Embassies and Eateries

The ordeal is over!!! At long last!!! And I have good news to report. No, edit that, I have fanfuckingtastic news to report!

I GOT MY VISA!!!

Yes, finally, Scotty has been given the green light to go and work in England. GOD it's been a long time coming, eh? I had a feeling it was going to work out, but even so it's been one helluva emotional rollercoaster the last few weeks. It was making it impossible to plan anything for my future beyond June 18th, and we all know what an obsessive planner Scotty is...

On Monday I had my appointment with the British Embassy and I gladly unloaded my monster stack of documents upon arrival. The visa-obtaining process didn't go quite as I had imagined it would... I had thought that I'd be meeting an actual person who'd look over my docs with me and ask me questions, sorta semi-interview style. Nope, that's far too personal for the Brits! Instead they just wanted my papers and told me to come back at 3pm. I was a bit surprised by this. It was like "Thanks, I'd love to wait a bit longer, draw out the process a few more hours, why don't you!!!???" Nothing like permanent suspense to keep a boy in wonder about his own future. Or drive him over the edge of mental sanity.

So I went back home for a bit and then had lunch with my students who wanted to take me out since this is my last week of teaching. On a side note from all the above stuff, this lunch turned out to be quite a lot of fun. My students were a trio of guys who work for CSOB bank. I teach them every Wednesday and Friday at the oh-so lovely hour of 7:30am and they're a really nice group of fellas. Well it was their idea to "go somewhere American" for lunch as they often ask me about North American culture (the "North" often just gets dropped and I can look beyond my Canadian over-sensitivity with this, as it happens all the time.) Fearing that they'd choose something fastfoody like McDonald's or KFC or Subway I was pleased when they picked out another American eatery - TGI Friday's.

I have a strange relationship with Friday's. Prior to my stint in Korea, I had only ever eaten at one once (in Metropolis at Metrotown in Burnaby) and it was a terrible meal. I believe I ate there with Barb and Amy before we went to see Alanis Morissetter perform in her "Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie" Tour sometime around 1999... Anyway I digress... When I lived in Korea Friday's was a regular hangout - a bit of a haven of Western Culture, some salvation from normal life there which is All Korean Food - All The Time!!! Addie and I especially used to have dinner there after work and bitch out our stressful Preschoolers (god bless those little Parrots, the darlings, though...) The food was never *great* at Friday's at LaFesta but it was familiar and wasn't covered in kimchi or spicy red pepper sauce so it was therefore an ideal choice for us expats who were occasionally homesick for recognizable edibles.

Well there's two TGI Friday's in Prague and every now and then I go there with Carolyn and Laurie for greasy food and too-many Long Island Iced Teas. Again, not the best food, but sometimes, goddammit, a boy just wants a plate of fried mozzarella and a tower of fajitas and you can't blame him for that, now can you?

Lunch at Friday's with the CSOB boys turned out to be a highly entertaining experience for me. None of them had ever been to one before, and despite the fact that they've all travelled a fair bit (including George who was just in Orlando a month ago) they have very little experience with "American food." You should've seen their curious and delighted faces over the paper placemats alone (which had a few pics of about a dozen of their more famous dishes.) I was flooded with questions about what the food was and how it was prepared and cooked. Given that I've never worked in a Friday's kitchen, or in any kitchen for that matter, a lot of it I just had to guesstimate.

When the actual menu came it was like kids at Christmas. Pages and pages of food that you'd NEVER see in a Czech restaurant. So many inquiries ensued. "How do you say.... (pointing to "quesadilla.") .... "What's a strip?" (pointing to the steak) ... "What does "glazed" mean? "Do I need to order french fries with this?" ... "If I order soup will it come first like in Czech restaurants?" ... "Is that a potato?" (pointing to fried mozzarella sticks) ... "Is that made from real potatoes?" (pointing to the potato skins) ... "Is that real meat or like McDonald's meat? Will it be big?" (pointing to the burgers) ... "What's a...taco...?" .... "In Canada do you eat ketchup too?" ... "What's typical for Canadian food?"

That question was sadly a bit difficult for me to answer at first, but after a few seconds of pondering I came up with the only truly Canadian dish that I know of - poutine. I told them what it was, which was quite a hard concept for them to grasp as I first had to explain what gravy was and I don't think my description sounded very appetizing... "When you cook a large piece of meat, for example pork or turkey, you use the juices, the liquids from the meat to make a sauce...it's thick...and brown...and very fatty..." LOL I tried to convince them that poutine is actually crazy delicious but again I think I fell short on this mark. Sorry fellow Canucks, I tried!

When the food came they were all quite surprised at what was on their plate. Ludek had the fajita tower and it really is indeed quite the tower of food. Petr had a burger with fries and was rather unsure of what condiments he should add. And despite the fact that 99% of Czechs strongly dislike anything even remotely spicy, he ate *all* the jalapenos on his burger. "Ohhh...those green peppers were a little spicy!" was his response.

And then George had this huge mega burger, complete with a mound of ginormous onion rings on top of the patty. The burger was so big that he really didn't know what to do with it. I told him to 'just pick it up and put it in your mouth' but I guess it really was too intimidating, so out came the fork and knife. I don't think I've seen someone above the age of 9 eat a burger that way. LOL For whatever reason, George and Petr, despite both ordering burgers and fries ("Typical American food!! Right Scott!!!" they commented excitedly,) they had different kinds of fries and hamburger buns and this prompted a lot of comparing.

Heinz Ketchup and French's Mustard was on the table and I told them that Heinz was owned by Al Gore's wife's family. This came as a huge surprise to them, and then sparked a debate as to whether or not these particular bottles of ketchup and mustard were made in America and then shipped over, or processed somewhere in Europe using European tomatoes and...mustard seed or whatever. I don't know if a conclusion was reached. One thing's for sure - a meal at TGI Friday's has never felt like such a...cultural experience...as it did this time! Haha!

Anyways after lunch I went back to the Embassy and was awarded with my visa after a short wait. They only asked me a few questions about my first visa application and then went in the back to print it up. My passport now has a very lovely UK working holidaymaker visa inside (a full-page! and with my photo melted in!) and I'm THRILLED to know that next week when I fly to London it'll be for a job that's waiting for me, and not just to wander around as a sad, lost puppy! Yah!! I knew my determination would work out!

I owe extra special credit to Jenn Potts for pointing me in the direction of this visa. Without her this wouldn't have been possible. I owe her big. Like *really big.* Like she can totally claim my first three children kinda deal. Or the water bottle that Robbie Williams drank out of that I stole from his Vancouver concert in 1999. Okay I haven't actually seen that bottle in years and years and fear it's been lost in all my moves. But if I still knew where it was she could have it. Or maybe just look at it. Yeah, looking at it should be enough. That's worth about the same as my first three kids I father, right? Right???