Visa-vis... aha!

So.  Having sobbed until I couldn't breathe on the penultimate day of term and wailed all my sorrows and overwhelming emotions to Bridget through a glass of red wine, punctuated by the occasional hiccough, I spent my last day brutally dismissing any attempt to capture a sentimental moment.

At 8:15am, my previous year 11 class, 98% of whom I have not formally taught this year, rocked up with an enormous bunch of flowers, a framed photograph, chocolates and a card.  To be fair, I threw child protection out of the window for a group hug with them, the legends.  However, non-uniform day had to be organised with a very disorganised form so I shushed them away to let me 'get on with it'.

Throughout the day, little people bleated, 'Why are you leeeeaving?' whilst handing me chocolates and cards.    Because the alcohol here is too expensive, the weather atrocious, and the children ask too many questions, small person.  That's why!  One darling handed me a little book of 'good luck' and 'thank you teacher' poems she had compiled.  I hugged a colleague in front of a year 9 French class when she came in to give me After Eights.  How did she know I love these?  They are my Christmas-gorge-yourself-and-feel-sick favourite.  I sat through two deathly boring assemblies, and at the end of the second, was handed roses and thanked in the awkward prepubescent way that teenagers show their gratitude, for being the best form tutor ever.  I said, 'Great, thanks, you guys.  You better run before you miss your buses.'  I wailed goodbye repeatedly to the most difficult child in my form, just for shits and giggles: he completely ignored me and left without even so much as a goodbye.  Fool.

The only way of taking all of this in, obviously, is to lay out all the presents in a sea of cards and chocolates and flowers and bookmarks whilst you, the island, sit absorbing the adoration whilst drinking your third glass of end-of-term champagne with the Bridge and listing all the things you definitely will not miss, ever.  Including the bell that rings at 9pm that can be heard from your house, and at all lesson times over the weekend as a constant reminder that you have work on Monday... work on Monday...

Turns out, I haven't got work on Monday!  Ahaha!  It's Tuesday and I haven't had to do any work at all (but I have still been having anxiety dreams about marking and detentions and telling children off who deserve to be told off).  Today, I spent my time on more important things: addressing The Vietnam List of Importance and Urgency.  So far, I have ticked the following off The List:

- Purchase appropriate shoes for enormous Western feet as Asian feet do not grow to this size;
- Order, try on and prance about it Summer Wardrobe from Dorothy Perkins;
- Organise Last Suppers with various friends and family in various locations;
- Return to the womb and hibernate in parents' house;
- Acclimatise to Vietnamese heat by getting sunburnt on neck, arms and face.
- Apply for, but not pick up visa.

Now the last one is a funny one.  In a state of holiday relaxation, thinking, 'there's nothing that needs to be done today, now or ever', I strolled to the station and hopped on a train at around 10:49am.  I got to the Vietnamese Embassy at 12:05 (it closes at 12:30).  Having travelled before to various silly destinations, I know that embassies fall into two categories:

a) The Russia: arrive at 9:30am on the first attempt to find a queue of 60 people.  Wait in the queue until 12:30pm, and then get turned away.  Turn up at 6:30am on the second attempt to find a queue of 15 people.  Queue until 11:30am and get visas.

b) The Syria: turn up at 6:30am to find no queue and abandoned square.  Sit on pavement, visit Starbucks, walk around the block, snooze against a lamppost until 9:30am when embassy is opened by friendly looking man.  Be first in queue and have visa processed in 20 minutes.  Leave at 9:50am and go straight to work for eight hours.  Commit suicide by 4pm due to fatigue.

Luckily, the Vietnamese Embassy falls into the 'b) Syria' category and when I rocked up at 12:05, I had just enough time to fill in the form and pass my beloved passport over to the kind lady behind the counter.  I asked when I could pick it up.  She said 12:30.  I looked at the clock, which said 12:15.  I thanked her, but another, uncontrolled part of my brain took me out of the building and to a posh restaurant for a prix fixe lunch where I read 'The Quiet American', felt glamorous, and perved on the good-looking barmen.  I ponced back at 1:30pm, thinking the embassy would be open for me to pick up my visa and wander on home but, as I already knew (I had looked it up this morning), the embassy only opens between 9:30am-12:30pm.

Hmm.  Will have to pick it up on Thursday. With any luck, they won't make too many photocopies of my passport and sell them to various illegal immigrants in the meantime...

Ooh.  'Henry V' is on the BBC.  I remember these 'key scenes'.  Adrian Lester is in it!