Indian visa sorted too

Yesterday I rose at just after 4am (that was really hard in these dark damp days we have at the moment) and headed to Swindon to catch the bus to London at 5.35am. The bus station is never a welcoming place (it has to be the most awfully grotty place in Swindon, which is mostly a dump in my opinion), but at 5.15am its horrible cold, dark and dirty from the night before.

The bus eventually arrived and off we set. The traffic was incredibly busy and by the time we'd reached Heathrow airport we were already running 30 mins or so late. I only had a margin of 30mins to allow for, so the stress levels were building.

When we eventually rolled into Victoria bus station I was nearly one and half hours later than I expected. I rushed as fast as I could through the horrible rush hour tube system under London and finally arrived at the Indian embassy at around 10am. I had planned to be there by 8.30am!


The first thing I saw was people being turned away, as there were too many people in the queue for visas. Luckily some 250 or so overflow tickets are allocated to people each day to allow the lucky ones to return in the afternoon. I managed to get a 2pm slot to come back later and was told my visa would still be processed that day.

I wandered off to get some coffee from Nero's and spent the morning hunting down a free wifi zone to sit and work in. Sadly I couldn't find one anywhere near by. I eventually opted to sit in Pizza Hut and sip unlimited 7ups and have a buffet lunch.

Eventually at 1pm I'd had enough salad, pizza and 7Up and decided to head back to the embassy and get in line for my visa. There was already a massive queue. I lined up with some hippy types who were off to travel the world and we had a bit of a chuckle for a while. Two and a half hours later I was in and out and in possession of my 6 month visa for India. Hooray, I won't have to do that again for 6 months...



While wandering around in the morning, I stumbled upon I place I'd always assumed to be ficticious - The Old Curiosity Shop. This was in the back streets behind the London School of Ecconomics. A tiny little building in between all the other huge ones.