Oh, Mondays...

After a very long Monday.. (and it's not even over yet).. I now have a renewed visa, which means I can be here legally for another 90 days! *happy dance*

The not so fun thing though, is that it took us almost 6 hours to attain this status.

Last time my tourist visa expired, I just zipped over to Argentina for a night... problem solved. This time around I thought it would be easier to just go downtown and pay the fee, and go on my merry little way.

Nope.

-This morning I woke up around 6, feeling a little bit sick. By 6:30 I had made the bathroom floor my new bed, and the toilet my best friend. Today was the only day my Chilean brother, Pancho, could help me with the visa stuff, so today had to be the day. (or leave the country wednesday) By 9 we had left the house. We made a quick stop by the offices to pick up the money I needed to renew my visa and headed downtown.
Once we got there, we took a spot in the back of the line. 30 minutes later, we found out we had to go up one floor. So we went upstairs... And because it's Chile they told us we had to go back to where we came from. So we went back downstairs and waited again.... and they told us again that we had to go back upstairs and take a number, and go to a different room to wait for the number to be called. So we went and got our number, and then went to find the room, also to find that they were on number 13...and we were number 46.
(Insert dramatic music here)
So there we were, waiting outside the room with about 60 other people. Around this time, I started to feel sick, again. Thankfully, there was a bathroom on my floor. (yippee!) And they were free. (double yippee!!) Pancho had found a vacant corner, and parked us there. When I wasn't hanging out in the bathroom, I was in our corner listening to music, in and out of sleep.
Sometime later...we overhead someone talking about photocopies that were needed. Pancho ran into the room, and sure enough, there was a sign that said we needed a photocopy of a certain piece of paper, in addition to the copy of our passport.. (didn't know that.) So we ran outside, down the street to find a photo copier place. (25 cents... another yippee.)
A few hours later we made it into the room, and turned in my papers. I signed some things, and then they told us we had to go find a bank and pay for the renewal.
First bank we find, the line is out the door. We didn't even have to say anything to each other, we just kept walking. At the second bank, the line was only down to the first floor. (where we needed to be was upstairs.) We decided to take our chances with this one, and wait it out. An hour later, we had to make our way back to the first place we were at. I was afraid we were going to have to wait again, but thankfully we're in Chile..and Pancho just walked up and turned in the receipt, then everything was done.

Next time I might just take a little trip to Argentina again. :)

So now I'm legal for another 3 months, and so very thankful for my Chilean bro who is willing to hold my sprite and take my phone calls while I'm throwing up in the bathroom.

He's pretty great.

Oh, Mondays...