the brazilian visa debacle

then we spent three days in a row waking up at the crack of dawn to drive from bolinas to san francisco to visit the stupid brazilian consulate in san francisco.  i've never seen a less oiled machine.  first: we didn't have time to visit our local consulate or embassy (NYC and DC, respectively) before we left; neither of us had anything close to a free day to travel there in person, and it's one of the few visas that must be obtained in person, unless you care to spend an extra $200 (on top of the $780 we've already spent on brazil visas alone) to use one of the passport service companies. weeks ago i scheduled my own appointment at the brazil consulate in SF - you do this after you fill out the online application, and i could only do this for myself since our passports were then with the suriname embassy and we didn't know michael's passport number and expiration date offhand.  so i schedule my own appointment for the 20th of june, one day before my application expires on the 21st. we get our passports back from suriname and paraguay right before leaving for this trip, so we complete michael's application and schedule his appointment, also for the 20th thankfully (there are only 5 time slots available per hour and only 3 hours in which they'll take visa requests - so they will process 15 applications per day.  the rest of their business day they spend in a huddle, brainstorming new ways to torture potential tourists)  we wake up at 5:30am on the 20th to drive our rental car down to the city for our appointments.  we get there, park, walk a few blocks to the consulate, and ...... the san francisco brazil consulate is on strike.  and they have no mention on the door about what they will do to honor this day's appointments, or any clear word on when they will reopen.  we immediately find a computer in the city and reschedule our appointments before all the disappointed wednesday appointments have a chance to do so, but thursday is totally booked at this point (and thursday, the 21st, is when my application expires, and there's no one to call or ask about that).  so we rebook friday as a backup, but we schlep clear back down to the city thursday, just to be told too bad, they take no responsibility for stiffing us the day before.  naturally i wanted to get angry and yell, but the website clearly states if you do this they will deny your application.  so we wake up early a third day in a row, drive back to SF, pay the golden gate bridge toll a third time, park in a downtown garage a third time, finally turn in our passports, and now they can't finish processing them until the 29th, after we'll be out of town and in eugene for the weekend.  which basically left us with one day upon returning from eugene and before everything closes for independence day to hope nothing goes wrong and we are able to pick up our passports from this stupid consulate.  in the end we did get our passports back and we do have our brazil visas, but i'm really getting off on the wrong foot with this country.  it had better be f'ing fabulous.

anyway on an unrelated note here are some photos from a day trip to point reyes after one of our failed visa excursions, after coming back to bolinas dejected.