After finishing up my apt at around 1:30am and not getting to bed until at least 2:30am I woke up at 5:30am to meet my mom in Des Moines to travel to Chicago to go and pick up my brother and go to the Japan consulate to get my work visa "signed" or so I thought. While sleep deprived I try and keep my mother company on our journey to Chicago which is just over a five hour drive. Once we arrive in Chicago and finally get to where Andrew lives I decide that while they are packing up the van I will take a taxi to the consulate to save us the time and headaches of traffic through downtown. I hop in the taxi which is a little strange because there was not a divider between the front and backseat which isn't a big deal however the driver kept sliding his arm back to the backseat as though he was looking for something. Not really that big of a deal just a little interesting. Once at the building I walk around and finally ask the security guard where to go. He told me to take the elevator to such and such floor and it will be right there. I go up and walk in have to walk through a security device then get directed to the "visa" window. The guy asks me if I have filled out the visa sheet. I of course knew nothing of the sheet, so I begin to start filling it out and he asks if I have a passport sized photo with me. Once again I do not and the sad thing was I had sent an extra one with my information to Japan because I did not know I would need one for this. My extra was because they come in two's and Japan needed three of them. The guy tells me there is a Walgreens just around the corner and they should be able to take one there. I then leave go to Walgreens to get my photo and there is a lady in front of me who is insistent that she needs to fix her hair before she gets her photo taken because that picture will be there for ten years. As she goes to fix her hair the lady asks me if I need to fix my hair or if I am ready. Mind you I have my hair pulled back am tired and could probably use a shower. I just say let's get this over with. She of course chuckles and lines me up next to one of the white pillars in the middle of the store for the backdrop. After about ten minutes I pay another ten bucks for my two new photos and head back to the consulate's office. Once I get there I try an fill out a cryptic form that I do not know all oqf the answers to. The guy just tells me to try my best. I give him the sheet with my eligibility from Japan, picture, passport and form. He then asks me if I brought an envelope to mail it back to me. Well of course I didn't I was under the impression this was an instant signature thing. He then hands me a fed ex form to fill out with a spot to pay with credit card. I a ring it back and he says this will probably be mailed back to you within a couple of days. I ask do I get my passport back he looks at me like no duh that's where we put the visa. I walk away a little baffled that I just left my passport with a stranger but oh well I guess.
I catch a cab back thinking wow that took way longer than I thought and just thankful that I had remembered to bring my passport. Since it had taken awhile I expected to get back and that Andrew and my Mom would be waiting for me. Nope they had been held up a bit as well. We end up leaving a bit later than we had thought and still needed to take Andrew's stuff to his friends. We get there and his friend lives on the third floor of some of the steepest windiest lethal stairs you could imagine. I help him with two trips of stuff and he takes Mom up to see the place. We eventually start heading out of Chicago just in time for rush hour traffic. It's stop and go and hot and busy and the van starts acting a little funny almost as if we have a flat tire. We pull oqff to check and look and there is nothing wrong with the tire it just looks like it is smoking just a little bit. We cannot tell if it's because it is hot or what so we get back on the road and it seems to be going fine for a bit and then it starts acting funny again. We are near a gas station that says asit is a service center too so we pull over wondering if something is wrong with the breaks. Since it is a about 5:45 at this point the mechanic has alreadygone home they tell us to go down the street to Firestone. As we start to leave the parking lot the van makes a weird noise. I hop out and look at the tire no hub cap so I look back and it is back a little ways on the ground. I runback to get it try and pick it up but it is super hot. I am laughing and Andrew runs back and has to use his flip flops to pick it up. At this point we look at the other side of the hub cap and the hub caphad literally melted off of the tire. When we get to Firestone it is 6pm. They close at 6 and tell us they can't help us but to try pep boys 6 miles back. We get ahold of thm and they are open until 9pm. We head that way and can't get us in for 45min. They check it out the brakes had went bad and locked up which got really hot and melted the tire. This is extremely unusual since it is a 2009 van with about 17000 miles on it. It ends up taking another hour to fix and 450 dollars late we are finally back on the road. I got back to Ames around 3am.
Let's just hope jot all of my adventures having to do with Japan are this eventful.
Sorry so long just had an eventful long story to share.
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