Rantau

Went for visa application at U.S. Embassy today (which would be Tuesday; see post timestamp...)

Approval was totally painless: "What's your name? Can I have your left index fingerprint? Now the right hand? Do you have any family in the U.S.? I'm gonna approve your visa, come on Thursday for collection." That considering I just witnessed a girl getting a hellish interview after letting on that she'd previously gotten an U.S. driving license while on vacation (okay, I eavesdropped, along with everybody in the small waiting room who chose to tune in).

But the road to it was (as Simon Cowell would say) astoundingly long. In terms of the queue processing time. One hour plus just to get into the building. (Yeah, still nothing compared to, say, Singapore Idol queues, huh? But I think the queue itself isn't that long, it's the time it takes to move...) Once inside it was the normal queue numbering system; quite acceptable. Plus waiting for the interview it took another one hour and a half.

Found that people in the same adversity do bond pretty well. =D I chatted with three strangers during the waiting time, which, considering it was me, was pretty much a record. Started with a question or request for some help, they smiled, I smiled, we talked.

All of them happened to be non-locals too, so maybe another factor for the bonding was the feeling that we were in a "foreign land"? Not that I felt that exactly, but there was this subconscious mindset, you know?

Also met Dwi there out of the blue, so that's one familiar face. =)


* For those who wonder, the title is an Indonesian word meaning "travelling on a foreign land"... sort of.