Just a little adjustment

May 11th, 2012

I have reservations in Barcelona for the Torre Catalunya. My initial reservation was through Expedia. Then I noticed that they wanted an additional 15 € a day for wi-fi, and I won't even tell you how much they wanted for a cable connection to the internet. What the hell? If I stay at a Motel 6 in the US, I usually get free wi-fi. Last time I remember paying for it, it was about $3/day.

Then I started exploring the hotel's website. Hm. If I book through it, then I can get a cheaper room rate, wi-fi included, add breakfast, and the total is cheaper than Expedia.

Barcelona webcams

May 16th, 2012

My invitation to Russia has arrived

May 17th, 2012

Now I get to go through the process of applying for the visa. The consulate has now outsourced the processing of the visa, so the processing time now has an additional day added. It also has an online component. Guess that's what I'll be doing this evening.

Visa app away

May 18th, 2012

Just sent off my visa app for Russia. Previous feedback about the new online part of the visa application process had been negative, mostly involving slow server times. As far as I could tell, it worked pretty well. Alas, the hint sheet provided by the document expediter had problems; I may have to put a better one together for our students.

Despite applying online, you still have to print out the app and send it to a document expediter. What this means is that we are populating a database for the Russians about our travel there, but they still haven't actually updated the physical process of issuing visas. This means I just sent off another FedEx package. Hm. I wonder if FedEx is in cahoots with the Russian consulate? Is the consulate getting kickbacks? And if they aren't, will the rest of the Russian bureaucracy make fun of them?

Visa

May 29th, 2012

My Russian visa arrived today. Whew! The whole visa process is always a bit tense. Now just have to get all the work on my to-do list done before departure.