S. Worthen | Weblog

After weeks - no, months - of rallying papers and forms and bouts of worry - I took the elevator up to the thirteenth floor of the Wrigley Building in Chicago for my 10am appointment to obtain a settlement visa for the UK. Underneath the digital floor number display scrolled a message, welcoming the elevator's occupants to the building and helpfully informing them of the time and temperature in both celsius and fahrenheit. The building was rather grand but the office, entered after a bag-search and metal detector walk-through, was a small drab space. Fifteen rather comfortable waiting room chairs, a long wall desk for form-filling out, a television and windows for vacant gazing, and three counter windows for submitting documentation. The walls were decorated in posters advertising Neil's Dairy. I sat down and waited for my number to be called.

( A picture of the building and the rest of the story... )