. Two examples include the UKBA site's "supplementary materials" form stating that I needed the originals or certified copies of the references I provided to the school as part of my application, which is not true, and the fact that most if not all of the photo information neglected to state the in the UK, you absolutely must not have any hint of a smile in your passport photos. I had gotten passport photos done in Korea before I left, because they're cheaper there, and I smiled slightly, not knowing the regulation. I was dubiously lucky enough that the size ended up being wrong and I had to get them redone in Maine--the photographer happened to have done a lot of similar jobs and suggested I not smile for the photo. I could have been fucked if not for those two happenshats. By the way, when you get your photos taken, it's absolutely IMPERATIVE that you check what size they'll be before you get them done. American and British passport sizes are quite different, and I had to call several photo shops before I found one that would size the photos manually to my specifications.

5) You had to pay ridiculously high fees to call the visa companies, so I never bothered. When I emailed anyone, I got form letters back, which didn't answer my questions. My advice to anyone who is confused or has specific questions about the visa process is to ask the appropriate office at the school. They tend to be the most motivated to help, and probably better informed and more capable of explaining things than the other info sources. I got a great deal of help from the Visa Dude (official title) at Brighton.

I really think, because of these problems, that I must have spent around a hundred hours researching, gathering, and prepping for this thing. Also, my head exploded several times. I'm kind of like that guy from Men in Black, though, so it grew back. I'm prettier (arguably).

One of those instances in which my head exploded was when I went to Portland to get my biometrics done. This was a mostly painless process of making an appointment, bringing my passport and a printout that was emailed to me, and being to the center on time to get my fingerprints electronically recorded and my digital photo taken (this is separate from the passport photo I needed for the general application). However, since I had sprained my finger a few weeks prior to this, I stupidly asked the officer not to smash her hand into my index finger, because that would hurt a lot. She then asked what happened, and I said, oh, I just sprained it, but there's nothing to impede my fingerprint. But she told me, I should really refuse you because of that. We need to rotate your finger to take the full image. And then my head exploded.

When it grew back, I said, please don't. It might have been the head explosion or the gag reflex that followed that made her reconsider, and she took my fingerprints and photo, and I was out of there like ten minutes after arriving. My advice in this case is that if you have a hand injury, as long as you don't have anything that would obstruct any of your fingerprints, DON'T MENTION IT. Just remove any wrapping beforehand (heh, beforeHAND) and suck it up. If they notice something is wrong with the shape of your hand (like my finger being bent at a 45 degree angle), just say you're disfigured, thanks for asking (asshole). With any luck, you'll be okay.

These were the materials I finally ended up sending to Worldbridge in New York City:

1) INF29 printout (personal information section of the application, completed online for Americans and I think most others, too)
2) Appendix 8 (info about your program, financial status, etc.)
3) Original college degree (it seems to be that you can alternatively send an official transcript, but it might depend on what was both used to determine your eligibility and was noted in your CAS (Certificate of Acceptance of Studies) document by the school)
4) Printout that I took to my biometrics appointment, which was stamped and signed there.
5) Original letter from the school confirming that I have secured a loan for my studies, with the disbursement details
6) Photocopies of 3-5 above
7) Printout of confirmation that I had paid for Priority Service (more later)
8) Passport
9) Passport photo ( I sent two just in case, but they just sent one back to me with the visa)
10) Cover letter detailing everything I was sending

I think that's it. "It."

So the fee for the visa was $318, plus $12 postage for the return of my passport and degree. My closest center was New York City (as opposed to Los Angeles or Chicago). Now, because I had been in Korea until only three weeks before I was due to go to England, I had to get my application expedited. I originally tried applying in Korea, but that ended up being impossible because I needed my passport to do a lot of traveling in July and August, and when I emailed the visa center in Seoul with a question, they just told me I had to apply in my own country anyway.

So I had the choice of going to New York City to get Premium Service for $100, which would normally allow me to get the visa on the same day (although the WB website says you'd be advised on that once you got there), or doing the Priority Service, in which I mailed my application as normal, but it would be processed above other applications, for $150. My initial plan was to do the former, since I have a friend who lives in Brooklyn, and I could visit my brother in Boston on the way back. In the end, I decided to go with the latter, both because my brother visited Maine for four days when I first got home, and because I was just so damn tired from so much travel and stress. It would save me money, anyway: despite the higher fee, driving to New York and back and doing some visits would cost a helluva lot more than fifty bucks.

A week and a half after returning to Maine, I was finally ready to send this thing in. I called my Visa Dude at Brighton to ask a few last-minute questions and verify everything, swallowed hard, and went to the post office in Greene, and mailed it next-day express (or whatever it's called).

Then on the drive home, my head exploded one last time. My heart stopped, too. I realized that I'd forgotten to write my Priority Service confirmation number on the outside of the envelope. Fuck. It was almost closing time (I'd spent the whole damn day trying to get new passport photos). I raced back to the post office and asked the guy to give me the envelope back for a minute. Oh, shit. I forgot that little post-it note with my FORTY DIGIT confirmation number. Thank Apple for my new iPouch, and free wi-fi in the environs of the post office. I retrieved the number from the email they sent me, and wrote it down and checked it three times before I gave it back to the guy. If not for that, I'd have had to open the envelope to get the number, and I might have had to pay for a new one. That would blow.

Then I went outside and threw up for like an hour.

Two days later, I received an email that my visa had been issued, and it would be returned the next business day. Can you remember the biggest relief of your life?

They offered me a survey to comment on my experience in applying for a visa. Let me tell you, they received comments.

That Monday, UPS came with my large envelope, containing my large degree, WHICH THEY BENT IN HALF,  and my passport, with visa, which had an expiry date of 28/02/11. Wait a second. 2011? February 28? That's only five months after I get there. My course is a year long. DOUBLE EWE, TEE, EFF.

The first thing I did was email WorldBridge and ask them if it was normal to make students apply for an extension less than halfway through their courses, or if there was a mistake on my visa. Then I emailed the same question to Visa Dude. He was like, no, that's definitely a flagrant and stupid mistake on their part. Then I got the most retarded form letter back from WB, which of course did not answer or even address my question, but which was obviously sent via the use of some sort of keyword-searching roboprogram. I HATE those. I forwarded the email to VD, and he agreed, that shit was stupid.

So he said just let it go for now, as it'll still get me into the country, and I just had to talk to him and show him the visa so he could take down the details and get the company to reissue it. I'm still waiting.

I know it's the wrong time of year now for this to be helpful to anyone, but in the future should any potential UK students have any questions, just leave me a comment on the blog and I'll try to answer.