The process has officially begun...

I just officially submitted my application for my UK Settlement visa. I think I still have around 6 hairs left on my head, the rest are in random piles covering the floor, the laptop, and unfortunately my Diet Hansen’s Black Cherry soda can – gross. Last night was when I did the majority of the work. Because I live in the US, I had to fill out my application online at Visa4UK website (more formally known as the Home Office – UK Border Agency). I’d like to note that Andy made me check no less than 5 times that Visa4UK was in fact the correct website to fill out the application because any web address that is too lazy to spell out ‘for’ and uses ‘4’ instead looks really fucking dodgy. I assure you all that Visa4UK is in fact the correct site though I cannot vouch for IHazAUKVisa.com or UKVisaRFun4UandSoRBoobies.com.

You run my life now, don't look so smug about it.  Oh wait, you're British, you can't help it.

The application itself was relatively standard – had to give my passport information, my citizenship status, work status, who my parents are, when I married Andy, how and when we met, if Andy and I live together, what does Andy do, and where we planned on staying once we got to the UK. Like I said, fairly easy to fill out though having Andy perched at my shoulder the entire time making sure I didn’t make a mistake was a bit unnerving. It doesn’t help that Andy is a keyboard user and I’m a mouse user so every time I used the drop-down with my mouse to select ‘United States’ or ‘United Kingdom’ a little bit of Andy died inside – especially since I refused to type in ‘U’ thus getting us to the selections a bit quicker (actually, I did that on purpose to annoy Andy – I know to press ‘U’ – isn’t just more fun to scroll through all the selections?). All in all it took about an hour to fill out. It probably would have been quicker if we didn’t have to keep getting up to find all the random passports that we have thrown about the house.

United Kingdom: Upsetting people looking for 'England' in a drop down list since 1707.

When I was finally finished with the application, I transferred the funds over to the correct account and went to submit my payment of $1043.00. My payment was denied. Andy of course didn’t believe I typed in the credit card information correctly and tried it himself but it was denied again. We called our bank only to learn that the transfer of funds wouldn’t be available until tomorrow morning but that everything else was fine. I tried again this morning. Still denied. Fed up, I called the number Visa4UK told me to call if there was a problem. Here’s a bit of information for you all:

1) If you call the number Visa4UK tells you to call, you will be informed to call another number (because it would be too damn hard to put THAT number on the website in the first place). And if you call that number, no matter what reason and for however long the call might take, it will cost $12. If you care to talk to a nice Indian lady about the weather instead of having lunch today, feel free to call that number.

2) The rest of the world works on the A for Alpha spelling out system. Nice Indian ladies in Britain have no idea what you mean by A is for Apple, C is for, um, um…Cat, R is for uuuuuuuh Robert?

3) If your payment does not go through online, then you are truly fucked as it is the ONLY way to submit payment for this application. Seriously. It was confirmed by the nice S is for Sierra Indian lady.

4) Sending an email to your husband in a panic about the whole payment thing will only result in the bank calling you as soon as you press ‘Send’ to ask if you want to allow payment of these strange charges. After you tell the bank, “Yes fuckers, which is what I verified with you LAST NIGHT” you will able to go back online and submit the payment successfully.

Next on the expat process is my biometrics appointment November 2nd where I get my fingerprints taken and a scan is done of my irises and earlobes in an effort to determine if I am, in fact, a pregnant terrorist. In case the UK Border Agency is reading, I can save you the effort and tell you that I’m not, but yo, I’m cool with your checks or whatever.

I can’t believe I just said, ‘yo’.